The Lives of Houses
My family has a collective obsession with houses. Sydney, age 8, enjoys looking at the houses we drive by and imagines the improvements she would make were the home hers. John, makes a living renovating and restoring homes and I sell homes. Yesterday, I listed a magnificent historic home that has decayed for many,many years. It is the kind of home that makes my husband and I weak in the knees--pretty much untouched, a disaster to many, a diamond in the rough to us. There are many of these homes in Savannah, but few in our very popular historic neighborhood. Ardsley Park did not experience "white flight" in the 1960's and 70's, so most homes have been fairly well maintained and updated through the years. Our home was not. When we purchased it 7 years ago, it had not been touched in over 50 years and was uninhabitable but was inhabited by an elderly couple. The clay tile roof leaked and huge chunks of plaster had fallen to the floor. The coffered ceilings were falling in, the foundation had failed and one side of the house had sunk more than six inches. It was infested with rats. I walked past what is now our home for many years, always intrigued by the mysterious, decaying home, stopping to look, dreaming of what I would do were it mine We wrote letters imploring the owners to call us were they ever to sell. Miraculously, a work acquaintance of John's lived across the street and when the couple died, asked John to walk through the house with him, as he was interested in purchasing it and needed an structural assessment. I remember the look on John's face when he came home that evening and told me which house it was, and that the scope of work was too extensive for his acquaintance, and that the house was incredible, in the best part of the neighborhood, the lot was huge, and that this was the home where he wanted our then nine month old daughter to grow up. We bought the house, John worked on it every weekend for a year and a half--it was truly a labor of love. Just the other day, Sydney asked when our house was built. When I told her that it was built in 1914 she excitedly asked if we could have a birthday party for our house in four years to celebrate the 100th birthday of our home. I think it's a fine idea. My hope is that someone will come along and see the potential in the house that I just listed, and that they will love and protect it and make it a home again.