The Hall farmhouse on Whirlwind Hill set the standards for all the houses I’ve lived in. Its staircases, wallpapered rooms, tall windows, wood plank floors, attics, odd-shaped closets, and paneled doors with round knobs formed my notions of the way a home should look.
In 1973, after living in Alaska for several years, my husband and I were ready to buy a house. Expecting our first child, and eager to start nesting, we were dismayed by how few houses were for sale in Anchorage. Finally, through a friend, we found a downtown house about to go on the market. It wasn’t pretty – certainly not by Connecticut standards. This big pinkish box with brown shutters had a cement front stoop whose left side sank into the ground. But when I walked through the front door I came face to face with a center staircase leading to the second floor bedrooms.
As I walked up the stairs I pretended not to notice the red shag carpet, lumpy plastered ceilings, and shiny black louver doors. I was hoping I wouldn’t be disappointed, and I wasn’t. On the landing, at the top of the stairs, the afternoon light shone through a tall window and cast patterns and shadows on the walls and floor. The bedroom doors were paneled, and they had old round metal doorknobs. It felt like home. We bought the house, and a few years later I did a painting of the landing window. I still have everything in the painting (yes – the plant lives!) except for the window, which, during a 1982 remodel made way for a door into a new bedroom.
“Hall Window,” Carol Crump Bryner, oil on canvas, 1978
In the farmhouse, at the top of the back staircase, there was also a landing with a wood floor, multiple doorways, and a window. I have no pictures of this window from the inside, but I do remember the importance of having that light at the top of the dark, narrow stairs. I also remember the view, which in my great-great-great-grandfather Aaron Hall’s time would have been to Muddy River and his farm’s pastureland. From the outside the window is not striking, but like much of the rest of the house it was on the inside where the memories and the views were made.
“Farmhouse Window from Outside,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 2014
On Wednesday: Wildflowers
Carol, you have given importance and meaning to a little window. I especially enjoyed the way you took the reader up those stairs and found light and warmth at the top. Well done. Looking forward to wild flowers – just found a few species yesterday in the park.
Thanks, Netzy. It’s always nice to hear from you. It must be fun to find those wildflowers in the park.
I love the double entendre of ‘Hall window.’ Stairway landings have always seemed to me a meeting of worlds. In our house, one set of stairs goes down to the formal living room, the other to a messy kitchen hall. Two windows look out on my sister’s house next door, the driveway, the woods across the valley, and the road that passes the front of the house. I have stood many times at that nexus, poised between floors of the house, between formality and the mundane, between blustery nature and a cozy hearth, between the homestead and the road. It’s a fine spot to pause and let the imagination travel far and wide. Generations on, our lives might seem a thin reflection of the stark realities lived out in those long-gone houses. The view from my hall window says otherwise.
This is such a lovely and thoughtful comment, Tom. I can picture that place in your house now. I love the phrase about “being poised between formality and the mundane.” Thanks, as always, for reading and for sharing your own ” word pictures.”
Such a pleasure to see that old painting! The farm house informs your notions of what a home should be, and surely informs your art as well – all those windows and wooden floors and doors! It’s wonderful to see the this inspiration for life and art.
Thanks, Katy. And I loved reading about Charleston Farmhouse this morning. Lived-in and well-loved houses are what it’s all about.
Dear Carol, I am loving your blog so much! Especially this last one, which reminds me of the house we live in today. I have a plant in front of the window at the back of the second floor hall. Love, Molly
Molly – thanks so much. The old New England houses did well with their staircases and landings. Glad you have one in your house. Plants seem to love these landing windows!
I love the painting of the landing and the memory that house evoked in you despite the shag rugs and bumpy ceiling. Captivated by light and a landing window. Lovely.
Thanks, Carol. I’m glad the shag carpet is now just a distant memory.
I did not know your Anchorage house before it became your lovely home, but I loved the recognition story. Windows and light and plants and stairs echo my own upbringing in an old house with wooden doors and a landing with leaded glass windows that let the afternoon light pour in. We children sat on that landing, playing games that involved going down the stairs (one to the kitchen and one to the front hall) in various dangerous ways, hiding from each other and jumping out to scare each other, and generally enjoying life in that puddle of sunshine. My brothers even dove down the laundry chute at the top of those stairs, falling two stories to the pile of laundry below. Thanks for all these posts, Carol. New England is not much in my experience, but family connection and the charm of well-built homes in which we have been privileged to live our lives are constants across time and place.
I love this story. It gives me a whole new side to your life I didn’t know about. Thank you! It sounds like you had a fun-filled childhood, and how brave (or maybe dumb) of your brothers to dive down the laundry chute! It’s always great to hear that my own stories bring back memories for other people. That’s part of why I’m doing this.
Lovely line, “…it was on the inside where the memories and the views were made.” And I too, continue to enjoy your illustrations.
Thanks so much Mary. So nice to see your name here. Hope all is well with you.
Carol, I’m so enjoying your blog—your stories, your beautiful art, and the memories of my own childhood that it prompts. Thank you!
I’m glad I can bring back memories for you. And thank you for reading and for your kind comments.