Every season has a lesson. Sometimes the right choice is staying put. Hit ❤️ if you've been here. Share it if you know someone who is.

A few years ago, Nick and I co-hosted a fundraiser for our kids’ school with another family who lives in a beautiful townhome in Brooklyn. They had clearly renovated this building from the studs. And the result was a house that was made for living and entertaining–the perfect balance. The husband of the wife we were working with talked about how he felt when they first purchased the home. They, with their three boys, lived in an apartment not far from this dilapidated, rodent infested pile of bricks. If you’re familiar with New York City real estate, you know that these bricks were not cheap. He said he’d walk from their apartment to the house almost daily. He’d stand outside of it and look, sometimes wondering if they had made the wrong decision. His collar felt tight because of how much they paid and how much renovation was ahead of them. He confided in some of his colleagues at work about his feelings of uncertainty. And they laughed and reassured him that they, too, had felt the same way when making their first major purchase. All his jitters could be chalked up to what anyone feels when they’re leveling up or charting new territory.

Image (L-R): Joe Rogers, Executive Director of Total Equity Now, a literacy based organization in Harlem that I partnered with many years ago when I worked for The Laundromat Project; me; Gyna Uhrlass, my friend from church. I saw Gyna walking by as I was doing some maintenance work at the Lenox store and we ended up catching up for a bit before Joe ran into us and took this picture. Joe and Gyna and had just met each other not too long ago. Harlem is a small hamlet and it gets smaller for me by the day, and I am completely ok with it.

I have lived in New York for the majority of my life, save my 12 formative years in DC. Once I realized that this city would be my adult home, I started to dream about home ownership. Once Nick and I decided to get married, I got more focused on owning something, which was pretty audacious considering my salary and savings account at the time.

An opportunity in a limited equity cooperative (HFDC) presented itself and we ended up moving to our apartment building 13 years ago. But, when we opened the door to our first place, my heart sank. I knew what the other units in our building looked like and ours did not feel the same. The layout was different and the amount of space, while pretty decent for the city, was smaller than what I had seen in other places in the building.

Image: The outdoor screening room that Nick whipped up in a short period of time on Monday. Customers and neighbors sat together under the scaffolding that has been up for close to 10 years to watch the Knicks game. This felt like welcoming neighbors to watch the game in my backyard even though I only new five of the people there.

Nick liked it while I remained unsure. We ended up moving in, which turned out to be one of the best decisions we could have made. This apartment is what has made Sugar Hill Creamery possible in more ways than one, but that’s an email for a different day. When we moved in, I was pregnant with one child and completely oblivious to the fact that I’d have two more.

Now, 13 years later, our party of five has been itching for a bit more space. Last fall, I learned that one of our neighbors who lives in one of the largest units in our building had listed her five bedroom, two bathroom with separate living room and dining room apartment. This felt like the time to make a move. We quickly, and I mean very quickly, got our apartment listed. Once the apartment was officially on the market, we’d spend the next couple of weeks vacating our place so people could see it. We submitted our offer to the seller and they accepted it, but we ended up walking away from the deal because of an unavoidable flip tax that would require us to forfeit 40% of the proceeds from the sale of our place. Flip taxes have multiple functions–they ensure that sellers are not selling their apartments for large profits and they pass some of the profits back to the co-operative for future maintenance, repairs, and reserve accounts. While these are all good and necessary functions, 40% is still pretty steep for shareholders who will stay on premises, which is the argument I was trying to make with our board at the time.

We ultimately withdrew our offer to free the seller of us. They had been eager to sell and leave the city. Dealing with all of this back and forth so we could add one more bathroom and two more rooms to our home without a clear timeline as to when we’d be able to close felt un-neighborly. So they moved on and so did we.

Image: Sheryl Lee Ralph aka Ms. Barbara Howard of Abbott Elementary stopped by our Lenox Ave store two weekends ago and one of my building neighbors asked her if she could take this picture. She sent it to me right after. I was moved by my neighbor’s gesture as well as Ms. Barbara Howard’s presence in the store!!

Unlike the family at the beginning of this email, we did not have the stomach to more than quadruple our cost of living with a significantly higher mortgage with today’s interest rates (our current rate is 0.125% – one of my greatest adult achievements thanks to the mortgage product NACA offers). We have taken on a great deal of risk starting Sugar Hill Creamery. Adding more risk felt like too much. Though I long for a home that is perfect for living and entertaining, I more so long for the peace of mind that comes with easy living because being a food entrepreneur in New York City is stressful enough. Adding personal financial strain to my list of stresses would not have suited me well.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was a little sad. Our kids were so excited about the idea of having more space, but I know we made the right decision despite their disappointment. The spaciousness of living in a big home with the financial heaviness that would have come while walking in it, was not worth all the rooms we would have gained.

I imagine that when the couple purchased their Brooklyn townhouse, it felt a bit out of reach but also attainable. The vision for the home they’d build, literally and figuratively, was there. I had a vision for our family having more space for living and entertaining but I didn’t have a vision for how we’d make that happen plus the vision for how I want to grow our business.

Image: Sugar Hill Creamery was never just going to be a one-store wonder on Lenox Avenue. This is a movement and we are just getting started.

I believe when the vision isn’t clear, the actions you take towards realizing them won’t be as confident. This leaves space for worry and missteps when the unknown needs you to be brave and self-assured as you chart the path to your vision. When you’re creating your own path, you don’t have a ton of space not to be confident, if not delusional. You have to believe that you will realize your vision no matter what. I didn’t know how we were going to pull off increasing our cost of living almost five times while growing our business.

I was updating one of my oldest friends about apartment-gate this weekend and she reminded me that something better is coming and I do believe that. Until it arrives, I’m going to keep ticking away at my vision for Sugar Hill Creamery. My conviction for our growth over the last nine years has gotten us this far.

Petrushka

Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach