Hearing the call of a 'quiet corner'

POMFRET, Conn. -- Brian Zagrodny's morning routine is carefully orchestrated as he gears up for his 67-mile commute. He can get out of bed and have his Volvo headed to his Cambridge office in a mere 15 minutes if he jumps into sweat clothes and showers at work. Under ideal conditions, the commute from his home here takes 75 minutes, but a winter storm or an accident can really throw off his schedule.

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"I've left as early as 4 a.m. and as late as 10 a.m." said Zagrodny, 33, an account manager for a consulting firm. "There's always traffic."

Homeowners have long made the trade-off of a grueling commute for a nice, affordable house. A recent study by MassINC, a Boston think tank, found that the number of Massachusetts workers who spend at least 90 minutes a day commuting increased from 11 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 2000.

And now, thanks to more liberal company policies on flex-time and telecommuting -- as well as the popularity of cellphones, which allow commuters to do business while driving -- some house hunters are choosing distant locales. This small but hardy breed is unruffled by pre-dawn reveilles and long stretches on the Mass. Pike with the radio tuned to "Imus in the Morning" or "Traffic on the Threes."

For the same money that would buy a cookie-cutter house in a Boston suburb, these folks are purchasing peace and quiet and a country squire's lifestyle in such Northeastern Connecticut communities as Pomfret, Thompson, and Woodstock, said Stephanie Gosselin, a realtor for Benson & Larkin Unique and Fine Properties in Woodstock.

For years, Greater Boston workers have roamed far afield to make their housing dollars stretch. Folks regularly commute to lower-priced real estate in New Hampshire and Maine. More recently, Providence has become a hot address. Now it may be Connecticut's turn.

According to Gosselin, there has been a steady uptick in home sales in Connecticut's so-called "quiet corner" to buyers from Hartford, Providence, and Boston's western suburbs, which are within an hour's drive. Many of the Greater Boston house hunters, she said, are from "just outside the 128 belt," from places like Dover and Holliston.

"We're seeing very successful people who aren't nine-to-fivers," Gosselin said. "The buyers are people who don't want to live in Joe Q's suburban subdivision but want to own a lovely property."

Zagrodny would certainly describe the home he and his wife, Jessica Zagrodny, bought last year as a lovely property. With a third child on the way, they were about to outgrow their two-bedroom home in Wrentham. But places they looked at in the $350,000 range in Wrentham, Franklin, and Mendon were "overpriced and overcrowded," he said. The couple explored having a home built in Sturbridge, but feared it wouldn't be ready in time for their oldest daughter to start kindergarten. In the end, they bought a place in Pomfret with four bedrooms, three working fireplaces, and just over two acres of land.

"It's beautiful and quiet," said Zagrodny, who sometimes spends a few minutes standing on the front lawn enjoying the sunrise before heading to work. "And you get a lot more for your money."

As of last week, the latest year-to-date median sales prices available for some of the Massachusetts communities where the Zagrodnys looked for single-families, homes were $400,000 for Wrentham, $395,150 for Franklin, and $405,000 for Mendon, according to the Warren Group, a provider of real estate information.

In comparison, Connecticut's "quiet corner" is a bargain. Through October, year-to-date median sales prices were $259,000 in Pomfret, $189,500 in Thompson, and $245,000 in Woodstock.

And Pomfret is close enough to Wrentham that old friends come to visit. One drawback to the new place: "Major malls are 30 to 40 minutes away," Zagrodny said.

When he lived in Wrentham, Zagrodny sometimes took the commuter rail to Boston. "I hated it," he said.

Commuting by Volvo is a different story. He sometimes listens to training and motivational tapes, Zagrodny said, and the alone time gives him a chance to "map out a strategy for the day."

Peter Waskiewicz, 33, whose roundtrip commutes can stretch from 84 to 146 miles a day, prefers tuning into talk radio. An auditor who lives in Woodstock, he sometimes works in Boston and sometimes in Southborough. He swears his Saab can make it to Boston in 75 minutes if he leaves by 6:15 a.m. The Southborough commute takes about 45 minutes.

One thing in his favor is that most of the drive is on major highways such as the Pike and Interstate 395. Woodstock to Boston is a commute that's too far for most folks, but it's roughly 40 miles to Boston's western suburbs, like Hopkinton and Framingham, where such major employers as EMC Corp. and Staples Inc. have big offices.

In Thompson, Waskiewicz and his wife have just renovated a 200-year-old brick-ended Colonial that Waskiewicz bought with his uncle as an investment. They kept period details such as wall stenciling while installing a modern kitchen with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. The house has four bedrooms and six working fireplaces. There's also a barn on the nearly four-acre property and plenty of trees.

In September, they listed the home with Gosselin, the realtor, for $699,000. The Waskiewiczes closed on the sale of the house Thursday for $665,000, Gosselin said. The buyers are a couple planning to get married. One of the buyers now lives in Newport, R.I., and intends to commute to Providence once he moves in, she said.

The "quiet corner" of Connecticut takes some getting use to, said Waskiewicz's wife, Valerie Waskiewicz, a Medford native. She initially missed the restaurants of Cambridge, and her family reacted at first as if she had decamped to the hinterlands. "They said, 'What are you going to do out there with the cows?' " she recalled.

A graphic designer who often works at home, Valerie Waskiewicz has grown to love Woodstock.

"There are so many things out here I adore," she said. "I feel very welcome and comfortable. It's wonderful if you can get used to not having everything at arm's length. It's so calm and quiet. You don't have the stress you have in the city."

From a parochial perspective, there would seem to be a drawback to Connecticut: Much of the state roots for New York sports teams. That's not necessarily the case in the "quiet corner."

"This is Red Sox country," Peter Waskiewicz said. "You have to get past Hartford to see Yankee hats."

Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com.