Summer Reruns Dep't.: Whose mode of living makes sense anymore?
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 141
Indignity's editor is traveling. While he struggles with outlet adapters and hotel Wi-Fi, we present this piece from the archives of our predecessor publication, Hmm Daily, meditating on the relationship between real property and mortality.
There Are No Dream Homes
THE WALL STREET Journal story keeps bouncing around Twitter, about how the Baby Boomers who built big custom luxury houses don’t want them anymore, because the Baby Boomers are getting too old to handle such big houses, and they can’t sell them, because everyone else either is not interested in a big custom luxury house, in which case they won’t buy one, or is interested in a big custom luxury house, in which why would they buy someone else’s old one? This seems like funny comeuppance, and it is funny comeuppance, but it’s also just the clown-shoed version of the problem that everyone has in one way or another, which is that homeownership is not a solution but a way of freezing a particular set of problems in place.
A house is an investment, except it’s also a necessity, and it’s also an expression of status, which together make the investment wildly expensive and illiquid.
These particular people have spent much more money on their houses than other people, but that is a function of American house-buying culture, which steers everyone to the outer limits of their budget and their other capabilities unless they can summon an ascetic degree of refusal and resistance. A house is an investment, except it’s also a necessity, and it’s also an expression of status, which together make the investment wildly expensive and illiquid. A house is the physical expression of a mode of living, and whose mode of living makes sense anymore?
Not the mode of living of the Bethells, of the Asheville, North Carolina area:
For their retirement in a suburb of Asheville, N.C., Ben and Valentina Bethell spent about $3.5 million in 2009 to build their dream home: a roughly 7,500-square-foot, European-style house with a commanding view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Bethells said they love the home but it now feels too big, especially since their adult son visits only about once a year. Plus, tasks like pulling garbage cans up the steep, 100-yard-long driveway have become onerous, said Mr. Bethell, 78. “It’s a lot to do.”
The couple listed the home in 2015 for $4.495 million, and have since reduced the price to $3.995 million. When the house does sell, they plan to buy a newly constructed, smaller house nearby.
How many times a year would the Bethells’ adult son have to visit for it to make any practical, functional difference in the experience of living in that house? How many of the 7,500 square feet could he account for, on how many days? Which came first, the emphasis on space and distance—the 100-yard driveway, the “commanding view”—or the sense of isolation and estrangement?
People guess who they are and what their lives are about, and they guess wrong.
People guess who they are and what their lives are about, and they guess wrong. Over and over the house-hunting column in the paper describes couples who bought a one-bedroom—or even a studio!—apartment, at the limit of their budget, and then discovered that they were human beings who were going to have children. Sometimes the discovery sends them clear up the Hudson Valley.
The belated self-discoveries among Journal’s subjects had more to do with decline and death. One couple, the Hambletons of Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, built a 4,200-square-foot house for “just under $3 million” and almost immediately tried to sell it for $2.99 million; by now they’ve cut the price to $1.975 million:
Mr. Hambleton is “a very young 89,” his wife said, and when they built the house, “he was only 82,” so the property’s upkeep “didn’t seem like that major a thing.” But when it comes to aging, she added, “I don’t know that you face these things until you have to.”
The years dwindle; the space stays cavernous. No one else wants to, or can, live your life for you. Eventually these houses will hold four families each, or they’ll go back to woods and fields, slightly formaldehyde-tainted from the lumber. The dream was never a very good dream anyway.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS THE Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
POD JOB DEP'T. Vacation season is upon us and the Indignity Morning Podcast Studio anticipates a two week shutdown unless some un-ignorable piece of news breaks, and I find myself with unstructured time and a connection to the Internet, but, assuming nothing unexpected happens in either direction, we will talk again on August 11th.
ADVICE DEP'T.
HEY! DO YOU like advice columns? They don't happen unless you send in some letters! Surely you have something you want to justify to yourself, or to the world at large. Now is the perfect time to share it with everyone else through The Sophist, the columnist who is not here to correct you, but to tell you why you're right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Dr. Allinson's Cookery Book: Comprising Many Valuable Vegetarian Recipes, by Thomas Richard Allinson, published in 1915, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
EGG AND TOMATO SANDWICHES.
4 eggs, 1 teacupful of tinned tomatoes or 1/2 lb. fresh ones, pepper and salt, 1 oz. of butter. Melt the butter in a frying-pan, and cook the tomatoes in it until most of the liquid is steamed away; set aside to cool. If fresh tomatoes are used, they should be scalded and skinned before cooking. Beat up the eggs and stir them into the cooled tomatoes, adding seasoning to taste. Stir the eggs and tomatoes with a knife until set, then turn the mixture into a bowl to get cold, and use for sandwiches.
[Alternate method] 2 eggs, 1/4 Ib. tomatoes, 1/2 oz. butter, pepper and salt. Skin and slice the tomatoes, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the tomatoes and pepper and salt to taste, and let them simmer for 10 minutes, mashing them well with a wooden spoon; set the saucepan aside and allow the tomatoes to cool. Beat up the eggs, mix them with the tomatoes and stir the mixture well over the fire until it is well set, then turn it out and let it get cold; make into sandwiches in the usual way.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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