How historic is your house?

[zizzer]

My wife and I rent a small house in a college town. The property that the house sits on is 1.5 acres and has three other small houses and a great big house up front by the main drag. The four houses "in back" are small, ours is the biggest, two bedrooms. Think old stylr moter lodge sort of summer cottages.

It's a very cool place to live. The owners run a coffee house in the big house and rent mostly to grad students and us. The property was basicly left deralict for almost thirty years. The new owners are in the process of fixing the place up. We have hawks, wood peckers, hummingbirds, snakes of different sorts, woodchucks and several semi-feral cats.

All of this inside the DC Beltway. Less than a mile from The University of Maryland.

The landlords father is working on an anthropology degree and needed research done for a project and asked my wife to go down to the County Land office to do some research for his paper about the property.

Well here's some of what she found:

The oldest record she could find for the property wa in 1876, it was a deed.

The property has changed hands a dozen or more times. The previus owners had the place since the early seventies and basicly didn't keep it at all. They ran an exotic bird house. It was prety nasty.

The house has twice been a pet store. In the 1970's it was the bird store and in the 1930's it was listed as an aquarium store. I didn't know their were private aquaroiums then but what do I know?

One of the more interesting things she found and if you've been reading this far this is one of the cool bits ... she found a document from 1919 that says that blacks were never to own, rent or live on the property. Wow! I mean, I know that's awful and I certainly don't hold to the belief but what an interesting bit of historic documentation.

How historic is your home or what interesting historic facts do you know about?

[UrbScotty]

1. Mine is 'modern' (circa 1965 or 1970)

Not much history.

[LEW]

2. Mine is a 1929 Sears home

Sits on 1.5 acres and we love it. You can tell Sears homes by the hardware, and design. A Sears home expert lives across the street from me and was surprised, there are just a few in the immediate area.

Our home was the original home of the farmer who owned several acres around here. They sold off much of it and the area was developed. We are only the 3rd owner.

By the way, even though the deed says the property that says blacks cannot live, rent or own the property. This would not be applicable today. Unlawful provisions in a deed are automatically voided.

[zizzer]

5. The Sears bungaloes

Those are cool houses. I've been a couple of different floor plans. There's a bunch of them in Takoma Park Maryland and a friend lived in one.

And as far as the document prohibitng blacks from living on the property of course it's moot. The practice was wrong and the laws allowing it changed. I mention it only as historic curiosity.

I think it's important for my son to be aware of those old practices. Bringing the document home to show us copies was a great chance to talk about it with my kid. He also knows the stories of my uncle getting arrested for fratinization in Florida in the 1950's.

I figure based on what I see about history curriculum I beetr teach him the history that he may miss in school.

[starroute]

18. I live in a 1927 bungalow

The floor plan is very similar to some of the Sears bungalows, but I don't think it's exactly identical to any of them. It's brick, with a Japanese roof, colonial sidelights around the front door, and Egyptianate door and window frames.

The widow of the man who originally it built stayed in it until the 1980's (then moved to an old age home where she lived to be 108.) So we're only the third set of residents.

[lovedems]

3. Well, we live in Springfield, Illinois and our house is approximately

100 years old. We live in a historic neighborhood. It is beautiful because it is so old. Our street is tree lined with huge trees and we have a big old magnolia tree in our backyard. (It is a bitch because we have to rake the blooms in the spring and the leaves in the fall, but worth it)

Supposedly, our neighborhood was one of the first "suburbs" (for lack of a better word) of downtown Springfield. The woodwork in our home is old. It was once painted (the real-estate agent said that at the time the house was built, painting your woodwork was a sign of wealth????) My husband and I have spent the last 6 years stripping, sanding and refinishing the woodwork.

The last owner (my grandmother) "modernized" the house and we are spending money to "unmodernize" it. We want the character that goes with an old house. Last year our neighboorhood celebrated it's 100th birthday and we opened it up to the city. The neighbors put alot of work into it and when you would walk up and down the street in the front yards were OLD pictures of the homes, some of the families have been here for along time so there were pictures from the 50's with kids playing in the front yard. Some of the houses looked the same, some looked totally different.

Old houses are wonderful and I apoligize for the long post, but my home is my "hobby" and if anybody ever asks about my house my husband always says, "oh boy, you don't know what you have just done!"

Edit: We bought our house when my grandmother passed away. It is the house my mother grew up in and it was my first home until my parents got a place of their own. We always had all of our holidays here and we continue the tradition. So this house has alot of special memories for me and when I mentioned that alot of families have lived in this neighborhood for along time, I still see the kids I used to play with when I "went to Grandma's" because their parents still live on the block. It was really a great feeling to know all of our neighbors when we moved in.

[zizzer]

12. my town is trying to get recognized

as a historic district. I like the idea. I would love to see some of th ebuilding be preserved. The University of MD is old and the surounding neighborhood is awsome.

One thing I realy like about the age and years of neglect is the wildlife. I have more birds now than I have seen since I was a kid and my yard boundry was a national park. We have old trees and no pesticides or other poison sprayed on the land.

Last spring we got to watch huge 18 inch tall woodpeckers fight over the girls ... there were seceral! We've had a family of cardinals winter over and have gotten to watch five young cardinals mature. There's a few birds that I must admit I'm suprised by. I susp
Oh, and oscar a six foot long black snake that leaves his skins in the basement under the coffee house. He's startling to walk up on when he's sunning in the parking lot.

[K8-EEE]

19. My Dad Is From Springfield!

I visited there as a kid...he still has relatives there that he keeps in touch with, they are REALLY REALLY EXTREME GOP!!

He moved out here (L.A.) as soon as he got out of school -- he's a vegetarian and Green party guy, lol, so he feels pretty conspicuously out of place going back now!

[parasim]

4. Mine's a 150 year old or so Victorian...

... and used to be owned by a guy named Mr. Tappan who developed the first home microwave oven in the 50's - the Tappan RadarRange...

The house still has the gas pipes in the walls that used to bring gas to light fixtures and the oven (obviously this was before he came up with the microwave) and what not.

(edited for clarity.)

[zizzer]

9. No gas lights but

We can trace the age of the install of water, coal furnace, oil furnace and now gas furnace and range. The old coal shoot dumps into what is now our bicycle storage in the basement.

We do still have a very old one piece enamaled sink. The unit is maybe five feet long, has a sink, drain board and back splash integrated. It's neat but a mild pain the ass with glasses and stoneware disshes.

[Lorien]

6. 1925 Craftsman bungalow

Used to kind of bum my grandparents out when I would refer to my neighborhood as the "Historic district" (as per the sign leading into it) since none of the homes on my street were older than them!

[NoPasaran]

7. My house in Austin

Was built in the 1980s so there's not a lot of history to it.

The land was part of the Theodore Bissell League. Leagues were parcels of land granted to soldiers in the Texas Army since the Republic was pretty much insolvent. It was probably grazing land until the subdivision came in.

[scarlet_owl]

8. Mine's still being built.

Not very historic at all, but it was cheap.

[alcuno]

10. My home was built in 1880.

It's a three-story "farmhouse" in the first suburb north of Chicago. Subsequent owners sold off the surrounding land over time so all the other homes in the neighborhood are from different time periods: brick bungalos(sp), two-flats, and brick Georgians. One of its best features is a detached two-car garage on the street. Priceless.

[NJCher]

11. carriage house

I live in an old carriage house (1875) on an estate built back into a mountain. There isn't even any street traffic here because the private road deadends at my house. Two wings were added to the carriage house 50 years ago, making it a 5-BR, 4-bath house.

There is a big mansion on the property that is undergoing renovation. Essentially the estate is split into two properties--the mansion and the carriage house.

The property was built on by a financier after whom they later named a brokerage firm. He married three times and while he had his own wealth, he married into some of America's most well-established industrialist families. You would know the name--there is a line from their commercial from 10 years ago that people still repeat to this day. Also, this was only one of their many properties.

Yes, there are ghosts at the mansion and I have seen them.


Cher

p.s. lovesdems, I'm like you--I'm always working on something for my house or its landscape.

[zizzer]

15. The carriage house here

is being used for storage right now. The owner wants to build it our for another house or an office or an artist studio sort of thing.

It's a cool building. It's got two big sliding doors for the acriages I think and a space that you can sort of tell where the horse stalls were. It's got a hay loft. It's basicly as big as three maybe four car garage but layed out very differently.

[K8-EEE]

17. Wow NJCher!! Your Place Sounds Awesome

Actually everybody here seems to live in pretty interesting houses!

[populistmom]

13. Not very

1951 cookie cutter ranch. I have a friend that lives in a home built in the 1690's. The foundation in the basement uses old tree trunks as support.

[baldguy]

14. 1920

Brick two-story, full basement. I don't have any interesting stories and its really too big for me, but I love my house.

[K8-EEE]

16. Mine Too, 1920 -- ANCIENT For L.A.!

When we bought it, it had 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom!! The bathroom had no bathtub just a shower. But we love it because it has so much gardening space and a separate building that we turned into a studio for my hub.

If I would have known how much it would cost, in money and angst, to add on 1 br & 1 ba we probably wouldn't have done it...but I love the way it turned out.

[Pithlet]

20. I once lived in a house from the 1700's

I know that it once served as a place for civil war soldiers to collect mail and pay, and hang out.

I also lived in an apartment in a building where George Washington stayed the night. There was a plaque on the building and everything. The apartment was gorgeous.

Both times where in the Baltimore/DC area.

My current house is less than a year old.

[Fridays Child]

21. Here's a really great one for sale in Georgia.

For a mere $960,000...

[Nikia]

22. Not at all

I believe that it was built 5-10 years ago.

[banana republican]

23. My home is of legal age

that is over 21.....









just barely

[BrotherBuzz]

24. My California Craftsman Bungalow was designed by...

my great-grandfather...and built by my grandfather as a wedding gift to his wife to be in 1917. Well, that's all the history I need.

[SPQR]

25. Ours was built in 1790

although the local historical society disputes that....I think they just don't want any house in town being older than theirs, especially one owned by weekend flatlanders (it's in Vermont). We've traced it back to 1820, and there are still documents we've not yet gotten to at the town hall.

It's a Cape Cod style post and beam house: up in the attic you can see the wooden pegs holding the beams and ratfters together. The lath in the walls is split board rather than strips (although not much of the original lath and plaster remains; it's mostly drywall throughout. I hate drywall).

An addition was added sometime back in the 1800's, and the shed attched to that enclosed sometime later. The main fireplace and chimney were removed years back to put in a central staircase: that's the one change to the house that kills me. There's a deep cistern in the cellar with the clearest water I've ever seen in it. I don't know what the quality of it is, but it's practically invisible. It sits on an acre of land, butts into a hillside, and sits about 7 feet from the road (not the front, thank god, the side).

All in all, a pretty typical, unremarkable, 200 year old Vermont farmhouse. Except for the time it fell into the river.

[Rowdyboy]

26. 1899 two story colonial revival originally built for a Scandinavian

merchant named Andersen. We met his granddaughter (who was born in the house)a few years ago. Later it became a boarding house for the blind, divided into apartments. Later still, it returned to a single family home until the banks foreclosed on the owners. It remained empty for three years until my partner drove by one day in 1980 and fell in love. It was (and is) a real "fixer upper"!

[LSdemocrat]

27. Not at all. Built in 1996

[TheMightyFavog]

28. Mine is a converted Schoolhouse

The schoolhouse was built in 1924, and was used up until the late 60s, when the big Elementary school in Coleman was built. During the early 70s a guy bought the place. did up an interior, built a small barn for his hobby farm, he eventually ran into some financial difficulties and my Dad was able to snap it up for a good price.

[Piperay]

29. 1954 CA Ranch tract house

wouldn't call it historical but it is 50 years old now. :wow:

[DarkSim]

30. 136 year old bakery.

Surivived both the great wars and several bombings. The first bakery in my home town of Porvoo in Finland.

[Kellanved]

31. Not very

It was constructed in 1904; the whole city district was constructed then, to create apartments for the workers in the rapidly growing city. The plans for the area are 100 years older - talk about foresighted planning.
All houses in the area are basically identical, but have changed over time. Some have/had war damage (or don't exist any more at all), others were renovated during the GDR, most in the last five years. Thus some almost look like ruins, while others present post-modern facades.
The one historical thing about the house I'm living in is a fountain in the yard - a few important nobles stopped there sometime and a monument was placed there to commemorate the fact.

( the house I'm living in is not on the picture, but it's just a hundred meters from there- a pretty typical street scene)

[sbj405]

32. Circa 1948

very solidly built. small 3 tiny bedrooms, 1 bath. but it works for us.

Zizzer, from your description, I'm guessing "College Perk." If so, we live within a mile of each other. Howdy, neighbor. :hi:

[Deja Q]

33. Mine was built in 1968,the very same famous year when...

"Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" premiered.

That's about it though.