How the other 0.05% lives.

[rivka]

Saturday morning, curiousangel and I were invited to brunch at a neighbor's house, to welcome new families to the neighborhood. (No, we weren't on the list of new people to be welcomed, but at least we were invited to the brunch, right?)

I've posted pictures of our house before. It's a lovely, unassuming, down-at-heels, three-story brick rowhouse, and actually one of the smaller houses on the block. A lot of the larger houses, which were once mansions, have been broken up into apartments. We knew that some of them were still single-owner-occupied, but I think I sort of imagined that they were essentially larger versions of our own house.

Nope.

Our neighbors who hosted the brunch live in a mansion. An elaborately carved paneled, chandeliered, leaded-glassed, walk-in fireplaced, large walled courtyard and drivewayed, enormous added greatroom in the back with full-scale marble pillars and a vaulted roof-ed, mansion. Everything was exquisite and lovely and perfectly tasteful. Georgette Heyer characters would feel perfectly at home. John Jacob Astor would probably feel perfectly at home. And all of it four doors down from our comfortable shabby house.

We perched on oversized chairs in the greatroom and ate coffee cake and talked with our neighbors, mostly about houses and parking and neighborhood history and the car that drove up on the sidewalk and hit someone's house in a tragic parallel-parking accident. Everyone was very friendly. It felt a lot like talking with my parents' friends, except that it was taking place in something that looked, more than anything else, like a movie set.

I wonder whether, if we stay in the neighborhood, we'll become part of these people's social circle. It doesn't seem likely that we'd be close friends, but there certainly wasn't anything discordant about our presence at the brunch. We'd fit in all right as aquaintances... and that gives me the strangest sort of double-vision feeling. We fit in there, and we fit in at an alt.polycon, and at a gathering of Young Democrats, and at the Baltimore Folk Music Society, and that just feels a bit odd. The same people shouldn't know both pixel and Mr. and Mrs. Neighbor.

It's clarified something for me: I don't want that. I thought their home was lovely, but I prefer ours. Oh, I'd like to make improvements to ours - one of the people at the brunch had a wonderful idea about opening up more windows at the back of our house and building a deck - but I don't want to live in an elaborate mansion. The things I want, we'll be able to afford as soon as curiousangel is employed again. That's a nice thing to know.

Comments

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

Some friends of mine recently sold their fully intact house, located around the 1000 block of Calvert Street in Mt. Vernon. It was 4 floors of incredible coolness, old wood, huge windows, fireplaces, and so on. I loved it - but I also know that it would be a pain to live there. Imagine forgetting something on floor 4 when you're in the kitchen, or having to wash all those windows, or trying to get out spiderwebs! I've found that a modest house with good work room (i.e. a place to build messy projects) and enough room for some plants and a BBQ is really all I need. When I want space, I head to the park!.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

There are houses like that in our neighbourhood but I haven't been in any of them. Like yours, our house is about middle-sized and middle-priced, between the student rooming houses and the meticulously-restored Victorian detached homes.

When suburban acquaintances come to my house for meetings or to drop off paperwork, I almost feel embarrassed about how fortunate I am to live in such an interesting house. (By my standards, it's also an expensive house - but probably compared to a suburban 2-car garage house it is not much different.) So while they're gushing over our spectacular kitchen, I remind myself (and sometimes them) of the dingy front hallway and the hole in the ceiling that they had to walk by on the way to the kitchen.

It would be very funny if they were feeling sorry for me because of the hole in the ceiling and the bad windows, while I am feeling sorry for them because of their no-restaurants location and lack of architectural character.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Hope it's okay to follow up twice ... then I'll shut up.
About fitting in to such varied groups: It amuses me sometimes to note what different roles I/we seem to take in different groups. At alt.polycon we are more and more seen as the old stable boring ones with no drama in our lives. In my volunteer work (where I am not out) they see me as having an unusual liberated lifestyle because I live downtown with chosen family, don't have biological children, and didn't grow up here. At lunch I am one of the Cute Young Things

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Sensible young people with good manners should be welcome most anywhere.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

Sense requires a hot tub on the roof, though, you realize.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Struck by two things:

1) How nice to hear about people who live in areas with variety in houses...

2) Wow, I'd never thought about what it'd be like to live a life where one is always perceived to be in one specific category, and where one's social circle is primarily drawn from that category, as well.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Actually, we discussed this. If we did go along with our neighbor's suggestion about wrapping the deck around the back of the house, it'd fit better there. We'd have a slight issue with visibility from the house of one of our neighbors, but with a proper screen, that could be managed.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I've often felt torn about the "upper crust" thing. We're doing well for ourselves, don't get me wrong. Still, I look at our place, and I often think that we live largely "like students". Our place is smaller than we'd like, we don't have a yard, our "decorating" is haphazard at best, we have a functional, little car, our stuff ages as we re-use many things and as it becomes harder to justify buying new things. Some of these I really like, but others... I think I get the envy in me occasionally. When I bike around Toronto, there are so many neighbourhoods with so many amazing properties. I wonder how there can be *that many* people who live stratospherically better than we. And we have a good income, between us.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

We are finally begining to feel a little more part of the neighborhood, have had dinner with the next door neighbors and so forth. It is very nice.

A couple of thoughts about the mansion folks. How do you know that the rest of their friends are "upper crust" and live in similar places? In my life I'm doing my best not to see everyone else as staid, and normal. Of course we live in San Francisco where "normal" might be a bit different, but even in middle America caution might be advised!

About the mansion. Imagine having to dust all that carving!

It is very interesting how people spend their money. I just bought a $600 saw. Several people rather raised their eyebrows about that, probably the same people who are driving a late model car, priced in the $20k range. I drive a ten year old Honda Civic, that, when I bought it, I thought would last for 15 years. Now I think it might last 20... The saw will probably last me the rest of my life, and bring great pleasure as I work with a well made tool.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

with a proper screen, that could be managed.

If there's room for it, consider bamboo. In a supersized pot, I might add, to prevent invasion. But if you get the right variety (and there are varieties for almost any climate), you'll have all the privacy screening you could want, in amazingly short order. And the sound it makes when the breeze blows through is lovely, too ...

[pixel.livejournal.com]

(attempt #2, is LJ being INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANNOYING for anyone else?)

The same people shouldn't know both pixel and Mr. and Mrs. Neighbor.

I would like to state I laughed like hell at this.
However, I do in fact know ppl who if they don't live like that live quite incredibly well. I have friends' parents' houses that make me stare in awe.
In fact my mom's new house is kinda imposing (in a McMansion sort of way). 5br, 3.5baths, 3 car garae. The place borders on stupidly big."

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I felt just like this when I went to visit my friend in Singapore. Like I shouldn't fit in in her world, and didn't *quite* exactly, but it was definitely close enough for government work, and a little too close for my own comfort.

-J