That Old House

. . . just needs some love and care

There’s a house near where I live that I have dreamed of owning for years and years. Today it’s a house that I’m mourning.

Built in 1914, it was once a beautiful, gracious brick home, two stories, with a luxurious front porch, stately pillars holding up balconies on the front and side, and a huge lot. I could just imagine all the life that house has seen, all of the parties, celebrations, and events it hosted, all of the people who started families there, all of the kids who grew up there. I used to fantasize about owning that house, with its many rooms and expansive yard. The house would have had plenty of space for the 7’ Steinway grand I once owned; loads of room for a great big studio; lovely guest bedrooms for my sons and family when they’d visit. The yard could have held a dog yard with gobs of room left over for an arbor, a patio, several decks, a lush garden, a treehouse, and even a swimming pool.

I daydreamed, too, about buying it with friends who had one or another entrepreneurial bent that this house could easily nourish. A bed and breakfast with a gift shop containing my cards and art, along with a friend’s baked goods; and a garden in which my green thumbed friend could literally have a field day.

It was such a grand house, once.

Then, over the years, I watched it crumble. Little by little it aged and faltered. Then another and another window was boarded up. A drain pipe pulled away from the house. The woodwork of the balconies and around most of the windows lacked paint and started to fall apart. Some of the brick eventually fell away.

Today there’s a FOR SALE sign on it and an Open House is being held. Of course I rushed right in. I’d wanted to see inside that house for years and years. The grand staircase at the entryway is still beautiful, still grand. But so much of the inside is even worse than the outside. Black mold covers most of one room’s walls and ceiling. In the front room, part of the wall has crumbled all the way to the exterior brick. Wallpaper hangs in sheets. The front door barely closes.

But why? Why wouldn’t the owners have sold the house long ago if the upkeep was too much? Why let it fall into rack and ruin? This makes me sad. Someone could have loved that house and taken care of it long before now. It could be the home it once was. Just imagine the love, the dinners, the parties! Imagine sliding down that staircase! Or sedately walking down it into a party of all your best-loved people, eventually spilling out onto the beautiful lawn and garden, hung with sparkly lights of an evening.

Now who will take on this gracious but aging beauty and restore it to its former glory, rather than tear it down and build something new or, even worse, as the realtor’s website suggests, use the lot for “multiple lot reconfiguration?” I hope someone is inspired by what could be and chooses to renovate this lovely home. It won’t be me, alas! I have neither the means nor the ambition. I’m busy trying to keep my own little piece of heaven in one piece and free of critters. But we’ve seen too many beautiful old homes in that neighborhood torn down to be replaced with new ones.

Someone please save this one!

“And there were houses, he knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human.” - Nora Roberts

“The reality is that old houses that were built a hundred years ago were built by actual craftsmen, people who were the best in the world at what they did. The little nuances in the woodwork, the framing of the doors, the built-in nooks, the windows—all had been done by smart, talented people, and I quickly found that uncovering those details and all of that character made the house more inviting and more attractive and more alive.” - Joanna Gaines

“Most people these days chase new things - new houses, new cars, new objects. But, they don't realize that old houses, old cars, and old objects have something that new things don't have - their history and culture.” - Avijeet Das

“Tearing down an old house and building a new one is the most wasteful thing we do as humans.” - Grace Potter

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Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”