Just a little bit of patience

Sometimes, searching for the perfect house is like looking for the perfect mate: You meet, you court, you try to close the deal.

In the case of Janet and Jim Bogorowski, patience and perseverance were the operative words. They were living in Upper Makefield when they had an epiphany about moving.

"We were spending more time leaving Bucks County than staying in it," says Janet, a stay-at-home mother of four. They golfed at Huntingdon Valley Country Club, and their two older boys were attending La Salle College High School in Wyndmoor. In other words, she spent inordinate amounts of time driving.

All those miles behind the wheel led Janet to look at houses in Huntingdon Valley, along the golf course where the family spent so much time. She dropped a note into the mailbox of one house she took a liking to, a lovely stone-and-clapboard charmer sitting on the eighth fairway. Everyone in the area knew it was the home of Bob and Mimi Thompson.

Bob Thompson, after reading the note, replied in the most polite way: He told Janet how much he, too, loved the house and the club, and that he planned to be taken out in a box.

Crestfallen, the Bogorowskis went back to looking as they readied their Upper Makefield house for sale.

One day, their agent showed their house and got an offer. Because the Bogorowskis had nowhere to go, they made a deal with the interested party that if they sold to anyone, it would be to them. Then Jim and Janet looked in Jenkintown for a house and, for nine months, worked on a deal to buy the old Gimbel estate.

Eventually, the couple sold their house and rented a place in Newtown for a year.

In the meantime, however, they had begun a two-year friendship/courtship with the Thompsons, going to dinner and getting to know one another.

The Bogorowskis got an oral history of the house and their lives: The Thompsons had raised three boys and two girls there; Mimi was in a garden club; Bob imported mahogany for a living and got to know architect-turned-furniture-maker George Nakashima. Then new to furniture design, the now-renowned Nakashima could not afford the wood, so Bob gave him materials to get started.

After one dinner, Jim Bogorowski, who works in the financial industry in New York, was feeling bold and asked Bob again: Would he sell them their house? Again, the answer was, "No." Janet and Jim found a rancher near the Thompsons, and they planned to tear it down and rebuild on the property.

"When Bob heard the news," Janet says, "he said, 'What are you doing? Buy our house.' " And that was that.

"So we bought the house," she says, "and took Bob and Mimi along with it, so to speak."

They settled in spring 2009 and moved to the Shore during the renovations. Though the house was very well-maintained, it also was dated. The couple pulled up shag carpeting, put in new heat, air-conditioning, and electrical service, and planned where they would reconfigure rooms.

"Bob came by to check on the construction and the guys, and they all got to know him," Janet says affectionately. "He loved being involved, and when it was done, he loved the finished product."

The bones of the 60-year-old house were lovely, and it had wall-to-wall windows in the living/dining room offering expansive views of the golf course. Those stayed, but Janet and Jim gutted all the bathrooms and rebuilt them, refinished floors, and took down walls that separated the kitchen and family room to make it an open space.

"The kitchen had been redone 20 years ago. We opened it up and added a peninsula," says Janet. With three children, ages 10 to 19, living at home, the open plan with a dining alcove was perfect.

The whole house was repainted, and in the master bedroom, a vaulted ceiling was added, as well as closets.

In the first-floor family room, a popcorn ceiling was pulled down, revealing a vaulted ceiling. With its rustic stone walls, the space now serves as Jim's office and as a game room. It, too, overlooks the golf course and a flagstone patio.

"I completely understood why Bob would not want to leave this house," says Jim. "Sixty years of this view could never be enough."

But come spring, the Bogorowskis spend much of their time shuttling from lacrosse field to lacrosse field. Son Derek plays for Lehigh University; son Jack is heading to Johns Hopkins University in the fall, where he will play; and Hanna and Gunnar are on multiple teams.

Mom and Dad wouldn't have it any other way. Their house on the golf course serves as a hub of activity for friends and family when they are not on the fields.

"This is our third house since we have been married," says Janet. "When I was growing up, I was an Army brat. We moved three times when I was in high school. I feel like I can live here a long time."

Even if sometimes it feels as if they are just stewards of the place.

Two years after moving in, Janet called a landscaper and gave him her address. "Oh, you live in Bob and Mimi's house."

Her reply: "Yes, we do."

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