Blind date with a Big House
"Fourteen thousand years ago there was a mile of ice on top of where we are standing," she said absentmindedly as she gazed up the hill, passed the blaring FOR SALE sign on the lawn, through the rain, at the big empty house protruding from the trees. "Ya don't say," the realtor sighed as he fidgeted with the zipper to close his yellow Gore-Tex jacket. "Let's go on in and have a look," he continued, without looking her way. "I think you'll like this one." They crunched up the winding, gravel path.
The house-the fourth visited today-was cavernous and cold even with the thermostats at 75. Palatial was the word that skipped to mind, a palace overlooking the bay. Like the other FOR SALEs she had seen, it was a monument to visit, not a residence, not even a home. This one contained over 6500 square feet, the smallest of the four. "Tell me about it," she instructed. Maybe there was less than met the eye.
"Built five years ago. A guy and his wife. California, I think. Could've been Seattle. On the market three years now. Hardly used, as you can see."
She could see. Inside it was show-window perfect. There had been traffic but not a lot of wear. The kitchen could handle any whim. Two of the five bedrooms featured hot tubs with small picture windows looking out into a walled garden. Every room had a built-in TV. Like the others on the tour, the place was equipped with plenty of protection from boredom. Most likely the owners didn't want to risk running out of things to do on a remote island. Chances are they figured, If you've see one whale or eagle, you've seen 'em all.
She deeply loved the island. Incongruities hurt. To her way of thinking the natural landscape was compromised when presumptuous structures jarred the composition. They should be of the land, not on it (Frank Lloyd Wright). The impact of the defining waterways everywhere was bruised by oversized houses in strong colors encroaching on the view of, and from, the living sea. She felt the rocks and hillsides left behind as the Cordilleran Ice Sheet retreated deserved respect, rather than indifference. The natural amenities had endured. She glanced around at the firs, the pines, the cypress trees that remained behind the house... "It is all a little depressing," she thought as they dutifully sloshed back to his maroon Toyota Tercel.
It is easy to become possessive about a special place on the face of the earth. A person is lucky if she or he can come to know one or two such places in a lifetime. The San Juan Islands were such a place to her. The islands, anchored as they are at the intersection of mountains, rivers, and the Pacific are a unique mix of earth and water and sky. They form the only archipelago on the West Coast of mainland America. In recent years they have been discovered. Hardly a month goes by without more press. From National Geographic to boating magazines, the San Juans have become prime time. Tourists and well-endowed transients follow in the wake of the publicity. Most of the tourists return home.
Trophy houses have a known life cycle in the San Juans. Such houses are usually conceived innocently enough during a whirlwind vacation visit, perhaps via boat. If the weather is good, the vacationer(s)-she, he, or they-decide the island would be a fetching place to own, at least in part. A frenetic search ensues for a house or open land to buy, but land generally wins out since one person's ego-castle seldom fits the next person's fancy. Land in hand, an architect, many times from the mainland, is engaged. Contractors follow, usually locals. In a year or so a simple piece of a small island is converted forever.
The cycle continues. More often
than not, within a few years the house is FOR SALE. One of two
things happened. The house was either under-used and, therefore,
redundant, or used and found to be too big. "The guest house
alone would have been enough," is a common epitaph during
cocktail conversation or on the ferry. As John Updike put it
in the Autumn 1998 issue of The American Scholar:
"...The essence of the superrich is absence. They're
always demonstrating they can afford to be somewhere else."
He goes on to say, "Don't let them in...."
It was 4:30 and nearly dark when she left him in the wet, slanting parking lot beside his office. He watched her stroll down Spring Street toward the harbor and evaporate in the mist. "Kinda spaced out," he thought. "She won't be back." It had been a hamburger day.
Copyright © 1999, 2003 Steven C. Brandt
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