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Waterfront Construction Opportunity on Barre Road in Hardwick, MA – $214,999!

February 8, 2016

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This waterfront lot located at 26A Barre Road in Hardwick, MA comes with tile and wall-to-wall carpeting in 4 rooms, 2 beds and 2 baths and a finished basement and is listed at just $214,999.00. A steal, indeed! Solid wood cabinetry and granite counter tops, 600 feet of waterfront property sits on 1.6 acres of land. 20 minutes from Worcester and I-90 makes an easy trek for commuters. All permits are in hand and they are ready to break ground! Financing available. Call today!

SNEAK PEAK ALERT!

February 7, 2016

40 Burbank Lancaster Opportunity is here! Newer colonial set back from the road in a quiet cul-de-sac in Lancaster with easy highway access and privacy! Nearly 3000 sq feet with full master suite, open kitchen and great room with wood burning fireplace. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and upper level laundry room. Full walk out basement for additional finished space or a great workshop!

Full listing and pictures on Tuesday! Mark your calendars for the group showings on Saturday and Sunday 12pm to 2pm so you don’t miss out on this short sale opportunity!

My favorite kind of mail…

January 29, 2016

thank you card blog photo

See Where America’s Most Celebrated Furniture Maker Lived and Worked

January 27, 2016

Source: See Where America’s Most Celebrated Furniture Maker Lived and Worked

See Where America’s Most Celebrated Furniture Maker Lived and Worked

January 27, 2016

East of Los Angeles in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains sits a remarkable tribute to the art and craft of furniture-making. It’s the historic home and workshop of celebrated modernist furniture designer and maker Sam Maloof. For more than half a century, Maloof in his home studio sculpted elegant works that are esteemed by museum curators, collectors and artisans alike.

Sunday, January 24, is the centennial of the late Maloof’s birth, and a yearlong program of events is planned at the Rancho Cucamonga, California, compound — now a museum open year-round — and beyond. Learn about the man Jimmy Carter called “the best woodworker that ever lived” and walk with us through the art-filled house and studio the master craftsman built for himself and his family.

Photos courtesy of the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts except where noted

Maloof was considered the foremost American woodworker of his time. The Chino, California-born son of Lebanese immigrants taught himself woodworking and slowly built his furniture-making business with the help of his first wife, Alfreda Ward Maloof. Starting in the 1950s and until his death in 2009 at age 93, Maloof produced about 5,000 handcrafted furniture pieces for homes, offices, places of worship and public institutions.

His work helped elevate the standing of crafts in the art world when in 1985, he became the first craft artist and woodworker to receive a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. Today his pieces are in the collections of museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2012, one of his rocking chairs sold at auction for more than $80,000.

One of Maloof’s most impressive works is the house he built up over the years from an existing 800-square-foot bungalow to the sprawling two-story, 22-room structure it is today. It was an ongoing project starting in the 1950s, when he and his young family moved to Rancho Cucamonga, and it was constructed mostly without a design plan with help from relatives and studio assistants.

In the 1990s, after the 210 Freeway was approved to run through his property, supporters rose up to help move the house and studio a few miles to its current location. Today it operates as the nonprofit Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is one of more than 30 properties in the National Trust’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program, which includes the residences of other artists such as Grant Wood, Winslow Homer, Jackson Pollock and Georgia O’Keeffe.

A Maloof rocking chair, one of his signature works, in 1981 became the first piece of handcrafted contemporary American furniture to enter the White House collection. As with other Maloof pieces, his rocking chairs evolved over time, becoming more sleek and sculpted. Early versions had upholstered seats; later seats were made of shaped hardwood, often walnut. Maloof and his assistants assembled his furniture without nails or metal hardware and hand-rubbed the pieces with a blend of linseed oil, raw tung oil and semigloss urethane varnish.

Photo courtesy of Gene Sasse

The Maloof house showcases many handcrafted details the woodworker borrowed from furniture-making, such as the whimsical handles, latches and hinges seen here on a door.

Maloof and his family welcomed as many as 3,000 visitors a year to their home, including friends, fellow artists and prospective furniture buyers. With Maloof’s works filling the house and his craftsmanship on display on every surface, the entire home was a showroom for his art. Maloof was a warm and generous host and enjoyed getting to know and working with his clients. “I want to be able to work a piece of wood into an object that contributes something beautiful and useful to everyday life,” Maloof once said. “And I want to do this for an individual that I can come to know as a friend.”

Harold B. Nelson, curator of American Decorative Arts for the Huntington Library in nearby San Marino, California, worked with Maloof before the artist’s death to produce a 2011-12 Huntington exhibition of his and his peers’ work. The House that Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945-1985 told the story of the network of postwar artists and artisans near Claremont, California, in which Maloof and his wife Alfreda played a key role.

We spoke with Nelson, who reflects on his time exploring the Maloof oeuvre: “Sam Maloof was one of the most masterful craftsman I have ever known. However, what I began to realize … was that his work was not only about superb execution, comfort and elegance. It was, more importantly, about the friendships that ensued between Sam and his clients. Each piece he created is a manifestation or embodiment of those close human bonds and friendships. And that’s what makes his work, I feel, so compelling and so enduringly meaningful.”

Public tours of the home visit the Maloof kitchen and living areas, which remain much as they were when the family lived there. Seen here is a spiral staircase that Maloof made by hand.

As part of the centennial celebration, more of Maloof’s artwork, as well as pieces by other artists in the Maloof collection, can be seen in a new exhibition opening February 14. Sam Maloof Woodworker: Life/Art/Legacy will be displayed in a gallery on the property through August 31.
The show will be organized into four areas focusing on his art, mentors, innovations and impact. It will look at Maloof’s relationships with art and design figures such as Charles Eames and Henry Dreyfuss, and celebrity clients Gene Kelly, Irving Wallace, James Garner and others. And through displays of works by friends and colleagues including Tony Abeyta, Laura Andreson, Paul Darrow, Phil Dike, Harrison McIntosh, Maria Martinez, Shiko Munakata, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Kay Sekimachi, Robert Stocksdale, Millard Sheets, Paul Soldner and Marguerite Wildenhain it will explore the ways in which the artists may have influenced one another.

Also for the centennial, a new book, Sam Maloof: 36 Views of a Master Woodworker, by Fred Setterberg, will be published this spring by Heyday in conjunction with the foundation. Author Setterberg weaves together the words of Maloof family members, friends and associates to present a personal, multifaceted portrait of the artist as a member of and contributor to his community.

Cover photo by Jim McHugh

One of Maloof’s most devoted fans — and a centennial advisor — is Jimmy Carter, a lifelong woodworker himself. He learned of Maloof’s work through Fine Woodworking magazine, and he owns several Maloof pieces. The two spent time together in Southern California and Georgia talking about woodworking and Middle East politics.

“I had a very intimate, almost a brotherly relationship with Sam Maloof,” Carter is quoted as saying in the book. “There wouldn’t be more than five or six other people in the world who have had a greater direct effect on my self-analysis, my deliberate effort to learn something from them and apply it to my own life.”

Maloof shared books and instructional videos with Carter, who studied them and solicited advice on woodworking. “When Sam built something that had concealed parts, like the back end of a drawer or the underneath of a cabinet, you didn’t have to worry about the back side being inferior in quality or appearance,” Carter said. “You just knew when Maloof finished something, it would be perfect all the way through. It’d be the best he could do.”

Carter’s appreciation for Maloof goes beyond his woodworking skills. “He was a person admirable in all his characteristics,” Carter said. “He was a philosopher. He was deeply committed to basic moral values. I really have been inspired by Sam.”

In this photo taken at the Maloof home, Carter dines with the family, including Maloof’s wife Alfreda, standing; then-daughter-in-law Kathryn Golden, foreground; Maloof; and son Slimen Maloof.

Maloof met Alfreda in 1947 at Scripps College in Claremont, where he worked for a time as an assistant to Millard Sheets, the well-known artist and head of the art department. They married in 1948. Alfreda, who had a degree from UCLA and had wanted to be an artist, taught at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico before marrying Maloof. Her interest in Native American arts and textiles can be seen in collections throughout the home.

The two were married for 50 years until her death in 1998. Maloof and others credit Alfreda, pictured here, for encouraging him to venture out on his own as a woodworker and for managing their home and the business. Three years after Alfreda died, Maloof married longtime friend Beverly Wingate, who currently resides in a second house on the property.

On display in the home’s showroom is a Maloof natural-edge burled walnut table, pictured here. On it are wood bowls made by his friend Bob Stocksdale, and works by Stocksdale’s wife, fiber artist Kay Sekimachi. Maloof and the couple would often trade pieces, as he did with other artisan friends. Maloof also acquired works by young artisans, boosting their careers.

Over the years, Maloof’s collection became known for its wide-ranging representation of Southern California midcentury art and crafts. Setterberg writes that Maloof’s collection at his death included about 2,000 art objects valued at $5 million to $6 million. Many pieces are loaned out for exhibitions nationwide.

A Maloof sofa from the 1950s calls to mind Danish modern design combined with Shaker craftsmanship. Maloof’s pieces found their way into many midcentury modern homes, their clean lines and handcrafted warmth complementing minimalist residences such as the experimental postwar Case Study Houses.

Maloof was part of a 1958 Los Angeles Times article profiling Southern California furniture designers that included, from left, Kipp Stewart, Rex Goode, Maloof, Stewart MacDougall, Hendrik Van Keppel, Taylor Green, John Keal, Barney Flagg and Ernest Inouye.

Photo by Dale Healy Photography

The Maloof shop still produces new pieces and renovates original Maloof works. Woodworker Mike Johnson runs the shop with son Stephen Johnson. Mike began working for Maloof in 1981, starting off sanding furniture and progressing to become a respected craftsman in his own right.

Resident artist and woodworker Larry White, who worked with Maloof for many years, teaches occasional master woodworking classes at the Maloof studio. The next all-day workshop is scheduled for Saturday, March 27, and includes a tour of the home, workshop, wood barn and showroom. White will share Maloof anecdotes and offer insights into Maloof’s craft, techniques, wood selection, joinery and tools.

Individual docent-led and group tours of the house, shop and woodshed are available year-round. The gardens and Jacobs Education Center galleries are open and free during exhibitions and public hours. Visit the foundation website, malooffoundation.org, for more information.

A special tour is being offered February 17 as part of Palm Springs Modernism Week. The all-day event includes a bus ride from Palm Springs to the compound, a private tour, an exhibition visit and lunch.

Plans are underway to tour the exhibition, with a stop at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan; the Smithsonian affiliate acquired a Maloof chair as the first object in its permanent collection. The Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California, and the Modernism Museum in Mt. Dora, Florida, are also planning Maloof-related exhibitions in 2016.

Centennial events at the Maloof will include two other exhibitions: the third biennial Sculpture in the Garden exhibition, opening May 1; and California Wood Artists: Maloof and Beyond, featuring contemporary wood furniture, objects and sculpture, scheduled to run October 2, 2016, through February 11, 2017.

“Sam Maloof is well known for his woodworking, and for his furniture, and for reflecting a certain aesthetic and energy and spirit of California modernism. I think that’s the starting point for a lot of people who come to the Maloof foundation and see the house in which Sam lived his life and the workshop in which he spent his time,” says Jim Rawitsch, executive director of the foundation, in an interview.

“And a lightbulb goes on, and you see that it’s not just about the product that comes out of that process, but it’s about choices in living. It’s about living an aesthetic life surrounding yourself with beauty, and connecting to the elements — to the earth, to the landscape, to the climate, to the world that is California,” Rawitsch says. “And letting yourself live in a setting that captures that, reflects that and takes energy and affirmation from that.”

Anne Colby January 23, 2016

Houzz Editorial Staff. Formerly Los Angeles Times Home editor and writer, and a senior editor at Home magazine. I’ve also written for publications including Bon Appetit, Woman’s Day, Sunset, Los Angeles and House Beautiful specials.

5 Things to Never Say When Selling a Home

January 21, 2016

5 Things to Never Say When Selling a Home

Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, January 13, 2016

It’s a lesson worth remembering: Home sellers need to watch what they say to home buyers and their real estate agents.

Real estate professionals recently shared with realtor.com® the phrases they say sellers should never utter:

1. “Our house is in perfect condition.”

“The home inspection may reveal otherwise, and, as a seller, you don’t want to wind up putting your foot in your mouth,” says Cara Ameer, a real estate professional with Coldwell Banker. “There simply is no such thing as ‘perfect condition.’ Every house, whether it is brand new or a resale, has something that needs to be fixed, adjusted, replaced, or improved upon.”

2. “We’ve never had a problem with …”

Sellers need to be careful to not utter any fibs, even those that seemingly are small, when selling their home. “You’re setting yourself up for potential liability,” Ameer says. “You may not even be aware of the problem at first, but it could translate into an embarrassing moment upon inspection.”

3. “It’s been on the market for …”

Sellers should never talk how long the home has been on the market with potential buyers, says Pam Santoro, a real estate professional with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. The information is available on the home’s information sheet for buyers to see for themselves. Sellers who wish to highlight this may find buyers believing they can get cheaper since it’s been on the market longer or have buyers wonder what’s wrong with the home that it has been lingering.

4. “We spent a ton of money on X, Y, and Z.”

Sellers who think that just because they spent a ton of money on some upgrade to the home shouldn’t believe that upgrade will be so desired by home buyers nor will it necessarily get them a ton of money back at resale. “The buyer doesn’t care whether you spent $10,000 or $100,000 on your kitchen,” says Ameer. “They are only going to offer what they feel the home is worth in relation to area comparable sales.”

5. “I’m not taking less than X amount for my home.”

“If you send a message that you are inflexible or not open to negotiating, it may not invite buyers to even try to work out acceptable price and terms as they will feel defeated from the start,” says Ameer. “Word may spread that you have this sentiment as a seller, and people may start to avoid the house.”

Just Sold!

January 15, 2016

Congratulations to my buyers on their purchase of 5 Prospect Str in Medway! They will be warm and toasty with the gas heat and fireplace! Lily and Andy are officially my New Year’s Babies!

5 prospect medway

WOW! I am honored to receive this…

January 13, 2016

I am completely speechless and wish I knew which of my clients to thank for this! I just received my “10 Best in Massachusetts” plaque from the American Institute of Real Estate Professionals! I did not even know I was nominated but am truly thankful!

“Founded in 2014, we are new company with a big and innovative idea- that Real Estate Professionals should be recognized for excellence in their field and that potential Clients can benefit from this knowledge. American Institute of Real Estate Professionals is an impartial third-party rating organization comprised of 7 divisions consisting of legal and real estate professionals. The American Institute of Real Estate Professionals compiles an exclusive list of the “10 Best” Real Estate Agents for each State. This is a prestigious honor for the Real Estate Agent as each Agent must:

Be formally nominated by the Institute, client, and/or fellow Agent;
Have attained the highest degree of professional achievement in his or her area; and
Having done so with an impeccable Client Satisfaction rating.

Many Real Estate Agents can achieve high degrees of success but this is often times at the expense or satisfaction of the most important person- the client. The American Institute of Real Estate Professionals looks for Agents that have achieved unparalleled success but most importantly have done so for the benefit of their client. Very few Real Estate Agents can do so and our organization recognizes this significant achievement.

Our rating system helps clients throughout the United States make educated decisions when it comes to choosing their Real Estate Agent. Membership is an exclusive honor and extended only to those select few who have reached the top of their profession while doing so with the client’s satisfaction being of the most paramount importance.”

http://aiorep.org/massachusetts-7/

Single family home for rent

January 12, 2016

Available NOW! Single family home for rent in the Greendale area of Worcester! This renovated antique home offers a great flexible floor plan with plenty of general living space and large bedrooms. The first floor features an eat-in kitchen, dining room, living room with an abundance of natural light, full bath and laundry. The second floor has two spacious bedrooms with double closets and a very large master bedroom with hardwoods and accessory bonus room! Full basement is available for storage. Pets allowed at owner’s approval! Come check out this unique opportunity to rent! Credit check and application with references required. Tenant to pay all utilities. No smoking.

Buy this land and save animals…

January 12, 2016

Currently owned by the Second Chance Animal Shelter and with a new price! Your purchase will directly benefit animals in need!

Beautiful location for your new home! 2.54 acre lot in Wales abutting Degregorio Conservation Area just south of the Brimfield line on Haynes Hill Road is ready for you to realize your perfect new home! Offered at a price below assessed value and sold as-is with existing structure. Existing structure does not have utilities. See attached information regarding ability to run power to the property with permission from the Conversation Area. Lot deemed builable by town but Buyer and Buyer’s Agents must do his/her due diligence. Plot plan available soon. All proceeds benefit the Second Chance Animal Shelter in North Brookfield. Not only will get the land to build your dream home but you get it below assessed value and you can feel good about the purchase!