I have a particular thing for porches. This affinity is owed to my youth, to a childhood home where little mattered except that old porch. Summer lunch, in the porch. Summer coffee and newspaper, in the porch. Summer nights, sleeping on the bed, in the porch. The porch was and is the lifeblood of that old house. Given this porchy preference, it should be mentioned that I have never built a home with a porch. I have torn porches out of homes I have remodeled and cobbled that square footage into a greater living room. I have largely ignored the porch in my own home design, but today as I write I believe the reason behind this is simply that none of my houses have been on the lake. If the house isn’t on the lake and the porch isn’t nearest the lake, then what good is a porch? These are the things I wonder about.
274 Sylvan Avenue is on the North Shore of Fontana Bay, inside of the Buena Vista Association. This location on the lake is desirable. But that’s an understatement that fails to relay the true feelings the market has for this location. Consider this: When you search back through the MLS, the oldest sales you’ll find recorded are from the mid 1990s. From that time until this time, the only other lakefront home in Buena Vista to sell is one that closed on April 4th, 1996. On that morning I drove my Saab 900 to school, parked in the lot, walked into the kitchen that doubled as our homeroom, and wished for the freedom that was soon to be mine. 1996 was a long time ago, and if you were a lakefront buyer looking for Buena Vista, you probably should have bought that house.
But that’s just this location, inside Buena Vista, with access to their magnificent lakefront park and pier system and the only tennis courts on the lake that actually appear to be used with regularity. This location inside Buena Vista is beyond ideal. Not adjacent the large park, not adjacent the pier system, just in between, slightly elevated but not so elevated that the steps are tiresome. The views are divine, to the South, East, and West. This sunrise was captured from the patio. Not terrible. Sunrise to the left, sunset to the right, Fontana’s Fourth of July fireworks, front and center.
The cottage style home might look vintage, with that lakeside wall of glassed and screened porch, but inside it’s a modern home with recent and numerous upgrades. The current owner renovated the home top to bottom, and built an addition to increase the living space and add a true master suite. The result is lakefront perfection. Two cut-granite fireplaces flank the main level, where hardwood floors run from room to room. The owner is an epicurean, so the kitchen is divine, oversized, and outfitted with large Viking range and Sub-Zero. If you’re wondering, there are four bedrooms plus lower level bunk space, five and a half baths, and over 4228 square feet.
Lakeside there are decks and patios with lush perennial gardens carefully highlighted by high quality landscape lighting. Streetside there’s parking for four or more cars, and more of those gardens, kept in place by fieldstone walls and connected to the entrance by another large blue-stone patio. There’s a private pier that currently plays summertime host for the owner’s thirty-one foot boat. The property is a full lot and a half, offering loads of lakeside entertaining space and easy access to the pier and shore path. Want to walk to Gordy’s for a summertime lunch? Good idea, it’s less than five minutes down the shore path.
But all of this and we haven’t discussed the porch. In the case of 274 Sylvan, it’s not porch, it’s porches. On the main level that sunny lakeside porch spans the width of the original home, offering a sunny winter spot with the original windows closed, or a breezy, cool summer spot with the windows open and screens deployed. Upstairs, off of the loft and guest bedroom suite, there’s another porch, identical in size, perfect for leisure, but best utilized as a summer sleeping porch. What could be better that falling asleep to the sound of the waves and the rustle of the trees while the quiet hum of a Lake Geneva summer slowly fades? The answer, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is nothing.