21 North Road

Twenty-One North Road was built in 1894. For nearly half a century, it was home to its most recent owner, who served for a time as mayor of Tivoli. Its five-color exterior palette, at once playful and understated, was one he chose and painted himself. The vines he tended still run along the wraparound porch, and a mowed path leads through the property to Stony Creek. The house sits on 2.21 acres in the village of Tivoli, with four bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths. Inside, the rooms are gracious without being grand, with floor-to-ceiling windows in the front parlor and two marble mantels, each with its own pattern and ornament. There are wide- and narrow-board floors, pocket doors, built-ins, and other details that reveal themselves as you move through the house. The property runs all the way to Stony Creek and continues onto the far bank, with a mowed path to take you there. At the water's edge, a small cascade runs over stone. Beside the house is a two-story outbuilding with electricity, a workshop/garage on the first floor and walk-up storage above. Its windows were salvaged from a 19th-century church. And then there's Tivoli. On Broadway, people walk for coffee, fresh bread, dinner, dessert in a cup or a cone, and late-night cocktails. Kaatsbaan Cultural Park is right in the village, Bard is just down the road, and Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Rhinecliff and Hudson are a short drive away. A 19th-century beauty, on more than two acres, with Stony Creek at the end of a path, in the coolest village around.