Sometimes at my age, my body feels like I am an old house (but at least reasonably maintained unlike the first two above!) I believe my love of old houses was first established when my parents purchased a 100 year old home in the sixties in upstate New York and remodeled it. I have loved them ever since and usually the urge to restore them unrealistically whelms up inside of me (kind of like an old lady hot flash.) Of course common sense prevails, but if I were young again...
We stumbled across these buildings during our travels during the last couple of weeks. When I got home and zoomed in on some of the details in the photos I was amazed. The decorative details added (especially to the home pictured in the middle) are phenomenal. There are designs at the peaks of roofs over the front door and the peak of the home. Dental wood work trims the edge of the turret shaped roof with diamond shaped leaded glass fitted into the windows below. Looping garlands of ivy or flowers wrap around below a portion of these same windows on what remains of a stucco-like application over the wood. Columns frame a porch that opens off a second story window and decorate a window above. I am certain there is a name for this style of building which I will research.
I wonder who owns these buildings now? My imagination swirls within me devising stories about the souls who walked the halls of these structures. These homes and the business building above all experienced the lives of people who lived and loved and worked in this valley a hundred years ago. What were their stories? What made them happy or sad? Do their memories yet remain in the minds of those long ago children whose steps wound around and through these homes? I don't know. But I would wager someone knows the stories. I will see what I can discover. (Believe it or not, Jim posted the top photo on his Facebook page and one of his friends actually grew up as a boy nearby that home. We have a source for information already!)
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