The cultural preservers continually focus on giant cathedrals that took hundreds of years to build. This Twitter item says “we built that”. No we didn’t. The we who built it lived in an entirely different cultural and economic system. There’s no way we could recover the system that made such monuments possible, and such monuments wouldn’t be available to ordinary people even if we could.
I’d rather focus on architectural beauty in a much closer context both spatially and temporally. We could return to this type of beauty, and a few contractors are still doing it.
Last night I was randomly checking Zillow’s listings for Ponca. Noticed this big house at 413 N. 3rd. The address sounded close to Grandma’s former apartment, and the house looked familiar. Is it the Folly House? Not quite. It’s next door to the Folly House.
From Google streets:
413, the Zillow listing, is to the right, 417, the Folly House, is to the left. Grandma’s apartment (brick buildings) is across the street behind the red car.
Here’s the corner side of the Folly House as it was seen from Grandma’s front porch. A beautiful stone fish pond, with colorful tropical fish, was in front of the bay window, and I remember a display window in the wall next to the bay window. The fish pond looked like this fountain. The display featured a variety of beautiful objects. Looking at it now, I don’t see where the display window could have been; maybe the bay window itself held the displays.
Now the interior of 413, from Zillow:
Fantastically elegant and beautiful. It didn’t take hundreds of years and thousands of priest-whipped slaves; it was built by ordinary highly skilled carpenters in the 1920s and sold to ordinary upper-middle citizens. The grandchildren of those carpenters and purchasers are still around. You can buy it now for $180k, which won’t even buy a tent in most cities. (The third picture shows an airing closet.)
Grandma’s apartment looked similar but less grandiose before it was remodeled into modernity. Same varnished wood, same refined arches and cabinets.
FANTASTIC ELEGANCE WAS NORMAL in those days. I didn’t think it was anything peculiar or rare, though I did appreciate it. Grandma’s apt rented for $50 a month in the 60s, equivalent to $400 now.
Polistra's Mill 