*****

One evening when we had some friends over for a dessert party, Grady asked, "Are you on the National Register of Historic Houses?"

"No," we replied. "It's a new house."

Which prompted Grady to ask, "Was it hard to get listed on the National Register? How much control did they exercise over you during the renovation?"

We replied again, "It's a new house."

So Grady followed up with, "Did you have to fill out a lot of paperwork for the National Register people?"

"Grady, it's a new house. It can't be listed on the National Register because it's a new house."

He looked at us quizzically. "Huh?"

*****

One of my favorite stories comes from a house tour that we were on. It was the second day of the tour and over 600 people had already been through the house, and we still had several hours to go. (We counted about 1300 people on the Tour before it was finished.) A woman hung back as the tour group ascended the stairs for a look at the second floor. "You've done a wonderful job with the renovation. It looks just like the old house, only nicer." she said.

I smiled and answered, "Thank you, but this is a new house."

"Oh no," she replied. "This is the old house. It's been restored. I remember it."

"Well, m'am, I'm one of the owners of this house, and I know that it really is a new house. We just finished it a couple of months ago." I tried to be as patient as I could.

"Well, you must have rebuilt the old house just like it was, because I could see that you used the stones of the old foundation." she insisted.

"No m'am. The house that had been on this lot burned to the ground several years ago. It was completely destroyed. We bought the vacant lot. And if you go to Home Depot you can buy the split-faced block that looks like stone. That's what the foundation is made of." She left to go look around upstairs, disbelieving and shaking her head.

*****

Then we had to laugh at one of our tour guides, who after four hours on his feet and having said the same thing several hundred times, starting announcing that "all the furniture in the dining room is original to the house." People were impressed. Until we started giggling, that is. Then they remembered that this is a new house . . .

*****

But my favorite story of all involves two carpenters. A couple of months after we moved in, we noticed that one of the pre-hung doors wasn't hanging exactly straight, so our builder brought over two carpenters to fix it. They filed and sanded and fiddled with this and that, and generally made a mess of wood shavings and sawdust on the carpet. I was obviously looking kind of worried at the mess, so one of the carpenters comes over to me and in his most reassuring voice said, "Don't worry lady, we'll clean this mess up and be out of here is just another few minutes. Sometimes doors just get a little out of kilter. You've got to expect this sort of thing in these old houses!"

"But it's a new house . . ."

*****

Gallery House was built in 1997 from the owner's design. It was based on designs from the High Victorian period, particularly houses by Shaw.

Come be a part of Gallery House's history. We're making it every day.

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