Pending in Riverside

3 Owenoke Way, $2.695 million. Very nicely decorated house, a one-car garage and no yard to speak of, though the latter is of less significance than otherwise, because Riverside School’s enormous playground is across the street. Traffic’s a bit of a bother at school drop-off and pick-up times, but the new owner can take pleasure reflecting on the irony that so many families move to Riverside precisely because their kids can walk to school, and then drive them there anyway.

Long time residents may recall that when the unlamented builder Richard Harris bought this house in 1999, his blowing it up to 4,000 sq. ft. was one of the main contributing factors to the anti-development FAR movement (Ed McCulloch’s hideous pink prefab crammed sideways on a similarly narrow lot on the corner of Lockwood and Riverside Avenue was the other). Years later, driving Leatrice past Harris’s house, my dear sweet Mama exclaimed, “now that’s a properly sized home — why can’t other builders do that?” I reminded her that she used to complain about the same damn house back when it was new; her perspective had changed as Riverside houses had grown ever larger.

She laughed.