Gotta love the barn too. You could frame that.

I’ve seen a few of those around here but I think this one is the best. 👍🏻

I agree, that was a good reply, especially the friendly warning about lumping NY in with the rest of us. 😆👍🏻

Most towns on 89 will be right for you. My biased recommendation is that I can’t say enough good things about Hopkinton. It’s still a reasonable, and beautiful, drive to Sunapee but also close to Concord, Henniker, and Warner. I tend to go north on 89 when I go places and don’t really spend much time in Concord and still have more than enough to do. It’s a little hard to sense how great the people are around here until you are actually living here so it takes a leap of faith, but well worth it. I think pretty much any of the towns people mentioned here will be great and you’ll meet people fast enough.

I have an LG mini split system as my only source of heat. Outdoor temps went down to -18 with wind chill of -39 here and I had no problems at all. This is the second winter with these and last year also went down to -15 at least once and it was fine. These units are rated to -13F. When it gets down below zero they work harder but they still provide full heat. I turned them up to 74 on Friday and by Saturday morning I noticed the bigger unit, that had a much bigger area to heat, only kept it up to around 70, but that’s more than enough. I assume the larger indoor unit shut off occasionally as the outside unit probably couldn’t produce enough heat to keep sending hot air in and the inside unit shut off to avoid pumping in cold air, but I don’t know anything about them really and that’s only a theory. In any case, 70 degrees indoors when the wind chill was -39 outdoors isn’t bad at all I’d say.

I think it’s hard to look at someplace so different when you’re still in your current environment and understand or appreciate it fully. You’d probably be able to make a better decision and know if the architecture (which we are proud of) suits you or not. Places grow on people once they have a home and friends there so maybe it will work for you. So many people outside of New England don’t appreciate the things that we really love about it and that just rubs people the wrong way here when it’s criticized.

And to answer your original question, assuming it was sincere, yes, there are new houses here but most are built in the older styles (colonial, Victorian, farm house) to compliment what’s already here. If you’re looking for those plain, functional, and lifeless neighborhoods of cookie cutter houses that you see in the rest of the country, you’re not likely to find it here.

There’s more to New England than hiding from global warming. You don’t sound like you’d be very happy with our architecture and, probably, not the culture. Have you been here? I mean you’d be welcome if you were coming for the right reasons but move here and start complaining about things and you won’t make many friends or probably be very happy. Come up with an open mind and an honest interest in taking on and understanding why things are the way they are here and you’ll be fine. Just don’t plan on it being at all like where you are now, and architecture is only scratching the surface. Maybe visit a while?

You might want to try somewhere in the middle then, if you’re banking on global warming. It’ll be a long time before NH has mild winters and when that happens we’ll have a lot more to worry about.

Next he’ll be complaining that it’s too cold and snows too much and asking how to get rid of the black bears in the woods. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Maybe CA or some other non New England state would make sense for OP? Wow.

I heard drinks at The Library are great. Haven’t been yet though, but that came from a very good source.

So what makes up central NH?? Anything south of Colbrook and north of Tilton?? (eye roll) /s

Panic 9! Gotta love it. 😆

I can imagine. Especially if you ate the bowl and all. Looks delicious. 👍🏻

I’ve got about 100 Christmas cookies I just made sitting here. Swing by for dessert. 😆

This was good to read. As a native New Englander (grew up in MA and now live in NH) I always said that it might take longer to make friends here, but when you do they’ll be your friends for life and will be much more reliable than friends in the south or west. Of course that’s a broad generalization, but I think it’s true for the most part.

I spent my whole life coming to NH for vacation or whatever, but you really don’t fully know how great it is until you move here. Despite the things you mentioned that can be legitimately annoying, I’ve found getting absolutely anything done or dealing with anyone in town or state government here in NH to be a thousand times easier, less stressful, and certainly more professional and efficient than dealing with the same things in MA. Of course I live in a pretty small town here, but it seems to be the same throughout the state.

I grew up in SE MA and then lived in Boston for years before moving to central NH. I was lucky because I work remote so I got a place in NH first and then slowly moved here. It was the best thing I ever did. As a native of MA it was always annoying but you don’t realize just how awful it is until you leave. It’s not really the people but the state and town governments are just horrible, regardless of whether you lean left or right. It has nothing to do with politics really. The state is just mean and always warning you about something and presenting the penalty when you’d never do it anyway. There are definitely great people there, like anywhere, and beautiful towns, etc but I never knew you don’t have to just accept and live with all that misery until I moved out. I think if anyone is remotely unhappy with MA they shouldn’t hesitate to move, whether to NH or really anywhere else where you feel you’d be happier.

Ah. That could be, although it’s really small and usually only has a couple of cars there. Of course I’m broadcasting it on Reddit now so 🤷🏻‍♂️. This summer I came down 55 to 91 and GPS directed me over to Bebe Plain VT. That was also one with no traffic at all.

If you’re concerned about the line at 133/89, take a left at the flashing yellow light just before getting to the US border and follow it over to a tiny border crossing that comes into the US at route 207. You can then follow that to 78 and back to 89. It’s longer, but saves a ton of time. I wouldn’t think crossing at 55/91 would be any better than 89 as far as the wait goes.

I’d check out Hopkinton. It seems to check most of your boxes. Schools are very good, crime is pretty much unheard of, and the people are fantastic. I’m not a fan of Concord really but if you’re looking for stuff to do and medical facilities it’s fine and right nearby. Hopkinton is also fairly centrally located and right on 89 so easy access to a lot that NH has to offer as well as Dartmouth-Hitchcock in several locations.

Gould Hill Farm in Hopkinton has great cider doughnuts. No winery, but great hard cider they make there and usually good music on the weekends.