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The > Real Estate > The Hunt: A Second Home, Steeped in PrivacySpead the word... Jun 20,2007 by shab 
HOUSE in the country had no appeal to Susan Trammell, yet that's what her husband, Webb Trammell, had long been wanting. The road to their Dutchess County home "started last summer with a cough," Mrs. Trammell, 51, said. Her husband, a retired Navy officer who had spent a lot of time on ships containing asbestos-covered pipes, was told he had mesothelioma, the cancer associated with asbestos exposure. AdvertisementLast fall, Mr. Trammell, 73, had a lung removed. He developed pneumonia in the remaining lung, and was put into a medically induced coma. When he awakened a week later, "it triggered a burning desire in him for greenery, fresh air, a bit of garden," Mrs. Trammell said. "I promised him there in the intensive care unit that I would find us a weekend home." The two met at a fund-raiser in 1986, shortly after Susan Piccione moved from Long Island to the East 90's. "He did his due diligence for five years before he finally asked me to marry him," she said. One day, she said, this eternal bachelor was "crossing a street, and by the time his foot hit the opposite curb, he was not afraid of marriage; somehow, he got the call." When they married, Mr. Trammell was 60. Even the priest remarked upon the uniqueness of embarking upon marriage at that age. Mrs. Trammell moved into her husband's three-bedroom co-op on East 71st Street, where she now works from home writing business plans. Over the years, Mr. Trammell, whose relatives are farmers in Illinois, occasionally broached the idea of moving to the country, but she always resisted. After her husband's return from the hospital, she saw an ad for a house in Greens Farms, Conn., so they and their son, Philip, 12, piled into a rental car and drove up. It was a "grim little rental home that must have been a converted garage," she said. "We were told, 'I don't have pictures to show you; you will just have to see it.' That was a tip-off that the house was a small, cramped, ugly little thing. It was a waste of a day." It seemed as if "someone had looked at the criteria we wanted in a house and had done the exact opposite," Philip said. So, on the drive home, he wrote down those criteria: a fireplace, a deck or porch, wide-plank floors and a few acres of land, all within two hours' driving distance. They absolutely needed to see pictures beforehand. Their price range was 0,000 to 0,000. Initially, they wanted a rental as a base from which to hunt for a more permanent country home, as they told Tony Sager, owner of Hudson Valley Homes Realty in Red Hook, N.Y. But as soon as Mr. Sager showed them a house in Staatsburg (it was ,900 a month for a full year and ,900 a month for the summer only), they decided their money would be better spent on a purchase. Mr. Sager, who often deals with city buyers seeking a "first second home," spent the winter sending Mrs. Trammell dozens of e-mail messages with listings, photos included. She would winnow them down, take the train upstate and meet Mr. Sager at the station. The Trammells were tempted by a house on River Road in Rhinebeck, listed at 0,000. It was built around 1850, with a barn and a greenhouse. But Mr. Trammell felt the low ceilings made it seem dark, and Mrs. Trammell objected to its proximity to the road. They also liked the "rustic house" on Shelley Hill Road in Clinton Corners, listed at 0,000. It resembled a ski lodge, with a large porch. "I could see us having cocktails on the veranda," Mrs. Trammell said. But it was in bad repair and was also close to the road. She was similarly disappointed by the location of other houses. "I don't understand why developers don't put houses on the middle of the acreage," she said. "It is hard to find something that is not smack-dab on the road. We wanted privacy. We wanted to have barbecues without people on the street seeing us." Newer houses seemed big but charmless. Older ones had structural problems. As winter wore on, Mr. Sager told her, "Our choice is to keep moving north, where you can get more house for less money, or start moving further up in the price range."
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