Urban Discoveries Baltimore

Last week we were talking about how nice it is to live next to a park in a big city.  If we convinced no one else, we at least convinced ourselves that parks are totally awesome and wonderful.  And then we remembered this week that Herring Run and Lake Montebello are also beautiful, spacious parks filled with early evening joggers and kids playing sports.  It’s this sense of quiet community that speaks to us: the simple pleasures of an evening stroll a distance from the hustle and bustle of downtown; an active, involved neighborhood.  Arcadia, just north of Herring Run Park is the sort of place where a family could settle down for years and years.   Here are three homes that are worth a closer look.

4201 Diller Avenue
Our favorite thing about this four-bedroom, three-bath house isn’t on the inside – not that the inside isn’t well-appointed with its hardwood floors, updated kitchen and bathrooms, and bright and airy rooms.  No, our favorite thing about this house is the way that the outside becomes a part of the living space.  With both a wrap-around front porch and a two-tier deck in the huge backyard, the only reason to stay inside this house is rain.  Or cold.  Or any other miserable condition that postmen have to deliver mail in.  Priced at $229,000, down a whopping $66,000 from $295,000.

3603 Parkside Drive
We’re fans of the oft-underappreciated sun porch.  They make us feel at ease in a Mad Men sort of way, as if there’s no greater living than martinis and sunsets.  And while martinis might not be your thing, the sun porch on this four-bedroom, two-bath Acadia bungalow almost certainly will be.  Couple that with its hardwood floors, finished basement and working, wood-burning fireplace, and you’ll be as comfortable as a late-fifties to early-sixties advertising executive.  And is there any greater comfort than that?  Priced at $239,900.

3015 Iona Terrace
While this five-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath bungalow is comfortable as comfortable gets, with its hardwood floors, spacious rooms and large back deck, what we’re kind of obsessed with is its massive front porch.  Seriously, it measures 30’ by 10’.  Functionally, it’s an outdoor living room, a place to entertain several guests at once, and its fluted columns give the whole porch a classical feel that makes us recall “Et in Arcadia ego.”  Priced at $289,000, down from $299,000.

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