GOLDEN VALLEY, MINN.

WHAT: A four-bedroom house with three full bathrooms.

HOW MUCH: $425,000.

PER SQUARE FOOT: $143.68.

SETTING: Golden Valley is a suburb just west of Minneapolis, five miles from downtown. This house is in a residential neighborhood tucked between three parks — Rice Lake, Mary Hills and the public Wirth Golf Club — that are threaded by Bassett Creek. Byerly’s, a Twin Cities grocer, is about a mile west; a pharmacy and other basics are nearby. For restaurants, there’s West Broadway Avenue, a mile east — or Minneapolis. For public school, students head two miles north to Robbinsdale, a neighboring city. A transit bus stops a block away from the house.

INSIDE: The house has four bedrooms. The downstairs one is used as an office and has a separate entrance. The three upstairs bedrooms all have views of the surrounding gardens, and the master bedroom also has a Juliet balcony. The dining area has a built-in hutch. In the family room, French doors open out to a patio. There is a gas fireplace in the family room and a wood-burning one in the living room.

A four-season domed gazebo, attached to the house through a hallway from the living room, has views of the property from every side. There is a two-car garage with a little room for storage.

OUTDOOR SPACE: Surrounding the house are rose and perennial gardens that the owners have tended for 45 years. Other accents include a koi pond, a small waterfall, a porch swing under a deck and window boxes that have been fitted with a watering system. The place is so inviting, the listing agent said, that that people have stopped and “set up picnics in the backyard.”

TAXES: $5,317 a year.

CONTACT: Karla Rose, Edina Realty; (612) 840-2550; rosehomes.com.

KETCHUM, IDAHO

WHAT: A one-bedroom, one-bath cabin with two sleeping lofts.

HOW MUCH: $425,000.

PER SQUARE FOOT: $405.53.

SETTING: This cabin, built in 1940, sits in woods adjacent to a county road, about 100 yards from a creek that flows from the Clark Fork River. Ketchum, year-round population 3,000, more in the summer, is in the Sun Valley, and built like a crescent around Bald Mountain, Baldy to residents. The nearest ski lift is a 10-minute drive from the cabin. Groceries are available downtown, also about 10 minutes away. The elementary school is named after Ernest Hemingway, who had a house in Ketchum and is buried in town. Middle and high schools are in Hailey, 12 miles south.

INSIDE: Essentials in the cabin have been updated, but most of the details are original, including a cast-iron stove in the kitchen, a working rock fireplace in the living room and knotty-pine paneling through most of the house. There’s one bedroom downstairs and two sleeping lofts on an upper level, accessible by ladders. In the kitchen, a strip of windows over a low bank of built-in cabinets faces a pond on the property. There is also a den.

OUTDOOR SPACE: Aspen trees and other native plants surround the house. On one side of the house is the pond, and in the front is a covered porch.

TAXES: $690 a year.

CONTACT: Heidi Baldwin and Summer Bauer, Sotheby’s International Realty, Sun Valley Brokerage; (877) 578-1869; summersunvalley.com.

PRESCOTT, ARIZ.

WHAT: A two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house.

HOW MUCH: $425,000.

PER SQUARE FOOT: $188.39.

SETTING: This one-story, adobe-style house is on 2.8 acres in a 358-lot subdivision at the base of Granite Mountain, about 20 miles north of the center of Prescott. The wilderness leading up the mountain — named for its arrangements of huge granite boulders — is cut with hiking, biking and equestrian trails, and many residents have horses and recreational and all-terrain vehicles. Prescott, once the capital of the Arizona Territory, is a 40,000-person city five miles north of the Bradshaw Mountains. The city has a mix of big-chain and independent businesses. Whiskey Row, a chunk of Montezuma Street once lined with saloons, now caters to gallery-goers and diners, although there are still plenty of places for drinkers. Residents in this part of town can buy groceries downtown or in Chino Valley, about 14 miles east.

INSIDE: Floors are made of stained concrete throughout. The living room has a fireplace and vigas, peeled-log ceiling supports. A Native American floor design is painted on the entryway floor, and a legend for it is painted on a wall. The master bedroom has a window seat, a walk-in closet and patio access. The second bedroom, used as an office, opens to the living room. The kitchen, which is eat-in, has a pantry, and several rooms have access to patios.

OUTDOOR SPACE: The back patio, with views of a retention pond, is reached from both the great room and the master suite. The front patio is off the dining area, while the side patio is off the guest room.

TAXES: $3,004 a year.

CONTACT: Lorinda Johnson, Prescott Realty; (928) 445-0155; prescottrealty.com.