A planet in the yard: Located on the Old West Side, a classic 1920s workman’s cottage, which sold for $535,000, is part of a distinctive neighborhood project. Starting in 2019, retired architect Al Paas famously turned the streets around Bach School into a walkable solar system, with distances at a scale of 1 inch to 50,000 miles. Informational kiosks about the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars fit on the school playground, but more distant planets are scattered throughout the neighborhood. Jupiter’s kiosk is in front of 533 Fifth St., so living in this house means inhabiting both Ann Arbor’s working-class past and one of its most delightfully nerdy public art projects.
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Spaced Out: Al Paas created a scale model of the solar system in the blocks around Bach School.
The road not taken: Built in the early 1900s, the 3-bedroom, 2-bath at 509 N. Ashley has a deep front porch, cherry floors, a private rear balcony, and rooftop solar panels. Updates meet historic charm; it’s a 1,300-square-foot time capsule with a modern twist. But the real story is what it isn’t: a condo. In the neighborhood between Kerrytown and Water Hill, teardown-and-rebuild projects are common, but the owners chose to keep this original house standing. It sold for $650,000; meanwhile, condos around the corner on Kingsley sell for $800,000 and up, and right next door, new construction with three bedrooms and a six-car garage recently sold for $1.8 million.
What do you get for half a million? On December 2, two very different houses answered that question in very different ways. At 235 Mason, a 1950s ranch was completely remodeled last year by Meadowlark Design+Build, earning the house a place on the Remodeler’s Home Tour in September. The update kept the mid-century spirit while consolidating its three bedrooms to two, opening the floor plan, and expanding the kitchen. By contrast, 3629 Frederick, a 1966 split-level on the north side, retains its original 4-bed, 2-bath layout, although it includes a new roof, floors, and a water heater. Same day, same price, two visions of home.
Dig These Digs: Even the most quick-fingered Zillow scroller might pause at the listing for 202 Orchard Hills, which sold for $1.65 million. Designed in the mid-1980s by architect Larry Brink, a U-M grad and apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, the 5-bedroom, 5-bath home has a vaulted-ceiling great room, stone floors, a built-in sound system, a wine closet, and floor-to-ceiling windows that frame sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. That landscape is the true selling point: this house has direct access to Nichols Arboretum, putting one of Ann Arbor’s most treasured green spaces literally at its doorstep.