Building Houses

For many years, many years ago, I attempted to make my living as an architect and builder. I say attempted because, even though there were occasional moments of affluence, there were far more of mere subsistence. I chose (I have no idea what possessed me) to design and build houses. Not wanting to speculate on eventual sale, I chose to work for clients, usually husbands and wives, who were usually building their first or last home. First homes were challenging, the clients knew little or nothing about building houses but everything about their needs. Unfortunately his needs seldom bore any resemblance to her needs, which meant design meetings often bore a remarkable resemblance to couples counseling. Last homes were more challenging; the clients were always determined “to get it right this time.” I once made the mistake of asking what went wrong the last time. The answer lasted hours and included several references to the “inadequacies of the architect and builder.” I should have realized then, that the chances of my being adequate were slim at best.

Don’t get me wrong: designing houses was occasionally fun. With the occasionally sane clients, the always-creative process was occasionally enjoyable. Even building houses with said sane clients was occasionally rewarding, if not financially (an ever elusive pursuit), at least emotionally. It was always bittersweet, however, when the day came to turn the house over to the owners. “My house” was suddenly “their house,” and I had to surrender the keys and thereafter knock on the door and wait to be admitted. I often wondered if “my house” would still be in good hands when those hands were no longer mine.

Usually the answer to my question was “yes.” I would return to the house in the following weeks and months, usually to remedy some real or imagined problem, and find things much as I delivered them: neat, clean and appropriately occupied. Occasionally (you can’t have too much of a good word) the answer was “no.” On one occasion (okay, maybe you can), I returned to the house, this one only a shell due to the client running out of money; to find the family of eight living in the basement, sharing a makeshift bathroom enclosed by 4 sheets. The outside of the two-story house was completed and weather tight, you understand, but the owners evidently decided that the two above-ground floors were better suited to the raising of chickens and other assorted livestock. The first floor “chicken coop” was not only spacious, but featured an oak hardwood floor, nicely textured with a dark patina of chicken poop.

Speaking of livestock, in another instance (as opposed to occasion) I visited a very big, very expensive house that I had completed about a year earlier, to discover that the attached (make note), finished-off, and heated three-car garage had become the winter quarters for a dozen sheep. No one in the house desiring, I assume, the chore of cleaning up the sheep droppings, the solution was to throw hay on the garage floor now and then (as opposed to on occasion). When I visited, the hay layer was about two feet thick (really, I’m not exaggerating), and the aroma (I’m being polite) throughout the house was, shall we say, imposing. The owner, interestingly enough, was the State’s Agriculture Commissioner. I suppose he could have been doing research on the tolerance of humans to imposing aromas.

I am no longer an architect and builder. I retired from those pursuits years ago. Not retired per se, I still attempt to make a living in other pursuits. I am occasionally (cut me some slack, I skipped a whole paragraph) asked if I learned anything about designing and building houses in all those years. I believe I’ve learned a little about the houses; about the people who live in them, not so much.