Same Street, Different Place
Date Posted: July 14, 2020
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, People,
From Medium:
by Dedric A. Carter, PhD MBA
About four years ago, my family and I stumbled across a gem. At the time we were calling the campus of Washington University at St. Louis home but we were beginning to think about where home would be in two or three years.
Our favorite pastime was to go to an open house and start to think about what our “dream home” would be. When we first moved to St. Louis, our family consisted of my wife and me. In the time between moving and finding the gem, our family had grown. We knew it would likely grow a bit more. We were right. Finding a place to plant and grow our family was an important consideration. We kept options open, looking in and out of St. Louis to think about what characteristics we wanted to be present in our “dream home” environment.
Then we found the house on Portland Place. On our first visit to the house, there was one thing for certain. We loved it — or so we thought. The bones were great, the location was perfect, the yard was designed to be an oasis in the city and a great place for young children to imagine and play. We envisioned family and friends, and great gatherings. All of these thoughts and visions converged on a place that we had only visited for a few moments. That intersection point was this house on Portland Place.
Our goal in searching for a home was to find something that was unique and different for this point in time. A place that would be an important part of the story of our family and our life path. That place seemed to be this house on Portland Place. We huddled after we left thinking about all the reasons that we shouldn’t buy the home.
We had always valued experiences more than things. Our interest in Portland Place was about building something that was ours. We wanted something unique, and we found it. We knew that this place was unlike any other. It was uniquely St. Louis, uniquely designed for the purposes that we intended, and almost perfectly fitting the needs of the busy lives that we lead as professionals, parents, and community partners.
We began to assemble offers and plans, and then we prayed. Each and every day from the moment we saw it to the moment we received the keys, at least one of us would drive to the house and pray out front. We prayed for guidance, direction, wisdom. We prayed for a house that would be our home and a place to grow our family. We prayed for doors with welcomed hinges. We prayed for clarity on whether the house we desired to call home was on Portland Place or somewhere else.
Owning a home of this sort is a labor of love. One has to be committed to preserving, protecting, and imparting a bit of yourself into the story of the home. We knew that there was work to do and we wondered if it would be easier to do this in another place with less requirements to get to our end state. Three years and innumerable investments of time, talents, and treasures from our own family, skilled contractors, designers, and purveyors have made this house that we discovered on Portland Place our home. And it is with that as a backdrop that I say, when I saw the recent events on my street, I was moved to this expression.
The Portland Place that I am coming to know is one that has its faults. It is a private street of individuals dedicated to preserving unique components of the story of St. Louis. It is a set of people that take pride in the presence and presentation of a neighborhood that has been home to many among the history of St. Louis. As we studied to learn more about our home, we obtained a copy of the book Westmoreland and Portland Places: The History and Architecture of America’s Premier Private Streets, 1888–1988 written by Julius K Hunter. In part, this book tells a story of an exclusive place set apart in time that is woven into the fabric of St. Louis. Much of that story would not include me or my wife’s family who grew up in East St. Louis. The story would likely not include people like my father who worked for Dr. M.L. King, Jr in South Carolina (whose close friend after that time moved to St. Louis to minister in the Central West End). The story would likely not include people that looked like me. We were present — but perhaps relegated to the quarters lining the rear of these homes with narrow doors and disappearing pathways, designed to keep these homes in operation with the operators out of sight. So — yes, the homes have histories that are storied.