Many famous houses have names. They often make sense. The White House is white. Number 10 is at 10 Downing Street. Monticello is on a little mountain. A house with a name has a certain grandeur or gravitas. But when a house isn’t grand, or noteworthy, what’s in a name is often a lot of not much. The beach is a particularly good place to find nonsensical names. Rental agents say a named house attracts broader attention so owners are encouraged to come up with one. But the advice comes with a caveat that is often ignored- avoid tongue-in-cheek and nonsense names.
Tide’s Inn (unless it’s out). Sunset Cottage (squarely facing east so maybe they meant Sunrise). Gulls and Buoys ( adults not welcomed). Spindrift (a hotel-sized house with turrets- did they mean Spendthrift)? Driftwood House (more vinyl than wood).
Oops.
But what about the house that isn’t famous or infamous and has a name that does makes sense? In my growing-up neighborhood, houses had numbers that were largely irrelevant to all but a new postman. Everyone knew everyone and we just called the house by the owner’s name. Even if the Tylers hadn’t lived there for years, it was still “The Tyler’s House. But there was one house that had a name. It was a handsome brick Georgian with a gate leading to the front walkway. A simple plaque on the gate read, Seldom Inn. It was a clever and honest name. The owners liked to travel and were seldom in. I wonder if Seldom Inn has become Mostly Inn, in this, the Age of Corona.
I began this piece in July, prompted by story in the WSJ about the pitfalls of house-naming, but it never felt quite finished. So I sat on it, hoping a conclusion would materialize. Voila! Friends bought Blue Bird Cottage, a jewel box of a house, with a name that makes sense.
The bluebird is a harbinger of happiness. And that’s what Blue Bird Cottage aims to be. Deciding to leave a beloved family home was gut wrenchingly hard. And their timing seemed off. Buying, renovating and moving is exhausting under any circumstances, but doing so in the midst of a pandemic and tiring medical treatments seems nuts. Not so fast. The buying, renovating and moving is making everything better. Much better. They’re eliminating the unnecessary so the necessary can have its say. And that’s just what the doctor ordered.
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah!