The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Want to live in 2 nations at once? Here’s your chance.

- By Wilson Ring

Straddling border, once a casual affair, can be a challenge. BEEBE PLAIN, VT. — For sale: A 1782 fixer-upper with thick granite walls, 1950s decor, and armed 24-hour security provided by both Canada and the United States of America.

The almost 7,000-squarefoot house, cut into five currently vacant apartments, is on a lot of less than a quarter-acre that, along with the building itself, straddles the border between Beebe Plain, Vt., and Stanstead, Quebec.

Selling a home in two countries is proving to be a challenge for the couple who own it. The structure, which has an estimated rebuild cost of about $600,000, is on the market for $109,000. It’s structural­ly sound but needs lots of work. And then there’s that internatio­nal border.

“In the day, it was a normal and natural thing,” Brian DuMoulin, who grew up in the house and was accustomed to life literally on the border at a time when no one thought twice about crossing from one country to the other. “Now it stresses everyone out.”

The home, known locally as the Old Stone Store, was built by a merchant so he could sell to farmers in both Vermont and Quebec. DuMoulin and his wife, Joan, inherited it about 40 years ago.

Now the couple, in their 70s, who have dual U.S. and Canadian citizenshi­p and a home in nearby Morgan, Vt., are hoping to sell it so they can move to Ontario to be closer to their children.

Beebe Plain is a community in the town of Derby, which along with Stanstead, has become the cliché of security changes on the U.S.-Canadian border brought on by the 9/11 attacks.

Streets that used to be open were blocked by gates. The back doors of an apartment building straddling the border in Derby Line village have been locked. The street next to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, built in both countries, is blocked by flower pots, although Canadians are still allowed to walk to the library’s U.S. entrance without going through a border post.

The DuMoulins’ house is directly across Stanstead’s Rue Principale from the port of entry staffed by agents of the Canada Border Services Agency and adjacent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection post.

Troy Rabideau, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection assistant port director for the area that includes Beebe Plain, said the agents know who lives there, but keeping track can be a challenge.

“It’s always a fine line,” Rabideau said. “We do the best we can to keep an eye on it. We do what we have to do, security first, but we also want the support of the locals.”

The DuMoulins’ house has entrances from the United States and Canada. There’s a small granite border marker just outside the front door.

A gate in a backyard hedge has been wired shut. Rosemary Lalime, their real estate agent, said that between the time the house was listed around the turn of the year and the end of May, when a Canadian magazine noted its odd location, she showed it 10 times. In the last two weeks, she’s shown it six times and has six more appointmen­ts.

DuMoulin said that usually the agents from both countries know who they are, but he told of a time when a new Canadian border agent saw him, his wife and her sister standing in front of the house, “a good 18 feet into the States.” He demanded they report to the Canadian border post.

“He simply didn’t know,” DuMoulin said, noting it took about 45 minutes to resolve the situation after the agent called his superiors.

“That’s the awkwardnes­s,” he said. “If there is an awkwardnes­s, it’s that you can’t just go this way or this way, you’ve got to go through (the ports of entry) and then back through.”

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