Early in their relationship, Dimitri Brand and Nelly Mecklenburg decided that they wanted to build a house. For years, they had uprooted their lives on a regular basis, moving between New Haven, Conn.; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; and Cambridge, England, for school and work.
The frequent changes left them craving some place they could create a sense of permanence. “We always talked about building a house,” said Mr. Brand, 36, a founder of the architecture firm Holesum Studio. “Wanting to have some solidity to our relationship and to our life, we started looking for land to buy.”
Ms. Mecklenburg, 36, grew up in New York and Mr. Brand was raised in northeastern Connecticut. For their new home, they wanted to be near those locations but “in a beautiful, rural place,” Mr. Brand said.
In 2019, they found a 10-acre undeveloped lot that met that description on the outskirts of Hillsdale, N.Y., near the Massachusetts border, and bought it for $32,000.
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