Center Moriches house for sale in historic transitional district

A slate-colored home lit largely via skylight was a practical choice for the poet, playwright and songwriter Cornelius Eady and his wife, novelist Sarah Micklem. The pair bought the Center Moriches home in 2017 prepared for Micklem's mother to live with them and Eady to teach for Stony Brook University.

But at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the home became something more. As a prostate cancer survivor, Eady was spending more time there.

"The house actually turned into a bit of a life raft for all three of us," Eady said. "For me, Sarah and my mother-in-law, Carolyn."

Today, the four-bed, two-bath Hawkins Avenue home is on the market, listed for $675,000. Taxes on the 0.29-acre property, which falls within the Center Moriches Union Free School District, total $6,652.

Built in 1860, according to property records, Eady and Micklem purchased the home for $349,000 nearly a decade ago. There, Eady has since recorded an album, worked on a couple of chapbooks and orchestrated a fully-remote revision of the play, "Brutal Imagination."

Micklem, whose fantasy novels "Firethorn" and "Wildfire" were published in the mid-2000s, and her mother also used the home as a workspace.

The house is almost 1,800 square feet, property records confirm. The home has a first-floor bedroom, which Eady and Micklem said made living there more comfortable for Carolyn. This bedroom leads to a small patio.

"It really keeps to the whole feel of the vintage farmhouse," said listing agent Palmer Gaget, of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. "The ceilings are high, which is unusual for a farmhouse, because in the olden days they were much lower because people were shorter."

Eady, she noted, is "rather tall."

Gaget described a house with abundant natural light and a wood-burning fireplace in the living room. There is an oil heating system and no central air conditioning, she said.

There is a full, unfinished basement with high ceilings, as well as a screened-in outdoor area off a modernized kitchen, Gaget said.

"It's a sweet house, and it's been really lovingly maintained," Gaget said.

According to Gaget, the address is in the Center Moriches historic transitional district. The home is not considered historic, she said, but a homeowner would need approvals to make certain renovations to the property.

"You still need permission to do certain things, like you can't have a PVC fence, it has to be wood," Gaget said.

The house is not on a main road, she said, but is not far from one.

"It's just a super charming, peaceful, kind of bucolic spot that's close to everything," Gaget said.

On the property, Sarah dug up rusty nails and Lego figurines as she planted fruit trees and flower beds.

"There wasn't a garden there when I came," she said. "Now there are some apple trees, there's a blueberry patch."

There are also goji berries and a fig tree.

She and Eady also have an apartment in Manhattan's West Village.

"I've never had room to garden before, like that," Sarah said.