#1 : August 5, 2023

Ode To a House

Dear Owner #1

Welcome home, I am happy to learn that you are enjoying your new house, and  I hope that you relish that spot for many years to come.  It is a special place for kids to spend their childhood, and someday your family may feel a similar nostalgia and can understand the loss that the former family deeply feels.  That rubble whisked away from your job site was woven with the memories of extended families and friends whose song and laughter filled the air inside those walls for nearly 40 years.  Each generation that lives on a piece of land can build their lives as they choose.  This piece is not written to scold you for your decision, but rather an ode to a house, and a memory of a home.  I cannot comment on the monstrosity I have seen as your replacement – it would not be fair, as I was predestined to dislike anything that took over that hallowed ground.

The House on Carriage Lane

Carriage Lane, a sleepy street in a summer community, was one of the first places outside my house that I remember loving as a kid.  It belonged to my cousins’ family and was a big part of my childhood.   I would ride my bike there from where I lived, across the bay; the first trip each summer left my legs a little wobbly, but soon the rides grew swift, and even the speed bumps could be navigated with hands off of the handlebars.

I would jump the three brick steps on the front porch in one leap and give a quick knock before bursting through the door.  The second warning of my arrival was usually a “hello…”, but I never remember stopping before rounding the corner to the porch/kitchen/ dining room, at least while I was a kid.  After becoming an adult and my uncle’s second marriage, entering the house seemed more of an intrusion despite the urges to “come right in”.  

My love of houses began when being a “guest” didn’t feel like a barrier there.  In my opinion, this house was, and its memory still is, a supreme house in every sense.  It was a great size, layout and was sited exceptionally with the landscaping.  My aunt was the reason for its success.  She was an incredible force in all things garden-related, but her creativity and vision also extended inside. 

When you stepped through the front door, you arrived in the living room; it was spacious enough for two full-size seating areas, but it never felt big in any way.  Perhaps the old windy stairs to the second floor located directly next to the front door, the seating areas themselves, arranged closely together and away from the side walls to allow circulation through the many doors that flanked the room, or maybe it was the low ceilings juxtaposed with the wide plank floors that kept the scale “in check”.  I think about that room in every project I work on, and I strive to achieve the grace of that room in every space.

Just off the living room was the room we used the most, referred to as the “porch”.  Once, it had been a porch but had become an interior space one step down from the other rooms long before my memory serves.  The porch gave the whole first floor a unique way of creating a type of open floor plan or partially open floor plan.  It connected through large double doors to the kitchen, the dining, and the living rooms.  The porch was command central for the parents at gatherings when all of the kids would run through to the outside and back again, intent on our game of hide and seek.  They would sit, small groups of adults, dispersed in the various rooms on the first floor; the porch connected them acting as a breezeway for carrying conversation.  At quieter times, I remember coming down from my cousin’s room, after a sleepover, and finding my aunt perched on a stool by the kitchen doorway, focused on her crossword puzzle.  We would scramble into the kitchen, grab a bite, and head outside.  The yard next to the porch mimicked the proportion of the porch itself, only slightly larger and contained by an evergreen hedge.  The hedge marked the ridge of the steep bank to the water below, and a barrier keeping us safe from the poison ivy that covered the hill.  The grass there captured the first glimpse of the morning light and served a warm and cozy place to settle into breakfast, even on a chilly morning.

Not all of the memories were as pure or as happy, but the house itself was a monument to the resilience of my family.  When my uncle passed away suddenly a few years back, and the future of the house was unclear, the memories of our times spent there flooded our conversations.  When it was sold, my cousins mourned the loss of their father and the childhood that was left behind.  They had always come back to this place.  It was their touchpoint.  To see it as simply another house along the shore rather than a part of themselves was too painful for them to return.  Seeing the house from across the bay recalled a vault full of memories of times spent.  It also recalled every sense I had in those memories: the feel of the brick floor at midday after absorbing the morning sun, the cool of the brick floor first thing before the sun reached it; Two completely opposite sensations of the same spot, but the material seemingly transitioning not only in temperature, but its roughness and density as well.  Every corner of the house carries me to an event, emotion, or sensation I hope always to remember.  I am happy that my kids also remember swimming there with my cousin’s son and being bored while we, now the grown-ups, droned on in our conversations on the porch.  Now that the walls no longer stand, I hope those memories will stay strong within each of my senses to continually recall them when designing new spaces for other families to flourish.