Obviously upgrade the garage doors, maybe with a trellis above. Otherwise great landscaping (ditch the hedge…) and a beautiful path and call it home.

It's a gorgeous house. I will say if curb appeal is really important to you, not being able to see your house from the street and driving up to your garage each day might be a letdown. You are the only one who can weigh the importance of it.

Taking out the large hedge and then creating a more visitor friendly parking court within sight of the front door might be the way to go. People pulling into your drive would turn toward the left and then see the front of your home. I also think that landscaping is the answer to your question. The elevation from the street is an issue. But I do think that you might look for a landscape design specialist for advice, renderings, etc. before making a purchase offer on the property.

IMO if the house is perfect then work on making the entry obvious and to start new garage doors that are much better with the style of the house . I think the view trumps the entry .I would probably make a whole new driveway for guests leading to the front entry somehow. Hard to see from th pics how to do that.

If you have concerns about facing the neighbors back yard I might suggest planting trees to give a modicum of separation between you and your neighbor. Thuja green giants are evergreen trees that grow rather quickly and provide thick foliage.

It looks pretty obvious to me where visitors should head when walking from their car to the house and I even think the curved hedge highlights the path. Hard to tell from the photos, but do you have two doors on the front of your house - the main one plus one between the garage and the house? That situation can be confusing to visitors because they don't know which door they should use. If that's the case, then that's the problem that needs to be solved.

Where I grew up, most people would go to that recessed porch door. It may make sense, if you buy this house, to make that a nice door for people to go to.

(But where I grew up, at that time people would walk around to the back door of the house by default even though it was clearly the back door, that's just the way they did it then.)

Thanks for all the suggestions! lots to think about. Adding or revising the driveway/parking is a no-go. there is not as much space to the front of the house as might appear (the row of trees visible at the bottom of the ”nice” photo is the neighbor’s), and there is already a large separate RV/parking area in the back, past the driveway.

We are going to take another look with alternate landscaping/path/garage in mind! and the first entrance door is to a laundry room, which could be turned into a true mudroom for normal entry to the house.

It's is a lovely home, and so, so almost perfect! Maybe hard to find another with so many pluses, and all homes have their minuses. Landscaping that includes a nicely curved path from the street, past the tree on the left (2nd picture) that is closer to the neighbor's hedge than the house itself will direct people to the main entrance. Once you face the house, it is obvious which is the main entrance. I don't like hedges, so I would do beds that steer people away from the laundry room. It can all be fixed with landscaping over time...in the meantime, you have a home that meets your needs and wants.

Just a note: Our home is on a "flag lot," which is the main thing I didn't like about it...no curb appeal. We have a longer driveway than others in the neighborhood, and the house faces sideways (by no means as large and elegant as yours, much more modest home). I was so disappointed because curb appeal was important to me, but it was what was available/affordable/and in other ways, perfect (neighborhood, size,

pool, larger than normal lot). Thirty-one years later, and we still love our home. Because it is a flag lot, we have more privacy, and once you get up to the front door we feel like we are in our own little world. My MIL, who lived for years in Beverly Hills on a large corner lot, when she first saw the home we had purchased, she exclaimed, "It is like your own private estate!" And that is how it feels.

Unless the price is really good, I wouldn't buy it. Some things can be fixed with enough money. This problem can never be fixed. Also, as far as code goes, which side is the front and back? Because there are typically different code requirements for the back yard than for the sides and front yard. You may later want to add an addition to the house and find out the only way to do it is if it's put on the left side relative to facing the front door.

Only you can make this choice. Funny, I was just talking to my husband that we onky had one home where we walked into the house from the front door. All others, we enter through the garage, after leaving our car in the driveway.

Not sure why you think people will be confused about finding the front.

The laundry room door might add to confusion though.

What else is available? How long are you have you been looking?

My house is sideways to the street and the most magnificent side (it's a Queen Anne) is facing the backyard. There's a steep hlll from the street-facing side of the house to the road, and trees for privacy, so you have to pull into the driveway to see the front door.

We have emphasized where to go with stone wall with lanterns flanking the driveway. We do have to put our a pumpkin where it's visible on Halloween. That's really the only issue we've had with not facing the street.

You could do a lot with the landscaping to lead people to your door of choice. Maybe it's the pic, but you have what looks like 2 hedges between the street view and the door and the brick island bed around the birch is a barrier, too. Unless that bed is planted up with gorgeous plants, I'd make it smaller. I'd remove some or all of the hedge and curve a path around from the driveway to the front door, lined with low-growing plants.

You can transplant the yews (or whatever that hedge is) and put the plants along your property line. Or on the 4 corners of your property.

It looks like a lovely house and you'll probably use the porch more because of the views than you would if it faced the street.

I doubt that every new person will be confused on where to go on arrival. If the front door is their destination, it's obvious where that is.