$650,000 Homes in Missouri, Connecticut and Arizona

St. Louis

WHAT A seven bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath Georgian-style house built in 1895

HOW MUCH $649,900

SIZE 4,226 square feet

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $154

SETTING This house is in the Central West End area of St. Louis, near a medical complex with three hospitals. The neighborhood is a 15-minute walk from Forest Park. Shops, bistros and art galleries are close by.

INDOORS The large foyer sets the stage for the home’s elaborate original millwork and quarter-sawn oak floors. One of three functioning fireplaces (there are also two nonfunctioning ones) is near the base of the grand staircase. An arched stained-glass window surmounts the first landing.

The formal dining room has a floor-to-ceiling pier mirror framed by classical moldings. The kitchen was renovated in the last 10 years with stone countertops, a six-burner stove and radiant heated floors. A kegerator installed in an under-counter cabinet provides cool beer on demand.

The second-floor master bedroom is connected to a room currently used as a study. The master bathroom has a double vanity, glass shower enclosure with a double shower head and heated floors. Two additional bedrooms and a bathroom are on this floor. Each of the bedrooms has a large bolt screwed into the floor with a rope attached to it — ready to be tossed out the window as a fire escape. (It is uncertain exactly when these were installed.)

The third floor, which is reached by a back stairway, has three bedrooms and one bathroom. The unfinished basement has a gym with a rubber floor; all of the exercise and weight lifting equipment will remain there.

OUTDOOR SPACE The backyard has newly paved patio, raised garden beds and a koi pond. A covered patio is on the side of the house, reached through the living room. The .12-acre property also includes a two-car garage.

TAXES $5,857

CONTACT Teri Nicely, Red Key Realty, 314-707-1468; redkeystlouis.com

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Ridgefield, Conn.

WHAT A two-bedroom, two-bathroom lakefront home once owned by the singer Judy Collins, whose wind chimes still hang in the trees

HOW MUCH $639,000

SIZE 2,085 square feet

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $306

SETTING The house is on a 44-acre man-made lake in Ridgefield, a town in Fairfield County, Conn., an hour and a half from New York City. The community includes both seasonal residents and year-rounders. The lake is used for fishing and swimming (it has two beaches), and motorboats are banned; in winter, it attracts ice skaters. The home has its own dock.

INDOORS Built in the early 1970s, the house has a modern layout with an open living/dining room/kitchen area brightened by a full wall of windows and sliding glass doors. A spiral staircase leads to a pair of upstairs sleeping lofts and a private master bedroom downstairs with an en-suite bathroom. The living room has a vaulted ceiling and a wood-burning fireplace. The kitchen was updated within the last two years with sleek contemporary cabinets and Bosch appliances. The main floor has a bathroom with a shower.

OUTDOOR SPACE The half-acre grounds are planted with azaleas and rhododendrons. There is a firepit with a circle of log seats in front of the house and a patio beneath a grand willow tree in back, near the water’s edge. The living room opens to a long balcony with a cantilevered circular terrace overlooking the lake. Nearby, an elevated hot tub is built into a turret-like structure. A small outbuilding on the property has electricity. The parking area has room for up to four cars.

TAXES $9,954

CONTACT Maureen Maher, William Pitt and Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty, 203-240-1854; williampitt.com

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Tucson

WHAT A two-bedroom, two-bathroom house with an observatory, telescope and seismograph

HOW MUCH $650,000

SIZE 2,030 square feet

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $320

SETTING The corrugated metal house sits on a hilltop in the Picture Rocks area northwest of Saguaro National Park, a place with unusually dark night skies. Designed by Rob Paulus Architects of Tucson for an astronomer, the home has 360-degree desert and mountain views.

INDOORS Much of the main level is taken up by a double-height living-and-dining area with maple hardwood floors and glass walls. The kitchen is divided from this space by a breakfast bar and has a glass-tiled floor and backsplash, as well as glass doors leading out to a large cantilevered deck. Behind the kitchen are a mechanical room, slate-tiled bathroom with a tub and maple vanity and a bedroom entered through a sliding barn door.

A flight of industrial steel stairs leads to a loft space that overlooks the living area and was used as a home office. A laundry room and the master bathroom, with a pebble-floor shower, occupy the core. The master bedroom at the back has a glass wall and a large closet.

A storage shed beneath the home contains a seismograph that is sensitive enough to detect earthquakes as far away as Nepal. An observatory built on the property includes a telescope that can be manipulated from inside the house.

OUTDOOR SPACE The house is approached by a steep, serpentine driveway. Shaded parking is provided by a carport underneath the structure, and there is room next to the building for three additional cars. The five-acre property is visited by bobcats, coyote, quail, rattlesnakes and the hairy, sharp-toothed animals called javelina.

TAXES $3,192 (2016)

CONTACT Susan Denis, Habitation Realty, 520-977-8503; flexmls.com