House of the week: A fieldstone home on a terraced lot near New Hope for $380,000

Grace and Jim Betts had lived in a small town in Oregon and liked the experience, so when they bought the two-bedroom home in the Village of Centre Bridge near New Hope in 2005, they thought they might retire there.

“We always wanted a little stone house,” said Jim, a retired teacher. “We saw three houses and bought it the next week.”

But now, 18 years later, the terraced lot has become, literally, too steep a challenge for Jim and Grace, a retired social worker. “A lot of steps,” Jim said.

So they have bought a condo in New Hope and alternate between there and their year-round home in Brooklyn.

The house was probably built in 1869, and much of the original detail remains, including random-width pine flooring, Dutch doors, an antique mantel, a tin gabled roof, and exposed stone.

The front yard overlooks River Road and has a view of several of Centre Bridge’s estate houses.

Each room has built-in shelving and cabinetry. The kitchen, on the first floor, has an exposed stone wall built into the lot’s incline. There is also a bedroom on this floor with random-width pine floors, a double closet, and the bathroom.

There is also an office that could serve as a third bedroom and leads to a fieldstone patio and the sunroom, which has new skylights.

The third-floor bedroom has double closets and the door to a storage room that could be converted to a sitting room, library, or second bathroom.

The property also has a free-standing storage shed, and a structure that has electricity and has served as a workshop.

The 1,778-square-foot house is a five-minute drive to New Hope or a 20-minute walk along the Delaware River Park Canal path. Stockton, N.J., is just over the bridge. It’s an easy drive to New York or Princeton.

It is listed by Cori Seraydarian of Addison Wolfe Real Estate for $380,000.