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Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:54 pm

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If walls could talk, as they say....Apparently there is quite a story behind my simple little stucco Cape Cod house. My neighbor, Nancy, likes to map out the history of the neighborhood often. I'm glad she repeats the tale, because there are so many details to keep track of that I need it repeated!
On September 11, 2001, my daughter and I pulled into the driveway to take a look at the house. We were immediately drawn to the huge red roses at the side of the house and the towering oak in the back. As we looked at each other to confirm that THIS WAS IT, a man came running out of the house yelling some unbelievable things. I remember thinking that the "seller" had to be nuts. I'll never forget that day.
In 1950 a nice man, a contractor who worked for Dupont, built this place lovingly and THOROUGHLY out of cement block. Years later, the basement waterproofing company I hired to put in drain tiles in the basement nearly had a fit about the thickness of the foundation cement!They tried to add 2,000.00 to the bill, too. Anyway,the builder and his wife bought the land from a sweet lady who had just subdivided her farm property. Pasadena, MD used to be covered with strawberry farms and this had been one of them.
It's amazing who still has ties to that sweet lady, even after several properties resulting from that original farm have changed hands a few times over the last almost 60 years. Her child's son now owns the house next door. I was given that piece of the puzzle by his wife a few weeks ago quite by accident.
The ruins of two farm wagons sit at the far end of my property, too heavy to move. I'm glad I had to put some thought into what was to happen to them. They are both so old. It would be sad to see them in a dump. I think the answer is to refurbish them into planter tables (with really cool wheels instead of legs) and put them back into good use.
I'd love to know who and what the huge White Oak has shaded over the years. It goes back a LOT further than the house and perhaps even the farm. I do know, that the guy who built this place planted a cherry tree (I nursed it back to productive health a couple of years ago), some var. Euonymous hedging, Rhododendrum, Dogwoods and Russian Honeysuckle. I kept what I could and it formed the backbone of my yard.
To me, this is a cottage and I've planned the landscape accordingly. I wove edibles and ornamentals around each other, inter-planting to be able to fit what I needed in. I do regret the Rosa Rugosa hedge at the front, simply because I can't seem to make it look robust enough...probably coddling it too much.
Like cottage "folk" of years gone by, I'll make rosehip jam, dry herbs, pick veggies for my dinner...Home sweet home.


Last edited: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:54 pm

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toni wrote on Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:03 pm:

How cool to know that much history about your home. Some very interesting information there.

All we know about our home is the lady whose estate we bought it from had bought it brand new in 1967. It has only one bathroom because it would add $75 to the total mortgage amount and she couldn't afford it.

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Green_Numb wrote on Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:29 pm:

its nice that you know the history on your old house...

mines was built in the 80's so it doesnt have much yet but i plan to live here the rest of my life.

have you ever got on the satellite cams and looked at your property. They dont update them all the time so you can sometimes go back in time a bit and see what it looked like back a few years depending on the data they have. Just do some zooming in...

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shannonrose wrote on Thu Apr 23, 2009 3:54 am:

I love old house history. It is always fun to imagine what it was all like in the begining of a house and it's occupants. How neat that you learned so much about your homw and it's past. We foudn an old newsprint under our porch at our first house that was from the early 1900's before we finished our porch repair. we carfully put that paper along with a current one in a sealed container with a note in the event if the porch is ever removed it might be found.

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