Self-infliction

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

As you now know, I dig houses. My Denver home is a really good one, and leaving it feels like a self-inflicted wound.

My house was built in 1956, a year before the Sputnik satellite was launched. It’s a mid-century modern ranch with a low-pitched roof and floor-to-ceiling windows in the back that make the patio and small backyard feel like they are extensions of the house itself. It’s post-and-beam construction, which allows for a vaulted tongue-and-groove ceiling. It originally had a car port rather than a garage. It’s in a neighborhood with other similarly designed homes that were all built in 1956 and 1957, the “Atomic Age.” This neighborhood of modern ranches in southeast Denver is called Lynwood and it has a sister neighborhood close by called Krisana Park. The neighborhoods were developed by a builder named H.B. Wolff, who was likely following a pattern pioneered by Joseph Eichler, a California builder (not architect) who built more than 11,000 of these types of homes in California. Some would call the homes in Lynwood and Krisana Park “mini-Eichlers” or “Eichler-esque.”

Eichler was a cool dude. He wanted to build affordable, well-designed housing accessible to people of all colors in an era when real estate redlining was all too common. If you want to detour for a lesson on Eichler and mid-century modern housing design, click here. In the first couple minutes of the video an architect draws and explains what post-and-beam construction is all about. The rest is about Eichler’s homes and legacy.

Some of you know that I named my house the Atomic Cowgirl Ranch, a nod to its architectural era and Denver’s cowtown legacy. I even created its own check-in location on Facebook. I bought it eight years ago from an architect who had moved to Denver from San Francisco and would pick one house each year to restore. This house in Lynwood had been a run-down rental. She bought it and spent a year gutting it, adding on a primary bedroom, and modernizing the kitchen and primary bath with a HUGE walk-in shower. She converted the carport to a double garage and painted the garage door an avocado green. You can see what it looked like when I bought it by clicking here.

Here’s a pic of the interior from a couple years ago (featuring Stewie, may he RIP):

I’ve made a few changes to it myself over the years, including adding a large low deck off the back with a gas fire pit and digging out border flower beds. I also found immense pleasure in buying (more like “investing in”) a few pieces of classic mid-century modern furniture, including an Eames lounge chair and a Warren Platner dining table. Some abstract expressionist art pieces from local artists and one Andy Warhol poster (Eight Elvises). And the obligatory sunburst clock, of course. They revoke your MCM passport if you don’t have a sunburst clock hanging somewhere in your Lynwood or Krisana Park home.

This past weekend, I began the painful process of divorcing myself from this pretty little spot on the planet. While I’m disillusioned with Denver on a macro level, my microenvironment here is the best I’ve ever had. To list it, it needs to be decluttered and caulked and re-lightbulbed and scrubbed clean of all traces of me. Everything I picked up and put into a box or moved to the garage brought back a memory and tears and a tinge of regret for leaving.

The pothos plant my mom gave me when she moved me into my dorm at Iowa State. The hilarious “Show Me How” book from Casie. An orange pot that held the amaryllis bulb from Kathy – I got it to bloom two years in a row! The little porcelain cat Karen gave me. The green glass frog that was my little totem of Larry. The pint glass from Gov. John Hickenlooper’s first inaugural ball. The unredeemed gift certificate for a cooking class that Victoria gave me for my birthday right before the pandemic hit. The novel written by an ex-boyfriend. The other novel written by the other ex-boyfriend (Gee, Holli, got a type?). A little keepsake jar decorated with beads and polished rocks that my nieces and nephews made for me that says “Holli, you rock!” My grandfather’s copy of the “Guide to Birds of North America.” Multiple albums and shoeboxes of photos of family and friends from the time when you actually printed out images onto paper. A “United in Orange” towel from a Broncos play-off game I attended with Julie.

Luckily, I get to take these things and the memories wherever I go.

What must stay, and what pains me, are the 800 tulip bulbs I planted in the border beds that I won’t get to see every spring. Or the irises that my neighbor down the street gave to me to transplant. The constant Colorado blue sky. My friends joining me for dinner on the deck and sipping whiskey drinks and talking smart around that stylish Corten steel fire pit. Walking over to Esters, my neighborhood local, to grab a pizza. The Palisade peaches at the farmers markets every August. Light rail train rides to Rockies games. The view of Mount Evans when I turn west onto Evans Avenue each morning to go to work. Of course, I will relish most of these things even more when I come back to visit.

Meanwhile, to hold back the sobs, I must keep repeating the mantra: It’s not the house that’s important. It’s the life made there.