For Sale on Cumberland Road

A couple of months ago, there were two young men with a video camera, on the sidewalk in front of a house on Cumberland Road.  It was one of the brick ranch-style houses that were built in the neighborhood in the 1950s and early 1960s.  The house was not a remarkable one (it was just a few doors down from a house that I know must have a story), so I asked them what they were doing.  They said they were making a documentary about the house.  The longtime owner of the home was moving into an assisted living facility, they said, so they were making a film about the the transition - presumably of the owner, as well as the house itself, although I didn't ask the follow up questions.  I wished them luck and walked on home.

Later, the "For Sale" sign appeared in front of the house, and for the last couple of weekends there have been yard sales there.  I wish I had had time to stop by ("the good stuff is already gone," according to one of my daughters), not because I need more stuff, but to ask about the owner, and the film.  (Perhaps one of the filmmakers is a grandson.)

I feel like a voyeur, looking at the photos on Trulia.   It could have been my mother's house.  The photos show a house being emptied of belongings, articles arranged on tables anticipating yard sales, a life - in that house - over.  It's a house that by neighborhood standards is due for an upgrade, from the look of it, but at the price they are asking for it, I am surprised it hasn't sold.  This is Morningside, with restaurants you can walk to and sidewalks on almost all the streets except Wessyngton and a well-regarded elementary school.  You can't by a house in Morningside for $210K, a real house with a yard, or at least you couldn't til now.

If the house had been put on the market before the bubble burst, it would have been snatched up, knocked down, and replaced by a Large House that is Architechturally Difference from Adjacent Houses.  But the bubble did burst, and maybe the house has a chance to be a home again for a family that will make do with only 3 bedrooms for a while, planning on adding a second story later on.

So I hope someone buys it who wants to live in it.  We'll see their children in the yard, and see them walking to school.  We'll say hello as we walk the dog.  I live here, just around the corner, so whether the filmmakers come back or not, I will know how the story ends.