$500,000 Homes in New Hampshire, New Jersey and North Dakota

What You Get for $500,000

Salem, N.H. | $459,900

A two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-story condominium unit in a 1905 Tudor Revival mansion

Edward Francis Searles (1841-1920), an interior designer in northeastern Massachusetts, inherited a fortune from his wife, Mary, the widow of the San Francisco railway magnate Mark Hopkins. He built several large homes in New England, including this one, Stillwater Manor, which crowned a gentleman farm developed just north of Methuen, Mass., where he was born, raised, buried and reburied (after his corpse was exhumed to investigate suspected arsenic poisoning). Designed by Henry Vaughan, the architect of the Washington National Cathedral and parts of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, in New York City, the 21-room house was converted into six condominiums in the late 1980s.

Tuscan Village, a three-million-square-foot residential and shopping complex in Salem, with medical facilities and two hotels, is about three miles northwest. Boston is 30 miles southeast.

Size: 2,136 square feet

Price per square foot: $215

Indoors: Mr. Searles was a connoisseur, manufacturer and player of pipe organs, and this unit contains the original organ room, with terra-cotta tile floors, painted brick walls and a barrel-vault brick ceiling. The adjacent foyer, with a box-beamed ceiling and staircase descending to the lower level, is used for dining. Beyond that is a modern kitchen with walls surfaced in brick and tile, and granite-topped white cabinets. The primary bedroom is on this level, too, and has elegant wall paneling, a box-beamed ceiling and hardwood floors. The primary bathroom includes a shower and granite-topped vanity.

The lower level is almost fully carpeted (in white) and contains a bedroom, a bathroom with a combined tub and shower, and a laundry room. The seller upgraded the electrical, plumbing and cooling systems and repainted.

Outdoor space: The unit comes with two deeded spaces in a parking lot and one space in a detached garage.

Taxes: $5,533 (2020), plus a $570 monthly homeowner fee that covers heat, water, sewer, building insurance, trash removal, snow removal and landscaping

Contact: Nicholas Daher, Broad Sound Real Estate, 978-423-7782; neren.com

Credit…David Dales

Ringoes, N.J. | $495,000

An 1834 church converted into a residence with two bedrooms, two full bathrooms and two half bathrooms, as well as a commercial space, on a 0.35-acre lot

Erected as a Baptist church from local stone, this building had a severe appearance and attitude: Congregants were tossed out for playing cards or dancing. In the 1880s, things got looser, decorative flourishes were added in the Carpenter Gothic style and the rectangular windows received arches, but the church still suffered economically and closed in 1908. The building was then used variously as a garage, a commercial chicken house and a small factory. In 1995, it was bought by a couple who obtained a variance to convert it into a residence with an attached antiques shop.

The home is in western New Jersey, in the Wertsville Historic District, four miles northeast of the unincorporated community of Ringoes, in East Amwell Township, and about 10 miles northeast of the twin communities of Lambertville, N.J., and New Hope, Pa. It is about halfway between New York City and Philadelphia (an hour to 90 minutes in either direction).

Size: 3,296 square feet (per tax records)

Price per square foot: $147

Indoors: The entrance opens from the back into the former sanctuary — now a great room with a 24-foot-high barrel-vault wood ceiling and an elaborate wood altar, both dating from the 1880s renovation. The open kitchen includes an island created out of repurposed wainscoting from the original church building.

The bedrooms are to the left of the entrance. The nearer has use of a bathroom with a corner shower just outside the door; the farther includes an en suite bathroom with a combined tub and shower. Beyond that, in a late-19th-century addition with an exterior door, is an office that has vintage floorboards and an exposed stone wall remaining from the original church facade. A staircase within this room rises to the former choir loft overlooking the great room, which is edged with balusters and includes a half bathroom. Above that is a large, unfinished attic with beams salvaged from an old barn. There is also a laundry room on the main floor.

The sellers built the attached clapboard structure containing a two-car garage and a tiled commercial space with a half bathroom. The shop has a private exterior entrance that is also connected to the garage. A second-floor loft space in this addition was used as a workshop.

Outdoor space: The property includes a garden shed and backs up to preserved farmland. The historic church cemetery next door features gravestones dating from 1835 to 1928.

Taxes: $10,087 (2020)

Contact: Cynthia Shoemaker-Zerrer, Callaway Henderson Sotheby’s International Realty, 609-915-8399; sothebysrealty.com

Fargo, N.D. | $459,900

A 1908 Queen Anne Victorian with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, on a 0.26-acre lot

This house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is in central Fargo, less than a mile north of downtown and a mile southeast of North Dakota State University’s campus. An elementary school is four blocks west and a hospital two blocks south. Mickelson Park and Softball Fields, which includes a sledding hill, is half a mile east. The home is within walking distance of a farmers’ market and numerous restaurants.

Size: 3,726 square feet

Price per square foot: $123

Indoors: A vintage front door with original hardware opens into a foyer and living room with carpeted floors (there’s hardwood under that pile), varnished molding, decorative columns, a wood-burning brick fireplace and windows set in bays or filled with leaded glass. Wood floors are exposed in the adjacent dining room, which has a built-in vintage sideboard with leaded-glass-front upper cabinets. The seller updated the kitchen, removing a back staircase, adding a butler’s pantry and designing and building the antiqued white cabinets with butcher-block tops himself. He also installed a farmhouse sink and stainless-steel appliances (including a six-burner Capital gas stove and a pot filler). Much of the main level is wired for sound, with speakers added to the dining room and kitchen.

Upstairs, the primary bedroom has hardwood floors and a deep bay created by the building’s tower. A walk-in closet with built-ins leads to a second bedroom. (Both rooms have individual closets as well.) A third, carpeted bedroom opens directly to a balcony overlooking the backyard; it has been reinforced, if one wishes to add a hot tub. The fourth bedroom has hardwood floors and two exposures. The hallway bathroom on this level includes a combined tub and shower.

In the basement, the seller installed a second kitchen and bathroom with a corner shower and created a carpeted room for use as a guest suite. An unfinished storage and laundry room is here, and there is more room for storage in the attic, which has been wired and plumbed.

Outdoor space: The house sits on a grassy corner lot surrounded by arborvitae and has a covered front porch supported by Doric columns and a deep backyard. The seller added an irrigation system. Parking is in a detached three-car garage that opens to an alley. The third stall contains a workshop.

Taxes: $5,839

Contact: Jon Bennett, Re/Max Legacy Realty, 701-200-0621; legacyr.com

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