Editor’s note: Homes in this article culled from listings on Realtor.com.
Take a journey across the country and back in time: Picture yourself in a five-bedroom, seven-bath, bluff-top home built in 1850 on the outskirts of Boston, or an antebellum manse with 12 fireplaces in downtown Savannah, Ga. Imagine life in a two-terraced, 1860-vintage triplex in downtown Manhattan, or a Gold Rush-era clapboard home in California’s Sierra foothills. Check out an East Texas cotton country bed-and-breakfast with retreat center, and a 7,000-square-foot, 151-year-old gem in the suburbs of Chicago near the shores of Lake Michigan.
The homes, which span the country and are listed for sale on Realtor.com, were built more than 150 years ago, between 1850 and 1861. If those walls could talk.
Most of the homes have been updated and remodeled — a Jacuzzi here, a luxury range oven there, an electronic-video security system in Manhattan — so a bit of the new world lives on in the old. At least two homes are certified historic places: a six-bedroom, stone-walled home built in 1852 near San Antonio, Texas, and a three-story, 10,000-square-foot Southern belle in Savannah, Ga. dating to 1857.
If you’re looking to own a piece of well-maintained history, it won’t be cheap. At $499,000, the Gonzales, Texas, home is your most affordable, and perhaps most quaint, option among these 10 homes. The small-town Sierra foothill clapboard goes for $750,000. The asking prices for the rest of the homes on the list are all above $1 million, with an eight-bedroom, 464-acre estate in Middleburg, Va., topping the list at $15.8 million.
Luckily, imagination, and history, is free. Enjoy the trip.
Location: Brookline, Mass.
Year built | 1850 |
Listing price | $11,700,000 |
Beds/baths | 5/7 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 9,300 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Gonzales, Texas
Year built | 1852 |
Listing price | $499,000 |
Beds/baths | 6/4 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 5,677 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Middleburg, Va.
Year built | 1853 |
Listing price | $15,800,000 |
Beds/baths | 8/12 |
House size (sq. ft.) | N/A |
…CONTINUED
Location: Savannah, Ga.
Year built | 1857 |
Listing price | $5,250,000 |
Beds/baths | 5/8 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 9,738 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Coupeville, Wash.
Year built | 1859 |
Listing price | $1,395,000 |
Beds/baths | 3/3 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 1,977 |
…CONTINUED
Location: New York, N.Y.
Year built | 1860 |
Listing price | $11,000,000 |
Beds/baths | 4/5 |
House size (sq. ft.) | N/A |
…CONTINUED
Location: Washington, D.C.
Year built | 1860 |
Listing price | $1,124,999 |
Beds/baths | 4/4 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 3,800 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Round Top, Texas
Year built | 1860 |
Listing price | $1,295,000 |
Beds/baths | 3/4 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 2,440 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Sutter Creek, Calif.
Year built | 1861 |
Listing price | $750,000 |
Beds/baths | 4/4 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 2,418 |
…CONTINUED
Location: Lake Forest, Ill.
Year built | 1861 |
Listing price | $3,850,000 |
Beds/baths | 7/7 |
House size (sq. ft.) | 7,066 |
Inman News reporter Paul Hagey compiled this report.