Window Shopping
Headed off Sunday morning under a backdrop of ominously dark clouds. My goal was an abandoned Victorian house in a nearby town that was slated for demolition. As I rolled up on the location I was disappointed to find only dirt and some stones where the house once stood. Hate missed opportunities like this, particularly with period architecture. There's such a finality to the demolition of historic houses. Once gone, they are never rebuilt. New construction may take their place, but it's never the same.
Dismayed, I drove on a short distance and was shocked to find this old Italianate style house. I had stopped to photograph it in 2014, and was very surprised to find it still standing. On my first visit, the place was vacant but hadn't been empty for all that long. It was still intact anyway, sealed from the weather and still connected to the power grid. But that was then. Now the place is wide open as the doors and most of the windows have been removed. This is not the the result of vandalism. Rather the house has been systematically stripped of its parts; a veritable harvest of architectural salvage. I didn't enter, but from what I could tell, the interior woodwork had also been removed. I also noticed the decorative brackets beneath the eaves had been removed, pulled out like bad teeth. I initially decided not to even bother photographing the place, but the memory of what it once looked like, coupled with the killer clouds, compelled me to pull over and get the photo. So much atmosphere here, and such a bleak location for a house, just a few yards from a noisy highway. Must have been a difficult place in which to live. I always wonder about things like that at places that make me feel uncomfortable even after just a few minutes. How on earth did people adapt to living their lives here?
As I drove off I thought about how the universe had provided me with a backup plan even when my primary mission failed. Always seems to pay off when I head out with the camera. I can never predict the outcome, but something good always seems to happen.
Here's a link that shows the condition of the house in 2014:
Window Shopping
Headed off Sunday morning under a backdrop of ominously dark clouds. My goal was an abandoned Victorian house in a nearby town that was slated for demolition. As I rolled up on the location I was disappointed to find only dirt and some stones where the house once stood. Hate missed opportunities like this, particularly with period architecture. There's such a finality to the demolition of historic houses. Once gone, they are never rebuilt. New construction may take their place, but it's never the same.
Dismayed, I drove on a short distance and was shocked to find this old Italianate style house. I had stopped to photograph it in 2014, and was very surprised to find it still standing. On my first visit, the place was vacant but hadn't been empty for all that long. It was still intact anyway, sealed from the weather and still connected to the power grid. But that was then. Now the place is wide open as the doors and most of the windows have been removed. This is not the the result of vandalism. Rather the house has been systematically stripped of its parts; a veritable harvest of architectural salvage. I didn't enter, but from what I could tell, the interior woodwork had also been removed. I also noticed the decorative brackets beneath the eaves had been removed, pulled out like bad teeth. I initially decided not to even bother photographing the place, but the memory of what it once looked like, coupled with the killer clouds, compelled me to pull over and get the photo. So much atmosphere here, and such a bleak location for a house, just a few yards from a noisy highway. Must have been a difficult place in which to live. I always wonder about things like that at places that make me feel uncomfortable even after just a few minutes. How on earth did people adapt to living their lives here?
As I drove off I thought about how the universe had provided me with a backup plan even when my primary mission failed. Always seems to pay off when I head out with the camera. I can never predict the outcome, but something good always seems to happen.
Here's a link that shows the condition of the house in 2014: