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In 1952, my mother ripped a page out of Better Homes and Gardens, handed it to my father, and said, “Let’s build this.” It was the plan for our home at the farm: a simple, cedar-sided ranch house with three bedrooms, two baths, one long living room, one galley kitchen—and one great big porch. The materials came off our land or from nearby quarries. The floors were concrete, covered with sisal rugs. Growing up, we spent every summer and many weekends there. My father preferred it over anyplace else in the world.
The farm was always our touchstone. The house there: home base. After my parents’ city residence evolved into an empty nest, my father convinced my mother to live at the farm full time. The list of her conditions for the move began with doubling the size of the house. They added a second-floor master suite, a large eat-in kitchen, and a proper dining room with an adjoining bar.
For all of the decades I lived in Chicago, Dallas, and Manhattan, this was where I unpacked my bags. Before long, my mom’s loneliness in the country led my father to purchase a condo in the city, but the house at the farm was where we all got together—where family dinners were held, where grandchildren (even great-grandchildren) grew up, where friends came to visit. The house at the farm was where, at a leather-topped card table with embossed fleurs-de-lis, I worked out life’s problems over jigsaw puzzles with my mom, gin-rummy games with my dad.
In all my life, I’ve never slept more soundly or felt more protected than when I was inside those four walls.
But over the decades, the house that started as a summer cottage began to show ailments of age. Moldy beams. Sewage irregularities. Chimney cracks. After my parents passed away (both in that house, a mere five months apart), the house was handed off to its heir.
After the problems were judged insurmountable, the house was razed. The porch where we celebrated every Fourth of July since I was 3—where we barbecued, had cocktails, chatted for hours on end, and toasted jobs and promotions, engagements and marriages, pregnancies and births—was gone.
It was the first time I learned that losing a place where you grew up can truly break your heart.
In this issue, we give you the ultimate list of everything a house needs—from the number of towels in the closet to what to store in the pantry, stash in the first-aid kit, and set up in the home office. It’s the sort of essential information that anyone moving into a new house—even one in the country—could use. How nice it’ll be to have the perfectly appointed guest room for your next visitor, the best possible gear in case of an unforeseen disaster, the kitchen with the right tools for a well-executed meal.
But the checklist is missing a few key intangibles: family, memories, and history. And each of those? Absolutely essential.
All the best,
Christy Marshall Editor, AT HOME
