by Carol G

Created on: September 09, 2008   Last Updated: June 05, 2009

True love can show up anywhere. My friend and real estate agent mentioned one time how buying a home is more than a cut and dried financial issue. Emotions play a large part of the process, too, she said. Her words of wisdom proved to be factual, if not prophetic. A sad love story emerged while researching the history of a house we called the treetop house.

In the search for a Florida vacation home, we came across a place that was styled after some of the 1970's innovative designs. Right off, it tweaked memories of a more colorful era we had known in the past. The era of experimental music, free thinking, and brotherly love swept it's way through in the form of nostalgic moment. Wistfulness replaced realism as we embarked on our endeavor to purchase this dreamy little place in the sky.

My husband, Peter dubbed it the treetop house. Indeed, it would have been like a tree house for two big kids. We'd see the top of the world from our tree top view. We'd be safe and secure in our fort like castle in the air.

Other more practical considerations popped up when Peter wondered why we would choose a place like this in our sunset years. Still, we moved forward expedited by our own strange and mysterious force of emotions. In retrospect I can see more clearly that we wanted to get out of our then current home situation very badly. Our emotions motivated us to the point that we were a like a spring loaded mechanism, ready to leap on the first opportunity to relocate.

A realtor from Central Point One handled our offer. She told a depressing and mysterious story involving a true love, and how the treetop house came to be listed on the market. The story went as follows:

The former owner, Eric Chanz, had cohabitated with live-in lover, Marilyn Cundiff, and their beautiful toddler son, Ethan. Sadly, young Ethan became fatherless by the age of three. Also, at this tender young age, he had inherited the tree top house. Ethan's mother was appointed to act as guardian of the estate until the boy reached the age of eighteen. An attorney named Jason Werner was appointed as legal representative of the estate.

My husband, Peter, phoned the attorney the same afternoon that we had inspected the treetop house. In a lengthy phone conversation, Jason Werner had numerous time-consuming tales to impart. His overly abundant words seemed to pad the facts with squelchy nonessentials. Only after discussions of divorce, his $700,000 home, his friendship with Marilyn

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