Farewell, Musty Manor

by Shari Randall

Real estate is a dangerous love affair.

I just said goodbye to a completely unsuitable love, the home I’ve rented for the past year. A house I’ve called, with great affection, Musty Manor.

The real estate listing details the four bedrooms, two baths, light-filled porch, second-story deck, two-car garage. Up close I know that rain has made its way much too often into the attic, the stove doesn’t always work, and the refrigerator was bought during the Kennedy administration. The linoleum is peeling, as is the paint, and yes, it’s probably lead paint. Spiders have the run of the cellar. I don’t bother them unless they bother me, which is why my toothbrush went flying out the bathroom window the morning I reached for it and found a black widow on the bristles. Well, it looked like a black widow to me.

This Grande Dame was built just after the turn of the

Sailboat on the Sound

century. She overlooks Long Island Sound – Fisher’s Island in the distance, Noank just a short paddle away. It’s thirty steps to the water. Facing east ensures a gentle, early wake up call. Moonlight cuts a path across the water right to her front door.

Musty Manor’s bones are good but she’s a faded beauty. The paint on her broad Craftsman style roof is peeling. Birds nest under the carport roof. The view out the broad windows is watercolor wavy because of the antique glass. But birdsong from those nests flows in the cracks in the window frame, and I can watch the Wednesday afternoon sailing series from the porch.

Those quirky details just make me love her more.

A Celebrity Sighting!

I’ve lived in many houses and ridden out many storms, but never has a house felt as solid as the Manor. She endured the Hurricane of 38. Gloria. Sandy. This winter, when nor’easters blasted ocean waves across the road she simply looked up from her bridge hand with a bored look. I could imagine her thinking, “What impertinence!”

Her daffodils faded just as the lily of the valley bloomed, just before the lilacs and the blue iris and azaleas. The white lilacs were the envy of the neighborhood. I know this because these blooms were beautiful enough to entice a thief to make off with an armload.

Money Pit. Tear Down. I know what people say about her. But she’s a dear old thing. They don’t make them like her any more.

My nieces asked if she’s haunted. She is, and I would know, but only by contented memories.

Have you ever fallen in love with a house?