Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium
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When we purchased our previous home in Michigan 14 summers ago, we decided she should be called "The Marshalsea" because it took all of our available cash to procure her and even some of our investments. Then the government decided to penalize us heavily for having the audacity of using of our investments in such a grown up manner. The Marshalsea is a lovely English colonial of mature years. She was 70 years young and Mr. P and I came along in her point in life when she required a new kitchen, roof, driveway, windows, gutters, her original wooden 2 car garage lifted and rot replaced along the base plus a new garage door as well as front door and back door. Ah...what else? Oh yes, how could I forget? All new pipes and a furnace too plus a lot more. Mr. P. the wonderful homeowner he is, bought her the very best improvements he could afford. Had we sold The Marshalsea 2 1/2 years ago, we would have walked away with a six figure profit. But we didn't sell her 2 1/2 years ago. We sold her after both GM, Chrylser, and the housing market had gone belly up. Foreclosures and short sells had gone from the uncommon to more than common in our town. Happily, because of all the fine and gorgeous workmanship we had put into her, The Marshalsea sold only 3 hours after she was on the Market. Only the foreclosures on Lake Shore have sold that quickly - at auction too. We were on the open Market. Unhappily though, selling The Marshalsea took all of our available cash and then most of our investments -well what was left after the Stock Market Crash 10 months earlier. Then the government had even more audacity, given our circumstances, to penalize us heavily for using our investments to pay off our debt. As a result the Peperiums came closer than they ever had to residing in the real Marshalsea.
So it caused some amusement to learn that in our economically depressed era, The Peperiums are now living, to what those in the know would say, in the vernacular. And we're, as others would say, digging it. As you all know by now we live in a
corn field. But you don't that we live in a very large farmhouse in a corn field. Mr. P and I are calling our home, "Big House on the Prairie". But the real name for our house is the I House. It's called the I House because it has been so popular in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa since the early 1800's. The I House is part of what is known as vernacular architecture -a form rising up from common materials to suit the local needs. What is even more amusing for us Peperiums is that the I House, as common as it was, was actually considered a symbol of economic prosperity. Indeed the farmers who resided in them were considered so prosperous they were biggest and softest targets of the traveling snake oil salesmen like the Rockefeller brothers. (I can say that because the Rockefellers and my family were neighbors before the Revolutionary War - I know exactly how those boys cough, cough, made their money) What I enjoy most about our I House is that it is gracious. Very gracious and well proportioned. Ours is longer, taller, the porch runs the entire length of it, the front door is framed with sidelights, and it is at least 100 years younger than the one depicted above but, it does have a similar Gothic-influenced gable - which I love. It adds that certain je ne sais crois. Gingerbread trim works beautifully on an I House. In fact a I House looks rather too American Gothic without it. The designer of our home modified it in a most delightful manner by placing windows of Georgian proportions on the ground floor which gives a very light and airy feel. After life in the Marshalsea, sunlight is a most pleasant improvement.
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