House histories?

[Kahuna]

Our house is neither old nor pretty but I do love where we live. My home is a 1950s built RAF house on the base that the Dam Busters squadron was based at during World War 2. The place still has so many of its 1950s features which I love, including a lovely serving hatch into the dining room and the original picture rails and cupboard fittings.

Our house, built in 1947, has one of those hatches too. Unfortunately when they remodeled the kitchen shortly before we bought here they walled over the other side if it so now it is a sliding door to nowhere. Too bad they couldn't have designed the kitchen to retain it. It would be so handy for passing through snacks when we're watching movies.

I'm glad you enjoy living under the flight path. For someone who enjoys air shows it seems like you're in the ideal house.

 

[Tatum]

Nice house and interesting story! Looking out my window at nothing but snow it's warming just to see the palm trees in that picture. Any other stories out there? Famous or infamous occupants or deeds commited in your house? Long family histories? Hauntings?

Just found this thread again... Nope, nothing very out of the ordinary, and the house is definitely NOT haunted. It went through some weird repairs before we got it, that we had to deal with when we started working on it, like the floor joists in the upstairs bath being cut and never reworked. It is amazing that the bathtub never made it through the floor into the kitchen!

Dav, your home is beautiful, I love the English Garden cottage (I think that is the style)....

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My parents are looking at a house in South Carolina. Jefferson Davis gave a speech on the front porch in 1863.

 

[Kahuna]

My parents are looking at a house in South Carolina. Jefferson Davis gave a speech on the front porch in 1863.

That sounds pretty interesting. It's pretty rare on the west coast to find houses with that much history attached to them.

 

[Fletch]

My 1937 house, as it looked in 1949, and why they wanted it down in 2007.

 

[Kahuna]

Nice house. It was interesting (and frustrating at first) reading of your problems back in 2007. I'm glad they saw the error of their ways and gave up on their stupid plan. Way too many historical buildings fall to short-sighted planning like this every year.

 

[randooch]

What a great thread! Good stories, all. Below is a picture of my parents' house in Cottage Grove, Oregon. It was a midwifery house for decades and always had a correlatively positive and lively vibe about it. The car out front is my brother's 1960 Fury.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Even in rural Wisconsin, very little interest outside of the people who are famous in that town. Although Jeff Davis was stationed here before the secession.

That sounds pretty interesting. It's pretty rare on the west coast to find houses with that much history attached to them.

 

[Effingham]

My house was designed and built my my father, an architect and city planner, in 1953. It is a very odd dual-sloped-roofed flattish ranch with huge windows. His trademark was huge vertical picture windows in groups of three. My house has 'em, his other house has 'em, and other other houses he designed and built for other family folks had 'em. The neighbor's house also has 'em -- it was built at the same time in a complementary style, also designed and built by dad, for his best friend, Babe Branigan, brother of Indiana governor Roger Branigan. The two houses split a one acre corner lot (I've got the corner!), and share a driveway.

He also laid out the neighborhood, and named the subdivision after his mother's family (the Greens). He and my mother lived in that house until 1960, when they built a larger house a few blocks away.

I don't recall ever being in this house before, but when I moved back to Franklin last year and started house-hunting, my cousin Jimmie (who lives one street up in a dad-built house) dragged me around to this horridly run-down, foreclosed "rental" property around the corner from him. The house was in horrible shape and really needing some SERIOUS help, but when Jimmie told me the history of it, I had to buy it. So we are now about a month out of finishing a hugely complex renovation (gutting the house, replacing both roofs, rewiring, bumping out the back and adding rooms, replacing all the windows and doors, redoing the floor, removing and replacing a huge 7-ton stone living room wall, etc.) and moving in.

I like to hope dad would have approved of my choices and the things I've done to bring it back to life.

 

[Tatum]

My house was designed and built my my father, an architect and city planner, in 1953. It is a very odd dual-sloped-roofed flattish ranch with huge windows. His trademark was huge vertical picture windows in groups of three. My house has 'em, his other house has 'em, and other other houses he designed and built for other family folks had 'em. The neighbor's house also has 'em -- it was built at the same time in a complementary style, also designed and built by dad, for his best friend, Babe Branigan, brother of Indiana governor Roger Branigan. The two houses split a one acre corner lot (I've got the corner!), and share a driveway.

He also laid out the neighborhood, and named the subdivision after his mother's family (the Greens). He and my mother lived in that house until 1960, when they built a larger house a few blocks away.

I don't recall ever being in this house before, but when I moved back to Franklin last year and started house-hunting, my cousin Jimmie (who lives one street up in a dad-built house) dragged me around to this horridly run-down, foreclosed "rental" property around the corner from him. The house was in horrible shape and really needing some SERIOUS help, but when Jimmie told me the history of it, I had to buy it. So we are now about a month out of finishing a hugely complex renovation (gutting the house, replacing both roofs, rewiring, bumping out the back and adding rooms, replacing all the windows and doors, redoing the floor, removing and replacing a huge 7-ton stone living room wall, etc.) and moving in.

I like to hope dad would have approved of my choices and the things I've done to bring it back to life.

I think he would be delighted that you are in the process of bringing one of his creations back to its former glory! :eusa_clap

 

[Kahuna]

My house was designed and built my my father, an architect and city planner, in 1953. It is a very odd dual-sloped-roofed flattish ranch with huge windows. His trademark was huge vertical picture windows in groups of three. My house has 'em, his other house has 'em, and other other houses he designed and built for other family folks had 'em. The neighbor's house also has 'em -- it was built at the same time in a complementary style, also designed and built by dad, for his best friend, Babe Branigan, brother of Indiana governor Roger Branigan. The two houses split a one acre corner lot (I've got the corner!), and share a driveway.

I especially enjoy stories where people with a family history to a house get to hold on to them and fix them up. It sounds like maybe your father designed in a mid-century modern style? Be sure to remember to post some pictures here when you're done with your renovation.

 

[Kahuna]

What a great thread! Good stories, all. Below is a picture of my parents' house in Cottage Grove, Oregon. It was a midwifery house for decades and always had a correlatively positive and lively vibe about it. The car out front is my brother's 1960 Fury.

We've got a house in our town that is a virtual twin to that house, picket fence and all. That 1960 Fury really makes the picture complete. The road yachts from that era are almost as big as a house.

 

[Effingham]

I especially enjoy stories where people with a family history to a house get to hold on to them and fix them up. It sounds like maybe your father designed in a mid-century modern style? Be sure to remember to post some pictures here when you're done with your renovation.

Will do. I'm going to be putting together a "this was the journey" PDF with a pile o photos for some friends, so I'll provide a link to it when it's done.

I think he would be delighted that you are in the process of bringing one of his creations back to its former glory! :eusa_clap

I'm trying. The cousins here -- who are all at about fifteen or twenty years older than I, and who actually grew up with my dad as their "second dad" -- are thrilled with the project, that I've rescued the house, and that it's back in the family. There are many stories of lunches, eating mom's BLTs in the kitchen, while she was puttering around making dinner for everyone.

One thing is that bit with the three big windows. I've mentioned it's one of his trademarks, so to speak. So when I bumped out the back, and made a new office/den space in the back, I put in three huge windows in the den overlooking the back yard, so the changes would look more organic and a bit more fitting to his original design. And I found a garage with sloping paired roofs to play off the house design, put the three windows in there in the loft, and even did half-stone up the front of the garage to make it look like it fit the house. My cousins say dad would be proud. That's all I need.

This is the house *before* I got my hands on it:

We found all sorts of interesting things -- architectural details around those big windows, large framing bits and recesses -- when we took off the crappy siding someone had put on it.

We started laying down the floor in the master bedroom today. Man, I love Brazilian cherry. The thing is, I now have this odd hankering to go bowling....


Tony

 

[1930artdeco]

Before and after pictures of my 1940 cottage. I think I am the second or third owner and the lady that I bought the house from (her husband passed away four months prior) grew up right across the street. Her husband bought the house in 1962 with the earnings from a horse bet at the track. Still a work in progress though..

Mike

 

[rotebander]

The house I live in isn't all too exciting. It was built in the 1980s, then in the middle of nowhere, now in the middle of suburbia. My grandmother's old house, though, is a different story. We visited the young family that had just moved in on a family trip (on which we also visited just about all my family, her childhood friends, some of said friends' parents, her sunday school teachers, etc. etc.) , and she showed all of us around the house and commented on how it was when she grew up.

To start, half my family has lived in Chattanooga since at least the 1860s, and my great (or great-great, I don't remember)-grandfather moved into said house in the 20s. First off, she told us how the enormous oak tree out front was a sapling planted when she was born. Then, she showed us the old movie poster hanging up over the stairs (advertising the novel new Warner Bros. talkie) and the cupboard in the back that invariably housed preserves. There were stories from three generations of our family's life in that house, and I'm so glad she went through and showed me.

Then she pointed across the street to my grandfather's childhood house....

 

[randooch]

Good story, Rote. Looking forward to a picture.

 

[Gregg Axley]

Mine was built in 1955, and many are right that houses were built more solid back then.
The history is that my grandfather was the second owner and did some wonderful additions to it, including a nice
19x20 den (with a fireplace) in 1980. Of course the carpet is orange, and the walls are wood panel, but I think those are making a comeback.
A lot of the furniture in my house is antique by age, although some pieces are probably collectable (like the mahagony dresser, mirror, and headboard set.
It's nice to live in a house that has so much history (to me), and one I spent a lot of time in since I was a kid, until I bought it years ago.
Oh Tom, I love what you said about your parent's looking at a house in SC.

My parents are looking at a house in South Carolina. Jefferson Davis gave a speech on the front porch in 1863.

If it was Jefferson Davis Hogg I'd jump on that house if I were you!

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'd much rather it be Jefferson Davis lol That appeals to our family a little bit more. Put simply, I have a brother and sister, who are twins, named Robert Lee and Dixie.

Oh Tom, I love what you said about your parent's looking at a house in SC.
If it was Jefferson Davis Hogg I'd jump on that house if I were you!

 

[TCMfan25]

My house was built in 1926.

 

[Kitty_Sheridan]

I love this thread!

My house in Yorkshire was built in 1756, in the centre of a medieval market town. I'm currently ploughing through the census and have found that the young lady who lived her in the early 1900s was called 'Leake' (yes her Christian name!) and she looked after her father until 1915 when a Sgt Major, some ten years her senior must have caught her eye as she upped and moved to North Yorkshire!
I also know that the young lady who rented after her had two small children and her husband was killed in the great war. I often wonder if she received her telegram 'Regret to inform you.....' whilst standing in my hallway and after all the tears and heartbreak, I wonder if she struggled to bring up her children alone.
Here are some photos of the old distemper and vintage wallpaper in my bedroom.

I also know about the lady who lived here during WW2. She was very timid apparently and wouldn't use the air raid shelter, so she'd sit under the stairs. The night that Hull got blitzed she and her husband looked out of my bedroom window to see the city burning 13 miles away...He workd for the water board and had a large 'T' shaped key which he used to check water pressures etc. It was very heavy and tall and when the waterboard told him he couldn't get petrol to use his car for the job, he took to tying it onto the handle bars of his cycle. He used to pedal away wobbling as the local kids chased him. (I know this as my neighbour Margaret was one of those kids! Lol!)
I adore history so living here is rather lovely.
K