Mette’s Childhood Home
The homes we grow up in influence the way we see the world and mine certainly had an impact on me. Last year, our daughter Solveig started camp at a place not too far from the home I grew up in. When we went to the orientation, I took her by my old house and I chuckled as I saw an Audi in the driveway. So many of our clients drive Audis that I think of it as the car of choice for people who appreciate great design.
I was also pleased to see that it had been loved and cared for over the last 20 years since we sold it. Besides some landscaping upgrades, the house itself was well maintained but otherwise the same. And that is because it is a great house, designed by a great architect (unknown) and appreciated for its design by architect after architect who lived there.
My father, as you may know, is an architect and my parents bought the house right after we moved there from Norway when I was 4. I remember them telling me about the unique V-shaped design that orientated all the rooms away from the neighbors so there would be privacy without a need for curtains. I sketched out the plan above from my memory to show you.
At the bottom of the V was the dining room with full window walls on two sides overlooking the backyard and marsh land to the south. We LIVED in that room. With no shades and no visible neighbors we basked in the sunlight from morning ‘til night. My bedroom was directly above the dining room so even when I was alone I had the light.
We sadly sold the house when I went off to college and my parents divorced. But the couple who bought it were an architect and a business person, just like my parents, and had young kids who would grow up there just like me. I wonder which lucky duck got my room?
