Out with the Old...

A recent article in the New York Times about the demolition of Ray Bradbury's beautiful old house--where he lived for 50 years, in Los Angeles--set my collar on fire. Now, it seems, we are to become a nation of tract houses, because that is what is profitable, and that is all that developers build any more (unless, of course, you are a one percenter, and then they will gladly build you your own Taj Mahal or Louvre).

They don't even build them well, anymore. I recently visited a tract house under construction by the largest tract developer in the country--the Toll Brothers--(they should really be called the 'Troll Brothers') just to see what a $1,100,000 starting price will get you in Seattle. What it got you was four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, with thin rafters less than 2" by 4" set six feet apart (so much for framing). What it didn't get you was anything in the interior made of actual wood. Fake plasterboard is the new oak, it seems.

So now houses built with actual real materials that last (like Ray Bradbury's late residence) are to be a thing of the past. No doubt these Toll Brothers' houses will be torn down in another decade (probably and cheerfully by, let's see, the Toll Brothers) in order to make way for a widening freeway or maybe another Walmart. Or just some more tract houses but this time closer together. Welcome to life in America. Your politicians wouldn't have it any other way.

To put all this in perspective, I myself am a member of a privileged class: privileged in the sense that I grew up in a large, comfortable four bedroom house in New Jersey build of actual wood and brick. It was of a style called 'Dutch Colonial,' which mean the first floor was brick, and the second floor was wooden siding. There was a glass-enclosed 'sun porch' on one end, a large living room front to back on the right side of the long staircase with a huge brick fireplace big enough for Santa, a foyer in front, then a dining room with wood paneling and wainscoting (also in the living room) and a breakfast nook and pantry, then kitchen, then laundry room and a den and 1/2 bath behind that. Down a rear flight of stairs was a full basement with room for a playroom, a workshop, and a storeroom where mom kept the freezer. On the second floor we had four bedrooms--one in each corner, with two full baths, both of which I can remember using over the years. There was a full attic upstairs where my friends and I used to play hide and seek when we weren't outside.

Speaking of outside, there was actual land out there, including a (normal for the neighborhood) back yard large enough for my friends and I to play softball, or football, or whatever else we wanted to play (this was back in the days when kids got to play outdoors), with room for my mom to have a garden out behind the (separate) garage.

This, to be clear, was a middle class home in a middle class neighborhood in a town called Westfield, where my father took the train each work day to Manhattan, and the station was close enough that on a nice day he could walk.

I can remember my dad sold that house when my older siblings had moved out  and it was time to downsize. He got the same price he'd paid for it decades earlier: $25,000. That wouldn't even get you a decent kitchen now, in a house from the Toll Brothers.