The Story of How We Bought Blake Hill House – Part I

We recently passed the one-year anniversary of closing on Blake Hill House! The day passed without fanfare as we were deep in the middle of the living room project.

In order to celebrate, I thought it would be fun to tell you a little bit more about Andy and I and the history of home ownership in our families. Like any long-winded storyteller, I like to start from the very beginning, which means you might want to grab a cup of coffee or tea before you start reading. The story will be told in three parts. This is part I.

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I grew up as the daughter of a National Park Service Ranger. The earliest home that I remember was in Zion National Park, Utah.

My parents rented the house which was included as a part of my Dad’s employment. The rent was taken directly out of his paycheck. The house was around 1000 square feet. It was a perfect 1960’s, no-nonsense government house. It was brown on the outside, white on the inside. It looked just like my neighbor’s house, except the layout was in reverse. I lived there happily covered in red dirt and Band-aids until I turned 12.

Right before my 7th-grade year, my Dad left the National Park Service, and we packed up and moved to Missouri in order to be closer to my Grandma and Grandpa. My Grandpa had negotiated a rental for us in the small town of Ash Grove, Missouri.

[The house looked a bit different when we lived there. There was no garage on the left or lattice, and the closed section on the right was a cement porch. That small stained glass window was my bedroom window.]

The house was around 1200 square feet. As a very old home, it had started out as three rooms, a kitchen, living room and one bedroom. Over the years, 5 additional rooms were added on, including one bathroom, but there were no hallways. One room led to another, and you had to walk through one bedroom to get to the next. It was essentially a home pieced together as a series of box-shaped spaces. There were five exterior doors. Two of the doors had been stuffed around the edges with old newspapers. My bedroom had once been a beauty salon. The stylist cut and styled hair out of her home. I lived two blocks from school and two blocks from the city park where I would eventually work as a lifeguard. Also, much to my dismay, the house was directly situated across the street from my parent’s church of choice. If our pew was empty on Sunday, people noticed, and they talked.

We lived in that house until my senior year of high school. At that time, my parents, who had committed to living in Missouri long-term, decided they might be interested in becoming first-time home buyers. I have no idea how long they actually talked about the possibility, but it seemed to happen very quickly. There was no realtor, no house showings, mortgage companies, or the other traditional activities that go along with buying a house. If I remember correctly, my dad was riding his bike one day, saw the house for sale by owner, inquired within, and that set the deal in motion.

[This house also looked a little different when we lived there. There was no pitched roof on the left. The covered porch has been significantly expanded. I think this upgrade adds a lot of character to this house.]

The deal was brokered, in 1990, by little more than a handshake. The widowed owner’s relatives told her she was letting the house go for too little. She told them to mind their own damn business (I want to be her when I grow up.). She carried the mortgage. It was a six-year mortgage, and for all six years, my dad paid by taking a personal check to the bank and depositing it into her bank account.

The house was again, around 1200 square feet. It was a sturdy yellow brick ranch home situated on two acres, surrounded by cattle pasture. It was here that I first experienced living with modern amenities such as TWO bathrooms, a stand-alone shower, and sliding glass doors. It also had a garage door opener, and I was pretty sure that my parents must be secretly loaded to be able to afford such a fancy house.

While I was growing up a country kid, Andy was living a very different life.

He was born and raised as a city kid in Fort Wayne, Indiana. By age two, his family was moving from the two-story house that they had outgrown to their new house, a few streets over. They still live in that house today, and their street is on the Historic Register. In order to protect their privacy, I am not going to post a picture of their house, but I can tell you a little bit about it.

The house was built in the early 1900’s, and it was designed by a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was built in the Prairie School style, and it has features that strongly resemble the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, New York. I am not joking.

The house is three stories, and it is wonderful. Andy has great memories of living there, and our kids love visiting and looking at all the treasures that my in-laws have kept over the years. I go there and fawn over the woodwork, the stained-glass windows, and all of the fancy little details that were so indicative of the arts and crafts and Prairie School movements of architecture.

For the next 6-8 years out of high school, Andy and I both lived in various community housing situations such as dorms, apartments, and shared houses. Eventually, by the hand of fate and a single coin toss by Andy at the junction of the road that leads to the North or South Rim of the Grand Canyon (true story!), Andy and I met back in Zion National Park in Utah. He was a carefree college graduate having his last hurrah before future full-time employment. I was revisiting my beloved childhood home, and I was working in a hotel for a summer.

We met, fell first into hate, then into love, and that led us to our first home purchase as newly-weds.

Part II
Part III