My best friend built a dream house on the lake. And I get to live in it (sometimes).

Things I know about the Charlotte home of one of my closest friends that I wouldn’t know if I didn’t spend so much time there:

• The egg chair on the porch off her bedroom is the best place in the house, hands down. It faces the neighborhood lake, yet is shaded for people with ginger skin like me (and her).
• Every room in the house has the best view, somehow. If you’re not facing the lake, you’re facing the pool. Either way, you’re somehow on spa resort time, even if you’re spending your days working (while using her walking pad, of course, gotta get the steps in).
• It’s exactly .5 mile run from her front door to the end of her street, if you run a little past the sign that says not to go past the sign. The .5 back is much easier (downhill), and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see the neighborhood hawk hangin’ round.
• Speaking of the hawk, there are a lot of creatures to look out for/enjoy time with: there’s the dog that lives there (of course!), but also the deer family, the heron, the Canada geese, the bunnies, squirrels, lizards and frogs.
  
  

We occasionally do home tours here in CharlotteFive, and this is my first time writing one about a home that is so personal to me.

I bet you’re wondering how I got so lucky to spend so much time here. Well, the CliffsNotes version is that I met my friend Heather Harjes years ago at hot yoga (shout out to Arrichion !) and we bonded instantly, have been close ever since. We even share a dog! X lived with her for his first few years, and he’s been with me ever since. So when one of us is out of town, the other is on dog (well, dogs plural) duty.

Ever since the pandemic started, Heather’s house, located in a neighborhood with a private lake in Charlotte, has been a wonderful escape. When she goes out of town, that’s where I come in. (She actually lived two doors down in the first couple of years of the pandemic, then she moved to this home.) Sometimes I’m there for a day or two, sometimes a week or more. I do hot yoga in her bathroom. I cook in her kitchen. I swim and paddleboard in her neighborhood lake and float around her pool. It’s magical!

[ANOTHER SPECIAL HOUSE: My childhood home in Fort Mill is for sale — but the memories it holds are priceless.]

Check out the house

There’s something really special about the house itself. She purchased the 1962-built one-story midcentury modern home, then hired Revision Design/Remodeling to renovate the house and add a second story. It turned out beautifully! She and her young daughter moved in at the end of 2022. I toured the house before the work began, and the “after” is stunning — as you’ll see below. All of the work kept the vibes of the original house while doing a gorgeous update.

Heather also worked with a personal organizer, Organize by Julia , to get everything where it needs to go. I’m so impressed with the result — I’ve never had to ask Heather where anything is. I just wonder where it would go intuitively, open a drawer and there it is.

And with that, I’ll shut up now and let you take a look around. Check out my wonderful home away from home — I mean, Heather’s house:

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