On my morning walks, I often passed a house with a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. The sign was there for months and months and months, even though the downturn in home sales hadn’t hit my neighborhood very hard and despite the fact that other houses of its size and price had sold fairly quickly.
The house had a lot going for it. It was in a superb location, within walking distance of a subway stop, an elementary school, Whole Foods store, shopping, and restaurants. It had the requisite four bedrooms and two and a half baths. There was plenty of off-street parking and a decent-sized lot for its urban location. But there was something about the house that bugged me. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what that was.
Well, last winter a pratfall off my icy front steps put my walks on hold for about six weeks, and I lost touch with what was happening around the neighborhood. When I was able to resume a morning walk, I couldn’t find that house. None of the houses on that street looked anything like it. I’d only hurt my foot, not my head, so I wasn’t having a bout of amnesia. Finally it dawned on me that the house had been altered. And now I understood what I hadn’t liked about it.
When I first saw the house, it looked like a Victorian, or more precisely, it looked “Victorian-ish.” It was that -ish part I realized had bothered me once I saw the structure stripped of its gingerbread trim and colorful paint scheme. Rather than giving the house character, the decorative treatment made the house look like a caricature. The trim didn’t have enough heft for the sturdy Four Square the house actually was and had no relation to the original trim. And the bright multi-color scheme didn’t highlight anything in particular. The result lacked authenticity—wrong scale, wrong materials, wrong era.
Pared of its decoration and painted in a simple color palette, the house regained its natural dignity and looks much more at ease among the other early-20th-century houses in the neighborhood.
That house never has been and never will be an award winner (like the beautiful houses you’ll see in this issue). But it now has characteristics in common with houses of the finest design. Its proportions are balanced, even down to its parts. Its materials are appropriate and honest—they are what they purport to be. And it fits comfortably into its setting. The house finally looks true to itself. Oh yes, and it’s finally sold.
