Homes With Stories
Some homes stay with me, not for their size or design, but for the lives they’ve held within their walls. I’m fascinated by how a single room can hold laughter, love, and countless moments that linger softly long after time moves on.
Recent Posts
Richard Nixon Birth Home
In Yorba Linda, California, tucked within the grounds of the presidential library, stands a small modest farmhouse where Richard Milhous Nixon was born in 1913. The house is a simple white clapboard with narrow rooms and modest furnishings. It reflects the Quaker values of his parents, Frank and Hannah Nixon: faith, discipline, humility and hard work. […]
Poe’s Cottage
Tucked inside Poe Park in the Bronx is a small, white cottage that feels worlds away from the city that now surrounds it. The modest home was the final residence of Edgar Allen Poe, who moved here in 1846 seeking quiet and relief for his ailing wife, Virginia. At the time, this was rural farmland far […]
Lilian Ngoyi
On our teaching trip to South Africa, we took a tour of Soweto and stopped outside a modest home that holds extraordinary history: the house of Lilian Masediba Matabane Ngoyi. Lilian Ngoyi was one of the most prominent women in the anti-apartheid movement. A trade unionist and political leader, she became the first woman elected to […]
John Ward House
The John Ward House in Salem, Massachusetts, stands as one of the finest surviving examples of 17th century New England architecture. Built in 1684 for John Ward, a successful currier, the house reflects not only skilled craftsmanship but also the growing prosperity of Salem in the late 1600s. By the time this house was constructed, […]
Hillwood Estate
While we were at a convention just outside of Washington, D.C., we took a morning to drive over to this house, not only was the home beautiful, so was the collection inside it. Hillwood Estate was the residence of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress to the Post cereal fortune and one of the wealthiest women in America in […]
Hearst Castle
On our family road trip down the coast of California, we stopped at Hearst Castle, the estate rising above the Pacific along Highway 1. You see if from below first. perched high on the Enchanted Hill, as if it were a Mediterranean palace transported to the rugged California coastline. The house was built for William […]
Codman Estate
The Codman House in Lincoln, known as The Grange, stands as one of the most elegant and layered historic homes in Massachusetts, and is another home that we have visited often. There is something about returning to a place like this that deepens appreciation with each visit. Build around 1747, and later expanded, the house […]
Hamilton Grange National Memorial
For those who have seen the musical Hamilton, do you remember the moment when the family “moves uptown? In the late 18th century, uptown meant leaving the crowded streets of lower Manhattan for open farmland to the north. This are would later become Harlem. That is where Alexander Hamilton built his country retreat, a house known […]
Martin Van Buren National Historic Site
An often-forgotten president, Martin van Buren, is remembered at his home, Lindenwald, in Kinderhook, New York. This site is now preserved as the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. I have visited this house a couple of times, and the house itself leaves an impression, especially with its distinctive French scenic wallpaper that wraps entire rooms in […]
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site
Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in a brownstone home on East 20th Street in Manhattan. Though the original house was demolished in 1916, it was reconstructed in the 1920s on the original site, using photographs, family memories and original furnishings to recreate the homes it would have appeared during his childhood. The house reflects the […]
Frederick Douglas National Historic Site
When we travel for business, we always hope to explore something nearby, whether it be the nature of something historic. There is something grounding about stepping outside the seminar room and into the story of a place. We look for something special, something that belongs uniquely to that area. Frederick Douglas’ home was one of those […]
Lincoln Home National Historic Site
I enjoy studying and exploring Presidential sites, and I have visited all of the Presidential libraries and many smaller historic locations. Of course, I am partial to some presidents more than others, and for me one that is most special is Abraham Lincoln. As a child, we celebrated his birthday in February each year, separately, […]
