It’s fairly straightforward to look at a home and know if it checks off all the boxes on your wish list, but it’s not always as easy to get a clear picture of the neighborhood it’s in right off the bat.
When Leigh Ann and Joe Fisher first looked at their Indigo Park home in 2010, the housing market was just starting to recover from the recent collapse and there weren’t many one-level homes with four bedrooms on the market in their preferred price range.
They were happy to discover the 1965 ranch-style house had everything they wanted and was located an ideal neighborhood for raising three children.
Indigo Park, located off John Tyler Highway, comprises both the Jamestown Farms and Canterbury Hills neighborhoods. It boasts a huge community, mid-century homes and an abundance of mature trees.
“When we saw this house we knew we were going to have to do a lot of work to it,” Leigh Ann said. “But we could see at the time what this house could look like.”
They also loved the yard, which had plenty of space for Leigh Ann’s three children to play, plus room for two outdoor seating areas.
“A lot of neighborhoods around here don’t have a very big yard,” Leigh Ann said, “We love an overgrown yard so we put in rose bushes, hydrangeas, gardenias. We did it to have an all year long garden.”
When the family moved in, there was brown everywhere, from the trim throughout the house to the paneling in the dining room to the kitchen cabinets. The Fishers painted every room, every piece of trim and all the doors for a brighter and airier look. They also redid the counters, flooring and installed a new sink and appliances, among other upgrades.
Bits of the house’s history still remain. Many years ago, a previous homeowner had family members living in the houses on either side. They installed gates connecting each yard, which are still there today.
Leigh Ann has family nearby as well – two doors down, in fact. Her mother relocated from Memphis, Tennessee to be closer to the family, and Leigh Ann says it was a fluke of luck her mother was able to purchase the home so close to hers.
Even after seven years, Leigh Ann and the whole family are completely in love with the neighborhood.
“It’s a huge community,” Leigh Ann said. “Everybody is willing to come out and help each other. I’ve got friends who have put siding on other people’s houses just to help each other out.”
The neighborhood pool may be one reason the sense of community is so strong. It is open to both residents and non-residents, completely run by volunteers, and funded solely via donations and pool fees rather than by an HOA. They have a swim team, which all three of Leigh Ann and Joe’s kids have been on at some point.
And the neighborhood even has a band named after it, the Indigo Boys. The Indigo Boys formed a few years ago and play for the pool a couple of times during the summer, in addition to frequent gigs around town.
The kids have also have their own traditions. In the spring and fall, there’s typically a Sunday whiffle ball game. When it snows, usually just after the holidays, the kids come out and play football on an empty lot in the neighborhood.
Leigh Ann says she has no plans to relocate any time soon. Even though she looks at many houses every day for her job as a realtor, there have been few temptations.
“We have no desire to leave the area,” she said. “We love it in this neighborhood.”
Where We Live is a weekly feature looking at homes in the Historic Triangle. Do you have a home, on or off the market, that our readers may be interested in seeing? Let us know at [email protected].
