By Jim Hagarty
2012
Every now and then I drive by a new subdivision with houses under construction that are obviously in a competition to be declared Ugliest House of the Year. A worse collection of misdesigned homes I have never seen. They are all a bit similar which leads me to believe that the architect who sketched them out was in a drunken stupor at the time. How else to explain windows thrown at walls with no apparent concern for practicality or aesthetics?
The houses are all bricked, which is fine, except the bricks on each building are all of various hues, giving these unfortunate dwellings a sort of polka dot look except the dots are rectangular. The homes are hulking great things; if they were automobiles they would be monster trucks. Little wee front porches that could accommodate one person at a time in a lawnchair.
If the architect wasn’t the culprit in this disaster, then the only other explanation I can think of is that these places were designed by the people who intend to live in them. It has been my observation that some people who design their own dream homes wake up to a pretty bad nightmare when the construction guys are gone. And good luck selling that turkey when it’s time to move on.
If I was to design my own home, it would probably look as good as a suit of clothes I might create from the collar down. And yet, don’t a lot of us dream now and then about the crackerjack house we could come up with if we only had the money and the time?
I feel sorry for the families that will eventually dwell in the subdivision from Hell that I love to hate. But maybe I shouldn’t. A few years from now, when the ornamental bushes and trees have grown up and disguised some of the abject hideousness of the place, it just might exude a certain charm, following the same process, I suppose, that results in person growing fond of his kid’s pet gerbils aka rats.
