11958 PARK HEIGHTS AVE Owings Mills, MD 21117

A letter from the owner: I have enjoyed profound peace of mind in this house for the 8 and a half years I have lived here. Why? It is so quiet here. No one ever comes back here on our private road with only 5 houses. Even though we are only minutes from major shopping and supermarkets, there is quiet here. One reason for the peace is that the neighbors are so placid, self-contained, and easy to live with. Who are the real neighbors? The Wildlife. It s fun to walk the property in the spring and count how many animals you encounter face to face. I like sitting in the back on the brick patio or on the deck and enjoying all the flowering plants. You have a young red maple tree, a wonderful but messy catalpa tree, and even one fig tree. You are surrounded by trees on three sides of the house, and only one neighbor s house is visible once the trees leaf out.Some history. I am only the second owner. The tax record shows three owners, but the first owner was the Mom of the man who built this custom-made house: Sonny. Sonny was one of the construction crew chiefs on the Bay bridge, and he and his friends built this house at night, after work hours: moonlighting. Back then, you could borrow the employer s trucks and borrow some material and make a home. Sonny liked Civil War anchors, and you have a real nineteenth-century anchor buried in your backyard. He dredged up the anchor out of the Chesapeake Bay. It cannot be removed. The lower part of the anchor is under the soil. It s fun to have people guess what that black metal post really is. I like the small, front porch sitting on the rocking chair and drinking a cold beer in summer. The finished basement stays cool most of the summer, and AC is not needed downstairs. I like having separate thermostats in each room so that I don t have to cool or heat the entire house smaller carbon footprint and lower utility bills. The kitchen has was renovated 5 years ago but refrigerator is new as is the dryer downstairs new. Before the pandemic, I remember great parties in this house. The kitchen is huge, and I have had professional cooks prepare meals for twenty. The kitchen is large enough for a buffet table, and guests then swarm downstairs to eat, drink at the bar, and watch TV or sit at the booth. There are even speakers in the ceilings that you can wire serially if you have a small amplifier.Little things and one big system. I have enjoyed the working wood fireplace in the living room. Although people say that a fireplace is inefficient heat, I still love the embers of a fire, and I can watch a fire for hours. I like the built-in fan heaters in the upstairs bathrooms warm in winter. And I like the new $20,000, Best Available Technology, wastewater treatment system in the front. I know that the ammonia and nitrites are removed, and that I am not killing any fish in the Chesapeake Bay.Why am I selling a house I love? I am retiring to the high desert of SW Colorado. I like the dry air, and, of course, the wildfires and climate chaos! I have a brother out there, the last living relative. I have fallen in love with the alien, big landscape near Mesa Verde National Park. I will rent a cabin near the Ute Indian reservation, meet elk and bears and mountain lions, eat beans and go into town to buy new boots and jeans every six months. Now, come buy my house so I can be on my way :)