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COMPARES Tranquility lives where the Magothy River meets Mill Creek Stor y by LIS A J. G OT TO
Photography by A DIGI TAL MIND
A typical day turned tremendously memorable for a couple in Arnold and their teenage sons when the call (and the lot) of a lifetime came in. “I was at home, getting our house ready for Commissioning Week—we rent our house out for Commissioning Week every year,” Jaime says, of the moment, when she realized that nearly two years of searching for just the right home and lot became in reach for her family. To appreciate what that moment was really like, we will need to turn the clock back a few years, to when Jaime and husband, Steve, began their journey to their current Magothy River waterfront address—a journey that was both short and very long at the same time.
A Little Help from Friends Short because the family already lived in a closeknit, planned community near the water that they just loved in Arnold. They were outgrowing that home, however, and were ready to realize their dream to someday have a multi-generational waterfront property. Close friends of theirs who had once lived in their development, bought such a property and they visited often; loving every moment of their friends’ Magothy River and Mill Creek views. “So, we knew we wanted to try and find something around this area and that’s kind of a challenge,” Steve says. “Finding something, obviously the view is important, but also finding the right size lot.”
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What’s Up? Central Maryland | March/April 2022 | whatsupmag.com
The process to find something just a short distance away from where they were living, whether it was an existing home or a workable lot, kick-started a long process of looking. It would be those friends with the enviable waterfront home that would alert them to another property just a few doors down from them. While it wasn’t for sale, they learned that its current owner was no longer living there since being placed in nursing care, and that the owner’s grown children were hoping to manage the property, at least in the short-term, until they could decide how they wanted to proceed with it. Through diligence and research, the couple was able to leave a message with the owner’s family about their interest in the property, so if the day ever came that they did wish to sell, the family would let them know. The family was kind enough to take Jaime’s phone number, should just an occasion arise. In the meantime, their search continued. “We kept looking, but compared everything we saw to this,” Jaime says. Fast forward to that typical day, which arrived almost two years later. “I had entered the first name of the family contact in my phone with the words, ‘dream property’ in parenthesis,” Jaime says. “One day I was doing stuff around the house and my phone was ringing and I looked at [the display] and I saw [those words] come up, I was like, Oh, my God!”
