The House in Seguin
It seems to me that I have always been interested in antiques and their histories: how our objects of beauty or common use affect our lives. How did people manage without technology and what sort of architecture did they choose to live in?
Part of this interest comes from having a dad born in 1914. His boyhood during the Depression in the Berkshires was spent as a pastor’s son. They lived simply and raised food for the locals who couldn’t afford to eat. But my dad was fascinated by the new technology: airplanes. He learned to fly, fought for the RAF in World War II and continued his career working with jet engines. That still amazes me. Born of an English immigrant during World War I and flying jets at the apex of his career. So I heard stories of his life with and without electricity and how he crashed planes five times when he was a test pilot. Exciting stuff for an imaginative child!
And my mother’s childhood was no less interesting. She was born of Norwegian immigrants in Wisconsin in the late 1930’s, and they did pretty well for themselves. Not hugely wealthy, but certainly well to do. They had staff and the girls went to boarding school. There was a lake house and lots of travel. There are a few bits and pieces which have drifted down to me which I treasure because relatives of mine made them or wore them. They form a part of my personal history, and I think that’s what collecting antiques is all about.
In the early 1970’s, my parents found a house in Seguin, Texas. It would be an hour commute to San Antonio for my dad, but they knew that this beautiful sleepy town was a great place to raise kids. Seguin wasn’t known for much except having the largest pecan in the world. Never mind that it was made of painted concrete, it was our claim to fame. That and the delicious, buttery pecans we all gathered from our backyards. I walked to school, and my street was full of other kids. We played and rode our bikes and went trick or treating without grown ups. Imagine!
But it’s the house we moved into which is the treasure box of all my special childhood memories. It was a vanilla brick Victorian mansion whose grounds took up three quarters of a city block. The widow whose house it was had died, and the family sold it cheap. With its two story colonnaded porch and beautiful gardens, it was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen.
The house had been gifted to the woman by her wealthy husband in the 1930’s, but she didn’t want a Victorian pile. She began sympathetic renovations which maintained the house’s history but modernized all the conveniences. When we moved in some forty years later the house was a little tired, but we had gorgeous wood floors, a green and white 1930’s kitchen, original fitted butler’s pantry, art deco bathrooms to die for, an art deco swimming pool with pool house, three car garage with apartment and a gardener’s cottage. She had also had Venetian light fixtures and chandeliers made for almost every room.
Even as a young child I fell in love with that house. It smelled like history and it felt like home. I would pet the flocked damask silk wallpaper and fall asleep to thunderstorms on the sleeping porch. The overgrown forsythia which bordered the side alley became tunnels and forts for me and my friends, and we would play hide and seek in the gardens for hours.
The widow’s family also included a lot of items in the sale of the house which I found almost as interesting as the house itself. There was an enormous set of yellow Fiestaware and a set of Franciscan Desert Rose left in the butler’s pantry. It wasn’t worth anything back then, and we used it for our everyday. In the cool, dark and very scary basement area where the terrifying boiler lived, we found a large collection of Fortune magazines. There was nearly every edition starting with 1930 and ending in the late 60’s. I would read those for hours!
But the best thing we found was in the garage apartment. One of its rooms was piled high with original Marx toys still in their boxes. My two brothers and I went nuts, but our parents made us pace ourselves. And we saved lots for our friends’ birthday presents. That was cool - I was into Barbie anyway.
It was an idyllic childhood. I was very lucky. But those memories and that amazing house have stayed with me. It’s not just nostalgia. I have a deep appreciation for old and historical things and places. They have stories of the people who handled them and lived in them and those stories are our stories. I don’t just appreciate antiques - I love antiques. They are us - and we all have a story to tell.
