Here’s What $2 Million Buys You in Michigan, Florida and New York – The New York Times

Ann Arbor, Mich. | $1.99 MillionA house custom-built in 1979, with five bedrooms and six and a half bathrooms, on a 0.77-acre lot

Designed by Don Paul Young, a local architect, this home is part of the Hillwood Preserve, a wooded subdivision dating to the 1930s that was created by a pair of sisters who were landscape designers, on their family property. The house sits near the prairie part of the University of Michigans Nichols Arboretum, with winter views of the Huron River. One can cut through the arboretum to reach the university campus and downtown, less than a mile west, or travel a more roundabout route by road. Built for an orthopedic surgeon, the house was expanded in 2000 by a later owner.

Size: 5,249 square feet

Price per square foot: $379

Indoors: Recent updates include new exterior siding that promises to last for decades, many new windows (some of them huge) and fresh oak flooring in the living room, dining room and main study (there are three studies altogether). A substantial part of the lower level was also remodeled, and hardscaping was added outdoors.

The entrance leads into a foyer with an attached powder room (variegated ceramic tile covers the floors of both). To the left of the front door is a dining room with a 16-foot-high wall of glass and a wet bar. It flows into a living room, for an area that totals 38 feet in length and up to 25 feet in width and includes a wood-burning fireplace.

On the other side of the fireplace wall is an office with a built-in desk, wraparound upper and lower cabinets and windows on three sides, with arboretum views. On the opposite side of the living room and up a few steps is an open, tiled breakfast area and, beyond that, a kitchen with an L-shaped center island topped in granite, a Wolf range, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a pantry. This room walks out to a 24-by-19-foot screened porch, which opens to an ipe-wood patio. Next to the kitchen is a laundry room that includes a wine refrigerator and a built-in desk and cabinetry.

A hallway past the rear staircase leads into guest quarters. Here are a bedroom with arboretum views, a bathroom with a walk-in glass-and-stone-tile shower and an office with two built-in desks and three walls of cabinets. An elevator in this wing takes you to any floor.

The front staircase ascends to a hall lofted above the dining room. The first door belongs to the master suite, which includes a carpeted bedroom with a walk-in closet behind frosted-glass doors (a dresser and shoe cubby are lodged inside) and a private balcony overlooking the arboretum. The master bathroom is sheathed in dark and light gray stone and includes a wraparound vanity with a pair of metal vessel sinks and a separate tub and shower.

This level contains three additional bedroom suites (one with a Juliet balcony), as well as a library that opens to an indoor-outdoor oak-floored exercise room above the screened porch.

The lower level has more than 2,400 square feet of finished space not counted in the homes official square footage. This encompasses a large family room with sunlight streaming through glass doors and multiple exposures (it walks out to a patio), an office with a fireplace, a full bathroom and two workshops. There are also storage and utility rooms, as well as access to a three-car garage.

Outdoor space: In addition to the porches, decks and balconies is a large paved patio hugged by a new retaining wall; it has a fire pit. The surrounding landscape is, not surprisingly, tree-filled.

Taxes: $30,646 (based on a tax assessment of $611,179), plus an annual $100 homeowner fee

Contact: Jean Wedemeyer, Reinhart Realtors, 734-604-2523; jeanwedemeyer.reinhartrealtors.com

This two-story 1936 complex is in the Bayshore neighborhood, two blocks west of Indian Creek and the nearby cluster of Mid-Beach hotels, including the Miami Beach Edition and the Faena. Within a mile to the south are Collins Park, with its cultural attractions; the Miami Beach Convention Center, where the Art Basel Miami Beach fair is typically held; and the Lincoln Road shopping district. Currently, three of the four units are rented, with leases that extend six months at the most. The rents range from $2,900 to $3,200 a month, depending on the season. Short-term rentals are not permitted.

Size: 4,478 square feet

Price per square foot: $446

Indoors: Two units are downstairs, and two upstairs; all four have identical layouts of about 1,200 square feet. They are being sold furnished, and in two units, the furniture is new.

The lower units have direct access from within a gated courtyard; between their doors is the entrance to the upper units. In each apartment, the entry door opens to a living room with wood floors and a decorative fireplace mantel. A stepped archway leads into a wood-floored dining room, and a similar archway introduces the kitchen. The kitchen surfaces and colors vary from unit to unit. In unit No. 1, which is currently vacant, the counters are white marble, the flooring is gray linoleum and the appliances are stainless steel.

The units occupy the four corners of the building, so one bedroom in each has windows that wrap around two walls. The bedrooms also have wood floors and en suite bathrooms with showers. (Again, surface materials and colors vary.) Unit No. 1 has its own washer and dryer. The other three share free laundry facilities in the complex.

Outdoor space: The seller did some landscaping of the shared garden, which includes a seating area and a grill. The building does not have parking, but occupants can apply for city permits that cost $60 a year and that allow them to park on the street, in front.

Taxes: $36,000 (estimated)

Contact: Patricia Agudelo, Coldwell Banker Realty, 347-623-7163; coldwellbanker.com

This property in the town of Shawangunk, west of the Hudson River, is the country seat of Cristy Lee McGeehan, an interior designer with a penchant for patterned wallpaper, and her husband, Colan McGeehan, the chief investment officer of Publicis Health Media. The couple are enthusiastic entertainers; to accommodate a regular parade of friends and family as well as corporate retreats, they recently built a log house from reclaimed barn wood near the Greek Revival farmhouse. The furnishings for both homes can be negotiated with the sale.

The houses are about 75 miles north of Manhattan and about 16 miles southwest of New Paltz, in southern Ulster County. Local attractions include mountain preserves, vineyards, orchards and rail trails.

Size: 5,400 square feet (combined)

Price per square foot: $375

Indoors: The yellow clapboard-sided farmhouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, includes a traditional double parlor with wide, antique floorboards and rooms separated by pocket doors. Wallpaper in complementary patterns with a lot of black gives a modern Victorian frisson to the rooms. Rustic wood of different shades also makes an appearance on a wall of the sunny front parlor. A brick fireplace with a black-painted mantel is in the rear parlor.

A formal dining room is papered in a mix of more subtle patterns and colors. The homey kitchen has a vaulted beadboard ceiling with exposed brick above the wall cabinets; stainless steel and concrete countertops; and a window seat.

Downstairs, in the original kitchen, with its fireplace designed for cooking, the owners created an exuberant space they describe as a speakeasy and use for karaoke. On the second floor, Ms. McGeehan hand-glued hundreds of scalloped bits of paper to the slanted wall of the master bedroom. Two additional bedrooms also have angled ceilings that follow the rooflines, and the bathroom is a medley of raw brick, white-on-white brocade-patterned paper, hexagonal floor tile and rough concrete for the vanity. There is a vintage tub and a walk-in shower.

In the log house, Ms. McGeehan amped up the eclecticism, using botanical- and animal-themed papers to contrast with the pervasive wood-and-mortar striping. In the downstairs powder room, the animals are dressed in Victorian garb and set within ornate picture frames. In the upstairs bedrooms (each of which has a private bathroom), they portray hummingbirds, butterflies, moths and garlands. There is also a main-floor master suite whose bathroom paper is festooned with silhouetted boats and rosy Chinese lanterns. (You will also find a vanity converted from an American Colonial-style desk, brass sconces sprouting crystals and a very contemporary glass-walled shower.)

Outdoor space: A hot tub, a bandstand, a firepit and several seating areas add to the entertainment value. Alpacas, among other animals, have recently enjoyed the paddock.

Taxes: $14,472

Contact: J.C. Keeler, Heather Croner Real Estate, Sothebys International Realty, 917-603-1946; sothebysrealty.com

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Here's What $2 Million Buys You in Michigan, Florida and New York - The New York Times