Judie Bistline, left, is biding her time until Marilyn "Lynn" Williams is willing to sell her home on East Orange Street. Bistline admired the house before she realized she knew its owner, Williams, who attends the same church. Bistline keeps asking when the house will go up for sale, and Williams keeps saying, "Not yet!" Photo Courtesy Lancaster Newspapers

Is it the thrill of the chase or fate and true love? Only the house-obsessed know for sure

Lancaster Intelligencer Journal
(Excerpts)

April 18, 2008

Phil and Sue Bishop of Ephrata know how to stalk a house.

They weren't sinister stalkers, just persistent stalkers.

They wanted a house that was built during the American Arts and Crafts movement, a home that emphasized line, curvature and natural form, the Bishops explained.

The style of housing from that early 20th Century era matched the lifestyle and stage of life the Bishops were entering - one of simplicity and connectedness to nature.

Through a real estate agent, the Bishops sent a letter to the homeowners, letting them know they were interested in buying the home if the owners were interested in selling.

"We not only saw the houses and the style, we could picture the gardens and the landscaping, and it would blend together in the vision we were looking for," Sue Bishop said.

They came close to buying it three different times, Phil Bishop said. They first considered it when the owner was still living there, then after the bank owned it and finally when another person was selling it "as is."

The house will always stick in their minds, Sue Bishop said. "We're always going to say, 'Geez, what if we could have had that house.' "

Judie Bistline's perfect house is on East Orange Street in Lancaster city. She was surprised when a woman with whom she played bells at church invited her to a luncheon at the very house Bistline had admired for 15 years.

Marilyn Williams, a guidance counselor retired from the School District of Lancaster, bought it in 1977. And she is very aware that Bistline wants it.

It's become a joke between them.

"I want that house when you are gone," Bistline tells her.

"I am not planning to go," Williams counters.

So Bistline has decided to bide her time, and just keep "cozying up" to Williams.

Williams admits she likes the flattery that Bistline and others give her house.

"I'm a bit of a ham. I like recognition," she said.

Gradually Williams, who is 77, is coming to terms with the reality that she might not be able to spend the rest of her life in the house. If she ever does reach a decision to sell, she said she would go to Bistline - with a smile on her face - and ask her to buy it.

Bistline isn't so sure that will ever happen. "She's going to live forever, just so I can't have it," she joked.