65 Fox Street, Selkirk, NY, 12158 | $1,199,000

Lady Selkirk has been keeping watch over the Hudson since the 1780s, when the older half went up under the Mull family, Dutch settlers who ran the land below as a sheep farm and a fishery. A second half followed in the 1830s, and in the two-plus centuries since, only four or five families have ever called it home. The Mull line is documented, not just remembered: it survives in an 1840 survey map dividing the land among Jacobius Mull's heirs, and the riverbank below was part of the Hudson's historic shad fishery, the same stretch near Coeymans where Seth Green ran the celebrated shad nursery that Harper's Weekly put on its pages in 1872. It is on the historic register and still looks straight at the river through seasonal views that open and close with the leaves. All that history comes with a historic barn, a heated pool, and 33. 27 acres that take in a piece of Shad Island.

Inside, the house wears its age well. A deep foyer opens to a living room that runs nearly twenty-three feet, and the original pine floors carry through the whole floor, worn to a patina you cannot order online. A Dutch door opens the way it always has, catching the breeze off the water. From there the main floor keeps unfolding, into a formal dining area, a kitchen with its own breakfast nook, and a family room with room to spare. Two brick fireplaces bring texture to the living space, and beautiful built-ins run throughout, set into the walls alongside original hardware on doors that have been opened a few million times. There are two staircases, too: a full flight rising from the foyer, and off the kitchen, a tiny and very steep climb that is the home's original 1780s stair. It has been carrying people up to bed for going on 250 years. Central air keeps all of it comfortable.

On the second floor, four bedrooms include a spacious primary suite and the current owners' child's room at the top of the original structure. Two full baths serve the floor, the closets turn up in numbers you do not expect from a house this old, and the windows catch the same seasonal river views the rest of the house is organized around.

The 33. 27 acres come as four separate parcels, which is a generous way of saying you have options. Part of Shad Island is yours, the same island the current owner paddles across the Hudson to reach and camps on, which is either delightfully eccentric or precisely the point, depending on how you feel about having an island of your own. Closer in, the gardens have seen major improvements and there is a heated pool with a pool house for the months that earn it. The historic barn is already wired with electric, and beside it an old well pump still works, which turns out to be exactly what you want for watering the beds. The property is genuinely private. The river does most of the talking.

When you do leave, you are well situated. The Warbler Brewery pours something cold about fifteen minutes north in Delmar. Stanton's Feura Farm handles the farm-stand and berry-picking habit a short drive west. And Schodack Island State Park is just across the river, with eight miles of trails along the Hudson and a canoe launch of its own, in case the island life starts to catch. Selkirk runs about fifteen minutes to Albany, twenty to Kinderhook and Chatham, and thirty to Hudson.

Features