In 1998, the McLeans bought a three-story stone farmhouse on five acres just outside the quaint crossroads of Birchrunville. The house needed care and repair. McLean, 46, a carpentry contractor, built a two-story addition, tore down the old barn, and erected a two-car garage.

In the process, he overextended himself financially. In March, the McLeans offered their property for sale. The asking price: $679,900, which McLean thought reasonable.

Since then, with not a single offer, they have dropped the price to $599,900.

"We won't go any lower," he vows. "This is not your cookie-cutter house. All it takes is the right person."

The McLeans aren't the only sellers waiting for "the right person." According to newly released data, it took an average of 215 days - longer than anywhere else in the eight-county region - to sell a newer used home in West Vincent. It can take months, sometimes years, to sell antique homes, such as the McLeans', as well.

"A lot of people can afford to wait," says Taylor Braendel, 66, a West Vincent resident for 25 years and a real estate agent with the Devon office of Long & Foster.

"That's the reason these houses are staying on the market so long. The owners are holding out for a better price because they figure there's no better place in the world to live."

When houses do sell in West Vincent, they command a handsome price. In the first nine months of this year, the median price of the 27 houses sold in the township rose nearly 23 percent over the same period last year, to $620,000.

"What that underscores for me is the desirability of living here," Braendel says. "It's very peaceful and quiet, and there's no through traffic. You feel like you're in another world."

West Vincent, due west of Phoenixville, is a prelapsarian preserve of classic Chester County landscapes - rolling hills and meadows, wooded glens and streams, seemingly unmolested by the ugly march of progress that is symbolized by the vapor plume of the Limerick nuclear reactor on the eastern horizon.

Fieldstone farmhouses erected in the 18th century share the terrain with architect-designed executive mansions owned by digital-age capitalists, some of whom commute to New York, Washington and Baltimore. The tally-ho crowd hunts foxes in vivid scarlet jackets, and local aristos take spins in carriages pulled by teams of four over a covered bridge that spans the French Creek.

Owning a four-wheel-drive vehicle is a must; 16 miles of township roads are unpaved, which is just fine with the township's 4,600 rusticating residents, who receive their mail at northern Chester County's most prestigious addresses: Chester Springs and Birchrunville.

"We're an all-American mix out here," says township supervisor Zoe Perkins, 61, a resident of West Vincent for 30 years. "We've got it all - the fabulously wealthy, a healthy blue-collar community, and everything in between."

The village of Birchrunville is a time-warp crossroads. Outside the former general store is a rusty gas pump from the Eisenhower era. Inside is a café whose cuisine is widely acclaimed and where weekend reservations must be made far in advance. In the vestibule of the tiny post office, locals gather to exchange greetings and gossip.

"It's a hidden gem," woodworker Ken Hakun, 49, who was picking up his mail yesterday, says of West Vincent. "What makes it great is the diversity - artists, writers, doctors, lawyers."

Across the street is an antiques shop owned by Richard Wright, a doll expert and regular on the Antiques Roadshow.

"This is a lovely township, still primarily rural, whose citizens have expressed many times over their desire to keep it that way," supervisor Perkins says. "We have had some subdivisions, but they're relatively well-contained, and there's enough open space around them that they blend in and don't look so raw and unfinished."

Nearly a quarter of the township's private land has been placed under conservation easement, and the township itself owns 496 acres of open space. Dense development is concentrated along major highways in the township's western fringe, such as the Hankin Group's Weatherstone, a mixed-used community on 300 acres at Routes 100 and 401.

"It's a good place to live, and the people who have moved in have continued to keep it that way," says supervisor chairman Ken Miller, 56, a dairy farmer. "We have many new residents, but it seems the spirit is the same."

The pastoral charm comes at a cost. Only three houses are for sale in the township for less than $350,000, according to figures compiled by Braendel; 79 houses cost more than that, including 10 houses at more than $1 million.

Chris Stoner, director of sales and operations at James A Cochrane Inc., a local real estate agency that handles many West Vincent properties, says she believes the reported jump in median price might be a "statistical fluke." The number of houses sold is relatively small, so one or two big sales might skew the average.

Moreover, the median price dipped significantly in 2007 - to $505,000 during the same nine-month period, by her calculation - partly because more lower-priced homes were purchased. So the dramatic 2008 rise might be more bounceback than fresh leap, she theorizes.

As for why houses are languishing, "buyer volume is off everywhere," Stoner says.

Supervisor Perkins speculates it might have something to do with the quirks and vagaries of aged country homes.

"You have to be very brave to take on these old places," she says. "They don't always behave like a new house. Many strange things can happen. Our old house had a stream running through the basement. Very cool if you didn't mind it, but a horror if you did."