256 Cottage St, Middletown, NY 10940

The first thing you will do here is walk out into that lawn and start deciding where everything goes, the garden along the sunny side, the fire pit set well back, the patch under the old shade tree that stays empty because that is the coolest spot on the property and you are going to want it for yourself. The lot is 0.28 acres, flat and open, and every bit of it comes with the keys. Not many city addresses have that much grass around them.nnThe covered porch is what will slow you down before you reach the door. It stretches deep across the front, set on stone piers laid by hand in 1924, looking out over the whole yard. June evenings belong out there. So does October, with a blanket and a hot drink while the tree lets go of everything at once. It is going to be the first thing you describe when people ask about the place.nnInside, the rooms are bright and freshly painted, and the windows do most of the work, pulling light through the front of the house all afternoon. One bedroom is right on the main floor, which is the kind of flexibility you never appreciate until you have it, a desk and a door you can shut on a Monday, a spare room the weekend somebody stays over. Two more are tucked upstairs under the roofline with windows framing rooftops and treetops, quiet enough that a long day actually ends when you climb up there.nnThe basement below runs nearly 23 feet, clean, bright and completely unfinished, which is the good kind of unfinished. Right now it holds the bikes and the