“As soon as you stand in the doorway, you can tell it’s a girl’s bedroom” Or something close to that is how I began a high school English assignment to describe something.
Moving from rented house to rented house within the same town while growing up didn’t give me a strong sense of home. But I hit the jackpot when, in the early 70s, we moved one town away and, for about a year, rented one half of an old but amazing Gothic Revival.
I loved living there. It had a huge kitchen, a bay window, and three stories. My parents (for some reason) let me have the best bedroom; two rooms, really, joined by an arch. With abundant windows, the home’s rooms were filled with natural light. Finally, I knew the difference between a house and a home, and I feel that helped me decades later in some of decisions for designing my own home.
I wanted to live there happily ever after, but as renters, my fairy tale didn’t last. Over the years, I’ve told many people of that house in New Florence, Pennsylvania, and the impression it left on me.
Fast forward many years to when Jeff and Linda Horan bought the house and transformed it into a gorgeous bed and breakfast and named it Northview Inn. I still have family and friends in that area, so I have driven by it.
A few years ago while in PA, I called the owners and explained that I had lived there as a teen and wondered if it would be possible for my grown daughter and me to stop by to see it. Linda graciously agreed. It’s difficult to express how it felt to walk through the house again, especially since the Horans have obviously spared no expense in the renovation, furniture, and decorating.
Last June a group of seven high school friends and I booked the entire house for a stay, and my husband and I stayed there last fall. However impressed we all were by the B&B itself, the over-the-top service by the innkeepers could not have been more perfect. From the homemade scones with clotted cream at the start of a candlelit breakfast to the care given to the tiniest detail, our stays were perfect 10s.
I have a strong aversion to bloggers who fill their posts with links to buy products or services. I’m just saying, one friend to another….if you find yourself planning a trip through western Pennsylvania (think Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece Fallingwater), you owe it to yourself to check this place out. And if you stay in the Eastview room with the arch, think of me!
To my readers: Tell us about an experience you’ve had in going back to a childhood home.
I grew up in a very small town in western Pennsylvania also. My parents scrimped and saved for years to buy a home. When I was two years old they had enough saved to make a down payment on a “company house” that was originally built for employees of the local brickyard. Although our house was small it was charming and my dad who was a bricklayer added many personal touches. Dad built an outdoor barbecue fireplace, a pink tiled wall in our kitchen, and a checkerboard game built of ceramic tiles on our back porch. The house, backyard, and woods behind were magical to me in every way. I dreamed and thought about that house long after my family moved on. Many years later, I had the opportunity to go back to see the house and the neighborhood surrounding it. It was the picture I had in my mind but out of focus. Everything was the same but drastically different. Houses had been enlarged, sided and torn down. The woods were no longer mysterious and seemed to be just trees. Lincoln Street had changed…..I remember trying to explain to my husband how it was so magical when I was there as a child. I don’t think he got it.
Linda, thanks for sharing. It reminded me of taking my grandsons back to Seward when they were about 6 and 9 and trying to explain small-town living where we walked or biked everywhere. What we remember as nostalgically magical (say that five times quickly!) holds no allure for others. But I totally get what you’re saying.