"It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality."

-- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Property Values, or Quality of Life?

My neighbor up the street, at 6 Buckingham Ct. (the yellow house below on the left) said, in answer to my question of how he like the huge houses going up across the street from him, said, "Hmmm... Well, it'll raise property values." My feeling is that property values are plenty high here already and that Kenilworth is in no danger of becoming devalued. I would prefer that my little one-block long street, containing mostly 1920s "Craftsman style" (more or less) bungalows from the 1920s and '30s stay as it is. The big houses have been, until now, up on the avenue and down on the circle. I like my little house, and its neighbors, and my neighbors like their little houses. But Progress rolls inexorably on, and a neighbor on the next street to the north decided to subdivide his lovely property, which runs through to Buckingham Ct. (as all the properties once did) and build two enormous houses on his lot. They're not McMansions, I'll give you that, but to me they don't fit in with the character of our lovely little street. here are pictures of the typical Buckingham Ct. houses, and then the new Things:

I'm not sure that you can get the scale from this display; you'll just have to accept that these houses TOWER over the bungalows. The picture on the right shows the end of the one on the left, and its proximity to the one to its right (not pictured, as you have enough here). Not to mention that the lovely Spanish style stucco house behind these two (the one whose owner did the subdividing) was formerly an impressive-looking hosue. Now you can't even see it from my street.

(And not to mention, as well, that I have had to change my house number from 7 (which my son-in-law points out is a prime number, and I want to say is one digit above where I grew up in RI, at a house numbered 6) to 9 (not prime). My daughter says, It's not a big deal, Mom, get over it. Of course I will, but I don't like it. Plus, the mailman, who has nagged me to change my address and change the number on the mailbox, keeps delivering mail to me that belongs to the neighbors at former #5, now #7.)

Some of these things are, of course, piffle before the wind, as Mr. Salteena said, and on the grand scale I KNOW that I'm lucky (NOT Blessed, mind you, just lucky) to be a middle class American and have a nice house to live in. But we act and feel from where we are, and this is my diatribe for Sunday, November 5, which is Cary's birthday (also my brother-in-law), and I should send him greetings and then go out and buy some meat and green chiles for a stew for company tonight.

Small Personal Tragedy Department

The ocean and the rain killed my camera, unless Ball Photo can work a miracle. There will be no pictures of boys in the ocean, nor can I document the gentrification of charming little Buckingham Ct. until I have a working camera. This is very sad, though on the larger scale it's piffle before the wind, it's a puff of dried sea foam scuttering down the beach.

The above is neither the beach nor Buckingham Ct., but rather a lovely house in the neighborhood that's for sale for $465,500. The ad calls it a "Mediterranean bungalow," but I'd call it Craftsman style. It's near some stucco Spanish-style houses, but there's nothing Mediterranean about this one.

Coming sometime: what's happening to Buckingham Court. Stay posted.