Thanks for sharing your experience. I wonder if you know if this tree
can be pruned to keep it relatively small. Since the tree is only 15
feet from my house, I want to keep it within 25 feet tall and may be
aroun 25 feet wide. Otherwise if I let it grow naturally, because of
it's vicinity to the house it might turn into sort of a ugly
'columnar' shape which is out of proportion.


Sugar Maples (Acer Saccharum) are not known to have invasive roots,
unlike Silver Maple. I think you should be okay with 15 feet
clearance. Sugar Maple trees grow best with lots of space surrounding
them. My sugar maple is now 40 feet tall, after 10 years--beautiful
tree and nice golden color leaves in the fall. They are somewhat slow
growers, prefer full sun, moist soil.