Across The River And Through The Woods To The Weekend House We Go

When the pandemic hit, my wife Steph and I found ourselves working out of our apartment — two shrinks requiring complete privacy  — impossible for 99% of New Yorkers because of the amount of space it would require.

That’s the nice version of why we joined the throes of New Yorkers looking to purchase a weekend home. 

The deeper reason is that we were setting each other’s teeth on edge — not a good thing for any couple  —  and we’re two relationship therapists.

My first response was to hop back into weekly couples counseling, which quickly mutated into two times a week. Then three. 

When that only slowed the bleeding, I knew we needed more space than what we had in our thousand square foot apartment. So we rented a single family house and started looking to buy.

But when we lost our third bidding war in Long Beach Island, we looked at each other with demoralized faces and knew we either needed to expand our search or get rid of the apartment. 

We did not get rid of the apartment. 

Our new radius put us on a collision course with a place called Middletown, a bedroom community that’s across the Hudson River — a place where the country meets the sea — just a 40-minute ferry ride from NYC. 

By then we were seeing the couples therapist just once a week. Steph and I had begun to reconnect. A calm had settled over us. 

The house we bought was the first one we saw. 

To be clear, I wasn’t in the market for a farmhouse from the 1700’s. I was looking for more of a turnkey situation. 

The night our offer was accepted, instead of basking in excitement, my brain turned to the magnitude of the project that was coming our way and my head started to throb the way it does before a migraine. 

We were packing up the rental home we’d been healing in for four months, boxes strewn everywhere. I rolled a glass in bubble wrap, walked over to the couch and melted into a corner, then said through closed eyes, “We may be out of our league.”

“Nah. You think?”

“Probably. How do you feel about hiring a decorator?” 

The contractors were already lined up. And even though I knew the immediate priority was more about shoring up the structure, I couldn’t imagine how two shrinks from New York City were going to make a farmhouse feel like a place we belonged.   

Steph took a sip of white wine and was quiet. “But you’re so good.”

“Not the kind of good this needs.”

It wasn’t lost on me — the irony that we’d bought a house to escape the stress of the pandemic, but that the house we chose was such an enormous project that it might cause even greater stress.   

Two months later, I was on Zoom with Sara Yengle, owner of Grace and Chaos Designs. 

I figured anyone who puts the word chaos in the name of their design company has to be badass.

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