Abandoned Houses

Our family makes a lot of trips up and down twelfth avenue and years ago I noticed the big abandoned white house. It stuck out in an area ripe with 1950s block like ranches. It looked like a stately old farm house that had probably once known the laughter of lots of children, running in and out, letting the screen door snap shut behind them as they bound down the porch stairs and out to explore. The house has several porches, including a huge second story porch. I could picture the woman of the house resting in an old wooden chair, gazing at the stars and feeling the cool evening breeze while enjoying the silence as her children slept off their exhaustion from the long summer day.

You could say that I had invested something of myself in the house, and I would have jumped at any opportunity to explore it. Last summer, I got that opportunity, though I have to be honest and say that it had lost some of its appeal. Over the past few years I have seen a lot more activity at the house, and as it turns out, it was being completely restored. You can learn more about the house here: www.bigwhitehouse.org

Leila and I made a trip through the house on the 4th of July. I wish I could say it was everything I had dreamed of, but of course it wasn't. The memory of the way things might have been was too far removed, but it is still a beautiful home.

I thought of the big white house this week when I came across this: http://www.100abandonedhouses.com


How amazing and sad and beautiful. I flipped through the pictures wondering how this could have happened. When did it all go wrong for these beautifully designed homes. What happened to the people that lived here? I guess you could say, I have a thing for Abandoned houses. I want to know what went wrong and I want to imagine them at their best, happiest times. I really want to fix them.