Homes Tour (Welcome to My New Neighborhood)

Who are the people in your neighborhood? The people that you meet each day? Or so the children's song goes...

This is going to sound weird, but years ago, I thought I might live here. I was still married, in fact, to the artist formerly known as Frau Lobster, when I crashed on a couch after a homebrew competition in the Westheight neighborhood.

I remember at the time, I was reading 'Steal This Book' and it had a line about how smoking a cigar and hanging a picture of Che Guevera on the wall didn't make you a revolutionary.

My host opened the door with an enormous stogie clenched in his teeth and a framed portrait of Che behind him.

I was impressed with the neighborhood at the time, though. A lot like the Old Northeast of KCMO I used to inhabit, but with a wider mix of house sizes and styles. Some prairie school in the mix, and mansions (Senator Darby's house that could accommodate a Presidential motorcade without interruption in its garage) alongside three bedroom bungalows.

Imagine my surprise when I was riding home one evening to my new fiancé's house and ran into Chef Dan.

Or the day of the Westhight homes tour: he'd done an ice carving on the porch of the third house.

One of the charms of this particular homes tour, it's not all architectural monstrosities. The Darby house is the last one on the tour, and most are three bedroom affairs.

Tastefully done and historically preserved, but homes regular folks could live in. Including homes with some of the best forgotten ideas of modern architecture.

Including the most awesome basement/den in a ten mile area, though I have no pictures of it because it's owner posted a warning against all forms of electronics outside the hi-fi he keeps in an old GE oven.

It's a mutt neighborhood, I suppose. A few big houses, some smaller houses, prairie school mixed with neo-Romantic and whatnot.

But then, that's the charm of it.

And I flat out loved this one bedroom in the Senator Darby house. Not really pink, these walls were Pantone Magenta.

I think I want to paint our bedroom that color now. I said at the time that I didn't know how I could sleep in such a bright room, but the room's owner said when the lights were out it looked like a deep red and was very soothing.