house, views of
Our house was built in 1866, part of the construction boom just after the Civil War. Like almost every other house in a ten-block radius, it has a mansard roof, copied and scaled down from the much grander buildings that were all the rage in Louis Napoleon's Paris. Inside, the rooms are small and high-ceilinged and they run into one another without a connecting hallway, so to get to the bedroom at the back of the second floor, you have to walk through the room with five doors and two closets or through the tiny room that's just big enough for a couch and a bookcase.
In the living room is a fireplace surrounded by one of those mass-produced white marble mantles, carved in a vaguely Italian style. The fireplace opening is so small that it must have originally been used to burn coal, but I bought an iron grate and filled it with pillar candles. I lit the candles yesterday in the late afternoon, and as I did, I thought about Miss Catherine Shaw and Miss Etta Shaw who, according to city records, lived here in 1885. They probably shared the Victorian taste for color, pattern, and enveloping billows of fabric, and I wondered what they would have made of our white walls and bare floors and the uncurtained windows opening on to the garden, still covered in snow.
26 comments:
Oh wow, what an amazing place to live. I dream of owning an old house someday, my husband is good at building/fixing things, etc. so it could work.
As much as I love a good fire, I like the idea of candles burning in a fireplace. :)
very, very cool. have you found out anything about the misses catherine and etta shaw?
Our house in Brussels was built in 1930. We bought it from Jeanne, who had moved into it with her husband, Jean in 1934. He was a POW in WWII. I often think of her roaming the house in the mddle of the night thinking about her future. Each spring, daffodils come up in the courtyard which she planted. Is there anything remaining in the garden from the Shaw ladies?
Neato! Our house was built in the 90s. The previous inhabitants were a couple in their forties with hideous decorating taste and a love of metal shelving.
I daresay they would think no one was living there.
What, though, is that photo of? Something burned? Something covered in old crazed shellac, with a bit of gilt?
The photo is of the cast-iron fireplace surround, looking downwards. The golden glow is from the candles that are burning just beyond the limits of the viewer's vision.
You house sounds very cool!
Sounds like it is full of history and character. Our home was built last year. It's seriously lacking any of the old charm you describe.
stunning photo & post.
I just wanted to share a link that I thought you might find interesting after reading the aphorism in "coals to newcastle". You may have already seen these, they are "twisty" fun too:
http://despair.com/viewall.html
Angela
The misses Shaw would no doubt feel that you could benefit from a few little touches - a scratchy horsehair settee, some stuffed wildlife, etc.
We live in one of a row of once-identical semis built in 1912 in what was then a "garden suburb" of our city.
I often wonder what the original inhabitants would think of our kilim cushions, bare floorboards and mid-century modern chairs.
They would likely recognize the pictures of our dead baby as a familiar object, however.
I love old houses. We still have the original "help bell" in the kitchen with the original owners' (one for the woman, one for the man) initials on them. We often think about them calling down for . . . dunno, tea? More wood in the fire? clean socks? Wish the damn thing still worked.
We realized when painting our house, with the same group of guys who've been painting this house for 30+ years, that this house is forever, and we're just passing through.
Niobe,
You have such a way with words that I felt like I was there for a minute. Incredible.
~Carole
My house is only 11 years old. But the apartment I grew up in in the Old Country was the same place my mother grew up in (actually, lived her whole life before we moved) and my grandmother, too. The building is on the City map from 1905. My great-grandparents owned most of the floor as one continuous apartment. At some point in the early 20th century, they got some neighbors in there, and after WWII, the place got divided into three smaller apartments. We got part of a kitchen, a big room, and a tiny room where I slept after my sister was born that in actuality used to be half of the hallway to what after WWII became another apartment beyond the wall. The ceilings in the place were huge-- as they used to do it in the 19th century. This is probably why the apartment never seemed very small to me when I was a kid. When we went to visit it a few years back though? A much more depressing impression. But then the then-owner wasn't really taking care of it, and it was in dire disrepair.
i have a an Old House, too. I wish I knew more about the original owners, but i do know that the owners int he 50s had eight children and a giant peach tree int he yard.
missed ya
Our house was built in 1870; it was in the same family from 1875 till we bought it in 2004. In fact, the previous owner and her mother were both born in this house. I love thinking about that. I sure wish we had closets, though!
I love old houses and rooms that open up into other rooms. I wonder if people ever get lost in their own houses...even if they have lived there forever?
I'm dying for an older home. That's actually the plan in a couple of years. Move somewhere with some interesting history.
Your house sounds amazing!
Our previous dwellings were constructed in the forties and had an underground bomb shelter in the backyard complete with electricity wired through the house. We always joked that there was some serious money hidden in there, but no one was brave enough to go have a look.
Your house sounds beautiful.
That link is really helpful actually. I'm about to embark on a massive reno and meet with an architect, and that's actually something I needed!
Your house sounds really cool.
The fireplace sounds inviting.
Now tease me with a description of your kitchen.
oooh... to have a house with that kind of history...
I feel like you're telling me a bedtime story. Very soothing.
It sounds beautiful.
We don't have curtains either. I have never liked them but as I get older I find myself looking at very English country garden fabrics and thinking of billowing curtains .... and I can't even blame it on previous inhabitants as we are the first to live here.
Oh, you hurt my heart. We have a (not so) old house we must sell in Philadelphia now that we are returning to LA instead. And, I too, spent time thinking about all the people who lived there before.
Emily
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