Since the day I was old enough to stray from my mother’s watchful eye and wander off from our blanket spread on the sandy, modest public beach at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake Erie in Canada, I would take beach walks along the curve of the bay.
Walk east, and you come across Root Beer Creek, so named by us for its water color. Walk west, and you come across a flat rock area abutting the shore at the point of the bay. During my walks, I would find shells, shards of sea glass, fish skeletons, stones to skip in the lake, and clots of seaweed. I would walk in the water, walk on the sand.
I also admired, and perhaps coveted, the houses I passed along the shore, most of them large and stately, shaded by towering cottonwoods, and protected from the fury of storms by stone break walls.
When I walked west I always stopped in front of a house that was unlike any other along the waterfront. You don’t see many Mediterranean-style homes on the shores of the Great Lakes. This one had a yellowy stucco exterior with turquoise shutters, topped by clay, Mission-style roof tiles, and a long, glassed-in porch facing the water. The mix of colors and the exotic, unfamiliar style fascinated me.
So the other day when I was at the cottage for the first time this year I took a walk on the beach. I looked forward to seeing this house I’ve admired for almost sixty years. I anticipated the memories, the pleasure, the reassurance of its existence, which the house always gave me.
It was gone.
Torn down and replaced by an enormous contemporary black and white residence.
My heart sank. One of my favorite houses, one I can conjure in my mind at any time—forever gone.
But conjuring isn’t enough. I’d never taken a photo of the house. I wish I had a photo. I wanted one last look.
I searched online for sales of waterfront property. I searched for Mission-style houses on the beach in Thunder Bay. Eventually I found a video from the realtor who had listed the house—at $2.25 million—and captured a couple of stills from it.
Maybe it wasn’t the most special house in the world. And it’s not the style of house I would choose if building one of my own. Nor is it the color palette I would want. But that house served as a thread stitching together my many summers spent in Canada. It was a comforting landmark, a stylized presence.
Whoever purchased the house decided a tear-down and rebuild was preferable to restoring what must have been a house at least one hundred years old and likely needing massive amounts of work.
I get it. People want new. They want a modern showcase.
I want the old house back.
