They Left Their Empty Nest for a Contemporary Begin in Helena, Montana

When Beth and Brandon Sheafor determined it was time to downsize in Helena, Mont., they wished to alter their suburban way of life, too.

The Sheafors had moved to Montana’s capital from Ohio in 2010 and constructed a five-bedroom house in a brand new residential neighborhood for themselves and their two daughters, then 8 and 5. Mr. Sheafor, 60, began a job as a biology professor at Carroll College, close to Helena’s downtown. Ms. Sheafor, 54, is an teacher within the anatomy and physiology lab in the identical division.

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Ms. Sheafor, initially from California, and Mr. Sheafor, initially from Colorado, had moved to Ohio for postgraduate work in 1997. “Ever since we got there, we wanted to be back West,” Ms. Sheafor stated.

Helena can get very chilly and snowy, she stated, however Mr. Sheafor was accustomed to it, and the couple appreciated that there have been extra sunny days within the Montana winters than in Ohio.

But their parcel, on a large 10,000-square-foot nook lot, required lots of “scraping and shoveling,” Mr. Sheafor stated. After their daughters left for faculty, the Sheafors didn’t want as many bedrooms, or need as a lot yard work.

The couple additionally wished to depart driving behind. A brand new house inside quarter-hour of the core of Helena’s downtown district can be ultimate, so that they wouldn’t at all times must get in a automobile to buy groceries or out to eat. “We never walked anywhere before,” Ms. Sheafor stated.

They have been significantly taken with Helena’s historic Mansion District, which Mr. Sheafor known as the town’s “most desirable neighborhood.”

Beyond its historic houses and tree-lined streets, the neighborhood sits on the backside slope of Mount Helena, with easy accessibility to strolling trails and among the metropolis’s busiest streets — together with Last Chance Gulch, now Helena’s foremost drag, and the spot the place prospectors first discovered gold in 1864.

The couple nonetheless wished not less than three bedrooms, together with one with sufficient area to comfortably comprise a house workplace, in addition to two full bogs, a storage (ideally large enough for 2 automobiles), a spacious kitchen and storage for all of the cooking gear and cookbooks they’d collected through the years.

“One of the big things was a workable kitchen,” Ms. Sheafor stated. “He cooks, and I bake.”

Their finances was about $600,000 — the quantity their dealer, Deb Whitcomb of Berkshire Hathaway, predicted they’d get for the sale of their present house. It would additionally preserve their month-to-month funds at about the identical degree. The couple have been additionally keen to pay for some upgrades on a inexpensive house.

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