I grew up on the “bad” side of town, but I went to school on the “good” side. Every morning, when we kids on the schoolbus would cross over to the “good” side, we would play “That’s MY house”, where we’d take turns pointing out which fancy house was going to be ours when we grew up.
In retrospect, it was a sad and dumb game. Those houses weren’t actually that fancy. Some of us–like me–lived in neighborhoods that had houses that were just as nice and well-manicured. But because they were located in a more desirable neighborhood, they just seemed better to us. My memory tells me that we stopped playing the game once we got to middle school.
When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to be was an architect. Frank Lloyd Wright was my hero, and Fallingwater was my dream home. That was before I found out that the ceilings were low, and leaked.
There’s a neighborhood in my city that used to be a small, seperate town. When It was developed it took the name of the developer. The houses are all big, Victorian style homes, three floors most of them, some with walk in closets and a small room at the top back for a live in servant. I still want one of those houses but as I live alone what the heck would I do with it? One was converted to a Ronald McDonald house, and the one next to it was on sale not so long ago. I could let extra rooms to families that needed to stay near the hospitals cheaply.
One street in the neighborhood was seen briefly in a TV miniseries called Cross of Fire, as it stood in for the home of an important character in the series.
I lived in mydream home growing up. 3 stories tall, plus a full basement, with a 2 story carriage house out back. On 1/2 a city block. Stained and leaded glass windows, hand-woven carpets that they’ve now taken up. The most beautiful woodwork you could imagine. Big enough for 5 kids to have their own spaces and room to be themselves.
Here in urban Australia, I couldn’t buy a dingy 1br apartment for that! Here’s one (at a comparable price converted from USD to AUD) and it’s in an area that is not regarded as desirable in the least! And it was offers OVER (the equivalent of) $195USD, so god knows how much it sold for.
Anyway, when I was a little kid, all I wanted was a house with an indoor toilet, because there was no sewerage system where we lived, and I was tres embarrassed to invite friends over who lived in the part of town where there WAS a sewerage connection. We just had a can dunny.
I quite honestly don’t think I ever even speculated as a child about what kind of a house I’d live in as an adult. In fact I rarely (if ever) even pictured myself as an adult or a parent or a man working for a living.
Growing up in a row house with most family members in row houses, I thought the ultimate would be a house all by itself - not attached to the one next door.
Now I live in a rancher on 3 acres - pretty close to a dream house!
As a child and young adult I got moved a lot. I’ve lived in 25 houses in 14 cities in 8 states. One result of this was that I frequently dreamed about my Family of Origin moving into various homes, often castles or huge stone churches, all with lots of cool features like hidden passageways, tunnels, moving walls, etc.
My favorite dream (literally) home was located on a heavily wooded island in the middle of Disney World. It was extensive and thoroughly melded into the woods. If you didn’t know it was there, you couldn’t see it. We had water sports, boats, amazing playgrounds, and cool pets.
When I settled down and bought my first (and only) house 20 years ago, these dreams stopped.
