I drew my dream house at one time and kept the drawing for years. Basically a hobbit hole, but much smaller than Bag End, it was one room, built into a hillside. A house for one person, covered with green turf and wildflowers.
I wouldn’t say I’ve changed much, even though I now live in a 1790 farm house with many rooms I rarely even open the door of.
When we were house hunting in 2004, one of the houses we looked at just hit me as the house I always wanted to live in. It would have been built maybe in the 60s or 70s? Long and low, although I think it might have been a split level. Mostly I remember the long sunken living room with windows all along the long side and a big fireplace at the end, and a raised, railed gallery behind it. The only other thing I really remember is that it was in woeful shape, an estate sale with bidding, and although we might have afforded to buy it we couldn’t afford to also fix it. I’ve never been in another house that I wanted to live in as much as that one.
As an architecture student at OSU, I designed several dome houses. I’d still love to live in one.
I wanted something modernistic, like a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The house from North by Northwest would have fit the bill if it actually existed.
Later I learned that Wright houses are notoriously high-maintenance, but nevertheless I’d probably consider buying one if I won Powerball. There are some pretty cool ones on the market now.
I desperately wanted a secret passage. I read way too much. Every time I visited someone in an old home, I would be knocking on the walls, convinced that I would eventually find one.
A Bungalow, maybe a bit larger, though.
Every house I’d ever been in or noticed was just a house. The perception that they differed escaped me. Until my 20s, when I moved to Montreal, where literally everybody rents an apartment in a multi-story building. I wondered how it’s possible for a kid to go his whole life without running through a screen door free to play on your own private law and eat mom’s food from the garden. Or go to school with kids, none of whom hd ever had that experience.
So, my dream house was just one where my kids were free to run and ply – just like my own. How sad it must be to not have that memory.
My biker stepbrother bought what had been my middleschool girlfriends’s family house, around the corner from where I (but not he) had lived. Drunk buddies built a bonfire in his living room; doused, he rebuilt the excavation as a “conversation pit”, had a mix of tiki-porn and biker-porn decor, and a monster tube-amp system to disturb the neighbors. Like your dream but way funkier.
My dream home? First I wanted the caves under Tom Sawyer’s Island at Disneyland. Then I wanted a friend’s 3-story Victorian in the middle of a Los Angeles suburb’s orange grove. It had a basement! Later I designed an earth-bermed glass-roofed octopod structure. Now my dream is a place I don’t have to maintain. Aging does that to one.
As a kid I just wanted a house with a second story. I just liked stairs for some reason.
As an adult I think stairs are more trouble than they’re worth. I would never want to have to move furniture up stairs. Even the apartments I lived in before I bought a house were all on the ground level.
I recently toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house in my area. It looks really interesting from the outside. It’s a train wreck on the inside and as you said, a maintenance problem. But I like the exterior esthetics of his work because they have an eclectic look to them.
I like houses that are eclectic and it’s not an easy thing to define. I don’t want it to be different for the sake of being different but I like something that’s not uniform. I love old houses that have been added on to more than once and the additions are completely different from each other. I love well thought out eccentricities.
I toured a house years ago where someone took a large old house and carved up the interior from the 2nd floor to the basement. It had a very modern look to the layout combined with the old structure that was exposed. The local historical society had a fit but it was really neat they way it was done. The outside looked rustic and the inside was rustic modern.
If grammar school I spent about a 3rd of my life sleeping, a 3rd at school, and about 50% of the remaining time was spent here. It’s a Gothic Revival built in the 1850s, and was sold to the city in the 1920s (I suspect the crash was responsible) and it was the local community center when I was growing up.
To be clear, I didn’t dream of living in Loudon House.
Loudon House was built on the outskirts of 1850s Lexington, and the city gradually grew out to the 32-acre property over the next hundred years, as a wealthy neighborhood that was apparently pretty competitive about architecture. A lot of interesting houses with historic registry plaques now. After WW2, the city grew again on the other side of the property, the classic brick bungalows thrown up for returning vets, and that’s where we lived.
Our grammar school (also part of the post-war baby boom) was in the middle. On the way home, if I turned right (as I usually did), I went to play in a freaking castle surrounded by all sorts of interesting-looking houses. If I turned left, I went home to a cookie-cutter house that looked exactly like the other 52 houses on our street, the street before, and the street after…
So as I kid, I dreamed of living in one of those houses to the right, surrounding the castle. They weren’t much bigger or nicer than our middle-class boxes, and even now they aren’t much more expensive - they just had more character. Ironically, a cousin lives in one now - and grouses about the headaches of a 100-year old house where every repair estimate is inflated with the word “custom” next to it.
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been reading the Rivers of London urban fantasy series and terraced houses keep being mentioned and I always forget to look up what he’s talking about. WTH, I thought we got “townhouse” and “rowhouse” from over there, and now there’s another term for the same darned thing?
That’s sounds like the house I grew up in. There was a Frank Lloyd Wright style house just behind us, which was my dream house.
I just wanted to live in one that wasn’t located on a farm. Now Ms. P and I talk about living near a river (but not so close we’d have to worry about flooding). The towns along the Susquehanna appeal to us. Something not too big, with a screened in porch and a small deck would be nice.
As a child, one of my favorite pastimes was drawing my dream home – exterior and interior. It was a bungalow with a
circular driveway, a sunken living room, and a fireplace with a raised hearth. 
As a kid, my “dream home” was the house I grew up in. It was my family in my home. Perfect!
The Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland.. When I was young in the late 50’s, the Future was always where life was better, with monorails and flying cars.
When I was a kid, I loved the house I lived in. Built in 1921, it kinda looked like an English Tudor. Red brick, slate roof. Three bedrooms, pink and grey bathroom upstairs. Finished basement with another bathroom with a shower and my dad’s office. Big fenced in back yard. Kitchen had an aqua refrigerator, a wall oven, and a gas stovetop. Radiator heat and my dad installed air conditioners in the walls of the kitchen and living room. I still dream of that house and miss it terribly.
Winchester House
House on the Rock
Collinwood
Numerous castles
You’d need an army to clean them though, so I hope money is no object.
Gotta have hidden rooms. INCREDIBLE AND INGENIOUS Hidden Rooms AND SECRET Furniture - YouTube
I don’t remember a dream house from childhood, but since we didn’t live in the same house for more than 2 years (3 years once), I don’t think I pictured a permanent place. I just wanted my own bedroom and bathroom, and more space.
I’ve had many dreams about touring homes as an adult, and they are always different. They’re always huge, with many, many rooms. There are wings in which you go through one room and find another, continuing until you get to a bathroom. Every dream has more than one such wing with multiple levels, so I keep finding new places. They all seem to be older homes, with either mid-century modern or older 20th century design. There are grand staircases and great views. They are furnished with beautiful, rich furniture and decorations. I always seem to be thinking I remember this house so I am not surprised by anything, but it’s all interesting.
There are many beautiful, historic craftsman homes and prairie-style brick mansions in this city, and I fantasize about living in one. I also fantasize about buying a wooded plot just outside the city and building a cabin in the woods to be my permanent home.
