CALLING ALL HOMESTEADERS
$350,000 for nearly off-the-grid retreat on 80 acres in Westmoreland County
Here is your chance to step away from the rat race and live a less congested life on 80 wooded acres in Westmoreland County.
The three-bedroom, one-bath house at 354 Graveyard Hill Road, Bolivar, is set among rolling hills 30 minutes from Latrobe, in a place COVID-19 will never find you. The natural way to social distance, it’s perfect for selfsufficient boomers or utopiaminded millennials.
In addition to the 1870s house, the property includes a stone springhouse, a large barn, a twocar garage with a workshop above, solar panels and planting beds surrounded by stone terraces and fencing. It is listed for sale by owners Kitty and Barry Tuscano for $350,000 (barrytuscano@
The couple have enjoyed an idyllic 43 years in the lap of Mother Nature, but they are ready to move on.
“I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s last year, so I just can’t take care of it,” Mr. Tuscano said.
“We wanted to downsize,” added his wife.
“It is hard to give it up. We have mixed feelings because it is so lovely here. You have that deep silence most of the time.”
Visitors hear only birds, insects and breezes stirring the leaves. No planes,no trucks, no cars.
Five acres around the house has been cleared, but the other 75 acres are woodland protected under an easement with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The property includes half a mile of frontage on Tub Mill Creek for fishing.
Hunting, fishing and growing your own food is the dream of many people. So is living among wildlife.
“Wesee turkeys, deer, birds and evenbears,” said Mrs. Tusacano.
The house was renovated by Mr. Tuscano, a retired roofer and carpenter. “This was a tar-paper shack when we moved here,” he recalled.
“We redid it room by room,” Mrs. Tuscano said.
Original hand-hewn beams add charm, and a 1900s addition is now the kitchen.
“The story we got was that two families lived in here,” Mr. Tuscano said. “The kitchen wall was the divider, and there were 17 children between them.”
The living room has a Vermont Castings wood-burning stove and an adjacent laundry room. Upstairs are two bedrooms and a study that could be used as another bedroom. The master bedroom is connected to one of two sun rooms.
In the kitchen is a reproduction of a vintage Elmira stove that puts out lots of heat.
“It can kind of cook you out of the kitchen,” Mrs. Tuscano said, laughing.
The kitchen also has a radiantheated floor connected to an outdoor wood-burning furnace.
“It costs nothing to keep this place,” Mr. Tuscano said.
“Except physical energy,” his wife added.
If you don’t mind splitting firewood,your heating bills will be low.
A two-level slate patio and the first- and second-floor sun rooms take full advantage of the natural surroundings. Sixteen raised planting beds provide sweet potatoes, summer and winter squash, peppers, kale, onions, garlic, basil
and other herbs as well as cutting flowers.
“We ate out of the garden all through the summer and fall and put some away for the winter,” said Mr. Tuscano.
“It is our lifestyle,” said Mrs. Tuscano, who owned Nature’s Way Market, a natural foods store in Greensburg.
“The house is not off the grid, but it could be,” she added.
“We have the solar collectors, but we never followed through with batteries. When the sun is making more power than you are using, the meter goes backward. You are basically getting wholesale energy.”
Water is provided by a well. The property includes a composting toilet, which does require some maintenance. The internet is DSL, which means no streaming TV and movies.
“It is slow, so it would be hard for people working from home,” Mrs. Tuscano cautioned.
Buyers will be too busy kayaking on the nearby Conemaugh River or hiking
80 acres to worry about internet speed.
Mr. Toscano built the 60by-40-foot timberframe barn after he retired.
“It’s put together the same as the old barns, with
mortise and tenon,” he explained. “The frame is all put together with wood pegs.”
Used for their son’s wedding reception, the barn hosts a bat colony, which is
great for eliminating mosquitos and other insects.
“We love having them,” said Mrs. Tuscano.