Nest

Our home in Windham, New Hampshire

Nest is an excerpt from Millennium Muse, my book of narrative nonfiction, essays, and observations.

        Except for the house in Somerville, which Joseph bought with our best man at our wedding as the first real estate project for flipping, I have always located the properties and negotiated the purchase of the houses we’ve called home.
        I found the three-family Victorian in Savin Hill, a gentrified neighborhood of Boston. We placed an offer the day after I saw the dwelling in a real estate ad and was inspired to drive to the other side of town to see the property. The house looked like a castle. It had a turret, and the exterior had light yellow, vinyl siding. The property was minutes away from the Savin Hill train station, close enough so that I could cycle to the beach and ocean and smell the sea breeze from my porch in the morning.
        We stayed at Auckland Street far longer than we ever planned. This was in part because Joseph’s parents lived in one of the units. Each day, his father took the train to Chinatown where he would read a newspaper in Cantonese and socialize with his elderly friends all day before returning home for dinner. His mother would sit by the window of the second floor turret and, being nosy, would look at the goings-on below. It wasn’t until his parents died, his father of cancer and his mother unexpectedly in her sleep, that Joseph, the only son and the youngest child by fifteen years, felt he was finally on his own. He was tired of the inconvenience of on-street parking and wanted more land out in the suburbs.
        We also had two cats, Fluffy and Junior, who owned the house and, although domesticated, acted like feral cats. They took over the furniture and scratched up our belongings as they pleased. I could never put out art objects or delicate items, or buy nice things for my space. Still, having raised them from the time they were born inside my clothes closet we had a shared history, and Joseph and I were not about to put them up for adoption just to have a perfectly decorated home.
        After about eight years living on Auckland Street, I had made my peace and simply focused on the convenience of the place, a five-minute drive into downtown Boston. By then, Joseph had completely renovated the penthouse to resemble a very cool and hip urban hotel. Vietnamese immigrants had purchased and spruced up the surrounding houses in this traditionally Irish-Catholic neighborhood. The housing values had doubled to about $400,000 and at the peak of the real estate market would have been pushed to over the half million dollar mark.
        I told Joseph I would relocate if I found something I liked better. To me, that meant new construction, artistic design, park-like grounds, and convenient highway access:  after patiently, good-naturedly, placing my desires on hold all those years, I wouldn’t settle for anything less.
        It took five years of searching before one of Joseph’s colleagues told us about Windham, just across the border into New Hampshire, not far from Andover, where Joseph’s sister’s family owned a lovely home in a fashionable neighborhood before exchanging it for a condo in Hong Kong. Paul’s assessment was intriguing, so for about half a year, I began my forays out to the wilds of southern New Hampshire, in different seasons and during all kinds of weather, much like a test drive of what it would be like to live here.
        I admired the scenic drive up to Castle Reach. Beyond St. Matthew Church and the Sisters of Mercy compound is Searles Castle, modeled after a manor in Oxfordshire, England. It sits on a densely forested hill inside the stone castle walls, reached through a winding road with ancient trees stretching skyward that reminded me of what the Black Forest must look like. At the entrance of Castle Reach is a delightful apple orchard nestled in a valley, with a scenic view of the rolling hills beyond. Bodies of water surround Windham, including Canobie Lake, Cobbetts Pond, and Shelter Lake. The whole of Windham is a harmonious, natural community where I could spend hours cycling, walking, and jogging.
        I found a residence that was perfectly sited for us, surrounded on three sides by conservation land that could never be built upon. It was meant to be a model home, so basically a shell had been constructed with walls painted atrium white and a natural stone fireplace that soared two stories high. There were two staircases, a Juliet balcony, skylights, and three living areas, including a second floor loft. I contacted the listing agent and negotiated the terms for the property as is, which meant that there were no kitchen or bathroom fixtures and only dusty plywood as a sub-floor.
        The yard was mostly clay that created puddles and run-off erosion after heavy rains and snow. As I strolled around the sweeping grounds, I determined that landscaping could add up to 20% to our home’s value, so I wouldn’t skimp here. The garden and plantings would be entirely of my own design.
        My sole complaint was that there was not enough closet space and, in a house with 4,200 square feet, much of the storage area would be in the basement. We were one of the first homeowners to settle in the pristine development of Castle Reach. Five years later, the enclave would be on its way to becoming over-built. One street away from us, homes valued at $2,000,000 to $8,000,000 were constructed. Further afield, several moderately priced developments were cropping up where farmland once stood.
        But on the day of October 29th, we moved into our new home, literally storing all our belongings in boxes placed inside the garage. Until the kitchen was usable, we regularly stockpiled a week’s worth of take-out lunch specials from a Chinese restaurant in Manchester.
        If anyone had told me that my future would include learning the details involved in building and construction and actually performing hands-on construction work, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. We spent the next nine months literally camping out of one bedroom, working on our house one layer at a time. For internal motivation, I looked forward to eventually having a personal space that reflected my individuality. First, we added toilets and washbasins. Then came the kitchen counters, cabinets, and stove island. After that, we placed a protective paper layer before adding the unfinished floorboards.
        Joseph must have hammered about 15,000 nails with a manual floor nailer before he sanded the wood and applied polyurethane to the floors. Mortar and tile work on floors and walls was next.
        My inspiration for the spa was the colors and materials we saw everywhere traveling in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Italy. Places like Bangkok and Bali are known for their spa cultures and the connection of serenity and meditation to well-being; here, all the elements of water, stone, wood, and glass blended into a complementary and harmonious whole.
        I designed the spa with Italian floor tiles the color of the Mediterranean Sea. I had hoarded one square of a ceramic tile I loved for five years, hoping I would eventually find a purpose for it. I also insisted on limestone wall tiles, an above-counter basin, and a graceful faucet protruding out of the limestone wall. The basin and faucet were inspired by the restroom at Radius, one of my favorite Michael Schlow restaurants in Boston.
        My home base is also my getaway. For us, waterworks are not a luxury, but a necessity. I collect a vast assortment of bath and spa products and need never leave my sanctuary.
        Finally, we had reached the point where all we had left to do was the touch up and finish work with trims and paint. As the very last step, I wiped down all the walls to remove the last traces of dust.
        One morning, I awoke early and in the stillness surveyed the scene before me: from the loft, I looked to the great room below and the forest and wetlands beyond the glass enclosures. In this operatic space, I felt I could live here forever.
        Our nest was the result of a partnership consisting of just the two of us: Joseph and I never hired sub-contractors. We also acted as our own interior designers, choosing materials and creating the kind of unified style and ambiance that best suits our lifestyle. When we first saw the house on Mockingbird Hill Road, we were excited about its potential as a place for family and friends to visit and enjoy each other’s company. We liked the feng shui of the open and airy floor plan and the way indoors and outdoors merged, separated only by a wall of glass that ran the length of the entire great room. Relatives used the house as a vacation resort because ocean, history, skiing, Maine, Canada, Canobie Amusement Park, and Rockingham Mall are all within striking distance.
        There are many design decisions that would not have been implemented had I not cajoled or coerced Joseph into complying with my vision. It’s ironic, that Joseph has the architectural training but that my design sense would be the more organic and elegant. Still, had I never met and married my husband, I don’t know that I would have acquired a vernacular, a perspective for the minimalist/monastic aesthetics that I adopted, in a highly stylized way, as my own.
        My home in Windham is the place for which I have the greatest affinity…when I die, my spirit will likely haunt the space.