From the outside, Juliette never would have guessed the building was almost fifty years old.
“On this level, there is the office, two restrooms, and three dance studios. There are two more upstairs,” Caryn continued as she flipped to another page in her folder. “Four years ago, Merry redid the wood floors in all the studios. The paperwork says the wood is beech. She also replaced the HVAC system seven years ago.”
Yep, so far, it sounded like Merry Baxter had kept the interior as well maintained as the exterior.
“Like the rest of the town, the building has its own septic. However, it does have town water. You might already know this, but most of the town relies on well water.”
Oh, she knew that and what it meant when you lost power. If she bought a home in town, the first thing she’d do was have a generator installed.
Taking Aaron’s hand, Juliette followed Caryn down a short hallway and into a much larger waiting area. Pastel pink covered the walls in this area, although the white cubbies and hooks lining the longest one helped break up the color scheme.
Opening the door closest to her, she stepped inside and switched on the lights. An immaculate floor gleamed despite the building having been closed up for so long, and mirrors covered one entire wall. Of course, the other three walls reminded her of bubble gum, but a fresh coat of paint would take care of that problem.
“This is the largest of the three rooms on this floor,” Caryn said from the doorway. “Studio One is the smallest.” She gestured across the waiting room to a white door with the words Studio One stenciled in hot pink on it.
She expected the other two rooms to be both well cared for and painted some shade of pink. She ended up being right on both accounts.
“I think Mrs. Baxter had an unhealthy obsession with the color pink,” Aaron whispered in her ear as they followed Caryn up to the second level.
“Really? I’m not getting that impression.”
Aaron squeezed her hand and smiled. “As far as I can see, the only problem with the building seems to be the color scheme. Painting isn’t hard.”
She agreed. The color aside, she liked the layout of the building, and even the smallest of studios provided sufficient space for a small class to practice without getting in each other’s way. And since the major items like floors and the heating system were all new, she wouldn’t need to replace them. At least not anytime soon.
The
stairs opened into an extra-wide hallway. Cubbies similar to those downstairs filled the farthermost wall. Along with the storage space, the current owner had added a restroom to this floor, so dancers wouldn’t need to use the ones downstairs.
Juliette opened the door marked Studio Four and flipped on the lights. Three magenta-painted walls greeted her while mirrors covered the fourth. Well, at least the owner was consistent. She could have painted each part of the building a different color of the rainbow.
“The sale of the property includes the mats,” Caryn said, pointing toward the blue carpet bonded foam rolls left by the mirror. “I have no idea what they are used for, but I’m sure you do.”
“You would use them if you’re teaching an acro dance class.” She’d seen acro dance routines, but she’d never taken a class. According to Tiegan, though, Sandy had taught it before, so maybe she would be willing to do it again. “It incorporates a lot of gymnastics moves; that’s why the mats are used.”
“Never heard of it. It must be something they started teaching here after my daughter stopped coming. Feel free to walk around. Once you’re all set here, we can head over to Oak Ridge Lane.”
When they walked out of the dance studio, Juliette dropped her car keys in his hand and asked him to drive so she could read through the paperwork Caryn gave her. He’d agreed happily. More than once on the ride over to Oak Ridge Lane, he had to remind himself to slow down. How Juliette managed to drive the car and not get a speeding ticket every other day was a miracle. Then again, maybe she got pulled over all the time, and the moment the police officers saw her face, they forgot why they’d pulled her over. Whatever the case, if they weren’t so expensive, he’d have a Porsche instead of a Ford parked in his garage.
For at least the fifth time, Aaron reduced his speed and then turned onto Timberlane Road, which would eventually bring him to Oak Ridge. Located along the westernmost portion of the lake, he hardly every drove to this part of town. Other than a handful of homes and Camp Evergreen, a kids’ summer camp, there wasn’t anything out this way. And unless they’d done construction recently, Timberlane and Oak Ridge were the only paved streets on this side of the lake. There was, or at least there had been, a dirt road leading to an old log cabin, but who knew if either remained.
“The address we’re going to is number twelve,” Juliette said, speaking for the first time since they’d left the dance studio.
He would’ve been able to figure out which house they were headed to without the additional information. At one time, a number of small houses, several of which had only been used as vacation homes in the summer, lined Oak Ridge. Now only three remained: a mini-mansion and two small cottages that had belonged to the same family for four generations. The cottages were so old they had outside showers, or at least they had when he’d visited his friend Bill there as a kid, and no central heat. And if it’d been up to the owners of Twelve Oak Ridge Lane, the cottages wouldn’t be on the dead-end street either.
“I’m surprised the owners are selling this already. They only built the house about four years ago.” He didn’t know how long it had taken to complete or when the owners moved in, but he remembered when his dad refused to sell land to the couple. Roughly a year later, they started construction here instead.
Juliette closed the folder and tucked it on the floor next to her purse. “If I buy this house, I won’t have to worry about any noisy neighbors keeping me up at night.”
“Yeah, no one will be stopping by and asking to borrow flour either.”
“Are there even any other homes on this street?”
Turning onto the driveway, he wondered what the multimillionaires who’d first approached his dad had finally constructed. With it set so far back from the road, curious eyes could only view the home from the water or by driving down the driveway.
“There used to be more. The owners of this place made generous offers to all the other property owners. Only one family turned them down. They own the two cottages at the end of the road. Once the couple owned the properties, they tore down the five or six buildings that were here. They also purchased some land from Camp Evergreen, the kids’ summer camp we passed.”
“Sounds drastic and unnecessarily expensive. They couldn’t find any other land in town?”