Storied Houses
Emily Stimpson on the Neglected Tales Old Homes Can Tell About the World
I grew up along the Mississippi in an old Illinois river town. Remnants of the city’s more prosperous days lined the riverbank: gracious old homes with turrets and gingerbread trim, all in varying states of decay. Most stood empty, save for the vagrants who set up camp inside.
I don’t know how old I was when I first dreamed of rescuing those abandoned homes from their sorry fate. Not very, I suppose, since I can’t remember a time before the dream. It was an impractical child’s dream, with no understanding of the cost. I just knew that the homes were once lovely and once loved and that they could be again.
Not Just Buildings
The years passed. I left for college and never moved back. The dream, however, lingered. Finally, a few months before my thirtieth birthday, in another sad old river town, hundreds of miles away from the Mississippi, I bought my dream.
It is no mansion, just a simple Arts and Crafts foursquare built in 1915, but it is lovely. Kind former owners spared it from the atrocities done to most older homes during the 1960s and 1970s. When I found it, the plaster walls were intact, although badly cracked; the cedar siding flawless, just needing some paint. Leaded glass windows, original built-in cabinets in the kitchen, and gorgeous oak woodwork remained. It needed a lot of cosmetic work, but I told myself, “It will be worth it in the end.”
Thousands of dollars and thousands of hours later, I am halfway through the restoration process, and, most days, I still believe that. There are days, of course, when I think the house is possessed by evil spirits determined to break me body and soul . . . or at the very least, bankrupt me. But those days are increasingly rare. In the midst of all the patching and painting, I’ve come to understand just why I’ve always loved these old houses so much.
Houses aren’t just buildings. They are the stages on which men and women act out the mad drama of life. They are the theater of the family. And they tell stories—stories about the men who built them, stories about the men who inhabited them, and stories about the world in which all those men lived. The Victorian mansions I dreamed of as a child tell one story. My Arts and Crafts foursquare tells another. In the details each story differs, but in the essentials they are very much the same.
Their stories tell of other ages, ages when beauty mattered. Fine craftsmen built my house. The hundreds of lovely details that fill every corner are the work of their hands. It was their art. And it is beautiful. Intricate diamond patterns in leaded glass windows, tiny roses engraved on doorknobs, delicate wainscoting on the front staircase—all witness to the artistry of men who lived a century ago.
There is an abundance of loveliness in this house of mine. There is also poetry—a symmetry and rhythm in its design and construction unlike anything I have encountered in the homes of today. Those who built my house instinctively knew what the Church has always known: Men need beauty. Through it, we see God.
A Strong World
Emily Stimpson lives in Steubenville, Ohio, where she divides her time between working on her old house and writing for Franciscan University?s magazine Franciscan Way. A refugee from the world of D.C. politics, Emily previously worked for Senator Jim Talent (R-Mo.) and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Misguided Mercy & Dante's Infernal Purgation by Joshua Hren
14.1—January/February 2001
A Sociologist Looks at Fatherlessness & Its Causes by David Blankenhorn
33.1—January/February 2020
Speaking Truth About the Sexes Is Not Optional by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
