Family & Friends:
Welcome to our family blog. We will try not to bore you. In that spirit, we felt it appropriate for our first post to kick things off with a big announcement:
Andrea and I would like to inform you that we closed on the purchase of our first home on January 11th, 2010.
The purchase of a new home is always exciting. However, there are a few unique factors, that increase and add a special excitement to this development the lives of Andrea, Emmy Joy and myself. The home we purchased is in a historic neighborhood in Ogden, Utah- the East Central Bench National Historic District, also known as the Trolley District, due to the historical presence of, and hopefully, yet to be again, streetcar lines servicing the neighborhood. For those of you who are family members, you will be especially interested to know that the home Andrea and I have just purchased is a previous home of my late grandparents, George and June Bell.
They sold this home in 1990. Twenty years later, it is back in the family.
As you may know, Ogden, Utah has, over the last few years, been, and is currently, experiencing a significant renaissance. As we have watched friends and family members, immediate and extended, purchase homes over the decades, we have watched these purchases move outward from the Salt Lake area as real estate prices have risen, with some of the more recent purchases adjacent to and some taking place directly in the Ogden area. Consequently, we have noticed Ogden itself being rediscovered and in particular, the East Central district, again, where our home is located, has been renewed quite noticeably.
As some of you may know, our home is in a local historic district also, the Eccles Historic District which in short, essentially requires the homes within it to be maintained and kept in a historically appropriate condition. There have been a number of new, historically appropriate homes built as well as historically sensitive renovations in this neighborhood over the last decade. It seems like approximately one out of four homes in the immediate neighborhood are either new or significantly renovated. There have been new, very wide sidewalks poured on several of the streets, and we have noticed a number of recently planted street trees in the neighborhood, filling in the gaps to more fully complete the canopy of street trees. Also, as we did research on the area we noticed real estate prices had risen significantly in the last few years in the neighborhood, of course until just prior to the recent pervasive economic downturn.
In regards to the home itself, specifically, all carpet throughout the home has been removed and the original wood floors have been restored throughout almost the entire home both upstairs and on the main floor (about 90 percent of the finished square footage is now the original, refinished wood, where it was present originally – there were a few minor areas where restoration was not completed, due to the difficulty of the task, in those areas). The kitchen has been significantly redone, with new tile and appliances, among other things. The heating system has been totally overhauled, and street trees were planted in the planting strip a few years back, to be more consistent with the rest of the street, as well as other minor improvements to the landscape. It is an interesting feeling to have been in the home recently, as I remember it from my early youth, but it also feels like a very different place with these improvements and restoration.
A series of interesting events led us to look at the house, and in so doing we realized that the house as a property offered some very specific features that are very important to us as a family, but are rare, especially all in one property, as they are not a priority for most home buyers. Additionally, due to my choice of career in urban design, it made sense to be consistent with my professional views on community design as well the reasonable expectation that I endorse in my personal behavior the type of product I prescribe as a solution for others, professionally, though of course due to both Andrea and I’s tastes and preferences, we both strongly prefer living in walkable, historic neighborhoods, with traditional architecture.
Some of the specific features which made it a such a good fit and a neat purchase for us as a couple and as a family (in addition to the value for us of it being a previous home of my grandparents) are as follows:
1) The Type of Neighborhood- Brandon is a strong advocate for the development of new, walkable communities, often referred to as ‘new urbanism,’ and both Brandon and Andrea have loved living in such a neighborhood, in our former location in downtown Logan, Utah. ‘New urban’ neighborhoods employ many principles found in old urban neighborhoods (such as downtown Logan) that were developed prior to World War II. These neighborhoods, also offer a mix of uses, and allow multiple housing types to co-exist harmoniously next to each other, and generally, overwhelmingly, discourage fully single-use zoning. They deal with these mixed-uses, by ensuring the architecture of each building is appropriate, and managing the size, shape and placement of the building on a lot, so that it fits in harmony with it’s neighborhood, rather than worrying so much about it’s particular use.
Lots in such neighborhoods, are often long and skinny, as opposed to suburban development, where they are either more square or wide, side-to-side, and narrow in depth- one example of the suburban model, I am describing is of course, a rambler style home. Single family houses in both ‘old urbanism’ and ‘new urbanism’ often are longer than they are wide, have a garage fed by an alley at the rear, or with a narrow drive on the side of the home, with either a detached garage behind the home or a garage that is recessed from the rest of the home’s facade so as not to dominate the look of the home. Streets are lined with trees. Porches are generously large and common on most all homes. Houses are closer to the sidewalk, and especially, of course, in old urbanism (many neighborhoods of which are now historic districts), as well as mostly in new urbanism, houses are done in a traditional architectural style and form.
Streets are usually narrower, but almost always connect to another street; cul-de-sacs are generally very rare. This street design pattern allows greater walkability, due to more, and also shorter paths from one place to another, since intersections are more frequent, and streets never lead to a dead end, but rather to the shop on the corner, the light rail transit station, or somewhere else fun and useful. Such street patterns, also allow for the use of cars, but do not make them a requirement to meet one’s needs, but rather leave walking, biking and transit such as light rail, as viable, effective and enjoyable transportation options. Our home, again, in particular, is of course, in ‘old urbanism,’ and used to be fed by streetcar, in the early 1900′s.
There is a serious effort underway to restore streetcars as a major transit option for Ogden (this is currently deemed the most cost-effective option, as it is about half the cost of light rail, and meets the needs of Ogden given it’s size and the anticipated distance between stops). The question being decided right now is the route the streetcars will follow.
2) The Lot: A Not-So-Secret Garden- Andrea and I love to garden. A lot. But we also wanted to live in an urban neighborhood. These two things rarely go together in large amounts, (though the newest trends in new urban design are striving to change that). However our lot has a very unique feature. Our backyard is L-shaped. This leaves one area for normal backyard use, and the bottom portion of the ‘L,’ the part that was used by my dad and uncles as a volleyball court when they were growing up there and when I was a kid visiting Grandma and Grandpa, as the area we now use as a garden. This area is probably about 30′ x80′. Again, we are passionate about gardening and this is very exciting to us.
Gardening as a serious endeavor is especially hard to do in historic neighborhoods in Ogden, such as ours, as, in contrast to the blocks in all the other old neighborhoods in the oldest cities in Utah (Salt Lake City, Logan, Brigham City, etc), the blocks in Ogden are less than half as deep as they are wide, whereas in these other historic cities, the lots more closely followed the City Plat of Zion, otherwise known as the Mormon Grid, where the blocks are square. This means that the lots generally in Ogden are not nearly as deep and large as in historic neighborhoods in these other cities, and thus don’t offer much room for a garden. Our lot is one of the very rare exceptions to this situation in the area, hence we are very excited, and feel we are very fortunate that this presents a very good fit for us.
3) A Cornucopia of Little Things: We both absolutely love the look and feel of older homes, and we’ve both really wanted wood floors, for a number of reasons. Andrea really likes the large, numerous windows which let in lots of natural light, and the small window seat on the north side of the home, in the front room. Brandon in particular prefers radiant heating over central/forced air, which this older home of course offers. We are excited about the small room at the rear corner of the home, that is sheltered, and was referred to by the uncles and Aunt Allison as ‘the back porch.’ As we have wanted a dog, this small room would allow us to have one and keep it warm in the winter by being inside at night, but because it has a door on both ends of it (it is like a short hallway) it would keep the dog out of the rest of the house, and the trouble that comes with that. We are also excited about the possibility in years to come of replacing the detached carport at the rear of the lot with a detached garage in the same location, but with a studio apartment above for use as an office and studio, as well as restoring the home to a historic appropriate condition, internally and externally. And the list goes on…
After thorough consideration, we placed an offer on the home in November of 2009, and as I stated, Andrea and I closed on the home on January 11, 2010. Andrea and I are fully cognizant that the decision to live in Ogden isn’t for everyone, and that this may come as a surprising decision on our part to some. We however, are very pleased with this decision, have given it a lot of thought, and feel confident that this is the right thing for our family at this time. As many of you have a connection to the home from your past, we thought it appropriate to inform you of this development in our lives, and we hope you are able to share in our excitement.
Sincerely,
-Brandon, Andrea & Emmy Joy
