Saturday night we threw a very casual going-away party for our little house on Park Avenue. As a colleague at work called it, a “Housecooling” party. It consisted of 15 cupcakes, several bottles of wine, four chairs, 9 adults, a pack of crazy children and a pig. Our impromptu gathering was to celebrate the 100th birthday of our little 2 bed, 1 bath bungalow. And to give it a proper send-off as it changes hands yet again— hopefully to an owner who will appreciate its charm and character.
2160 Park Avenue was our first house. We called it Casa Verde, and The Lavender House, and most recently it’s been known as Baby Jacob’s House. We reminisced about how when we bought the house, it was so disgusting our realtor would barely step through the front door. It was missing two or three windows at the time, so James and I could easily get in and measure rooms whenever we wanted. Back then we were told that it was the Santa Clara University Crew Team’s house. I’m not sure if SCU even has a crew team, but it was clearly inhabited by a group of college-aged boys, likely running around wielding long oars. I remember the side yard was overgrown with chest-high weeds, and was filled with an unimaginable number of used razor blades and empty cardboard toilet paper tubes. The boys would just use them and toss them out the missing window.
I also remember we were properly appalled when we figured out that the shower that had been shoved into the master bedroom’s closet was just a drain that emptied directly under the house. And the lean-to shed off the back of the kitchen, affectionately called “Ghetto Laundry Room,” had closet organizers as though some poor kid had been renting it. Clearly he missed the video they played in my freshman dorm titled something like: Don’t Leave Here and Move Into Someone’s Garage.
We also reminisced about CLub nights, which started with Jill and me making dinners and watching reality TV. There were some nights when our menus were so ambitious, we didn’t eat until 9pm in front of The Bachelor. Oh the luxury of one’s twenties. The CL in CLub stood for Cooking Light— our go-to magazine for inspiration.
Back in those days, Kristen and Jay moved into the neighborhood and I remember they would pull Baby Cooper in their wagon over to our house for dinner. Kristen always said we would look back on those days fondly and of course, she was right.
Over the course of the night, we managed not to rehash the days of moving our mattress from room to room, as we embarked on fixing-up every single room in our spare time and watching hours of HGTV. That was when we learned that one must have a clean, finished bathroom before moving into a house. Those first baths, surrounded by cement board, were terrible. We tiled and hung kitchen cabinets and scraped tar from the original wood floors. James learned how to hang crown moulding and I once fell asleep face down on the kitchen floor after installing wood floors. The most back breaking work I’ve ever experienced. Even worse than high school soccer hell week. I’m fairly certain my own drool woke me up.
We did recollect how I would walk to and from the university when I was 9-months pregnant… the three solid years of grad school homework, and then our fat little Baby Jacob scooching backwards under the dining room table.
Saturday night was a wonderful night of friends, laughs… and a few bouts of anguished tears from Jacob and Nico, unfortunately not because they’re going to miss our little house.
It was the perfect send-off to mark the end of an era. Thank you to the Sanders, Spaulding and Papparides families for sharing this special evening with us… and of course Winston The Pig. Contrary to unsubstantiated rumors, Winston is not a previous member of the Santa Clara Crew Team.