Kooky Design House

I hope I'm not boring you all with house posts:/ What can I say...The Pioneer Woman walks out her door and sees cows, I walk out my door and see buildings, buildings, and more buildings...

I moved to the city as a broke design student. Those were some of the most exciting, ridiculous, wonderful memories. In school, I was friends with a kooky girl with the same fashion design dreams as my own...Wendy.

She rented a room, in a house that had been broken up into separate units...This amazing house, had about 20 rooms that had been converted to rentals. See the top windows in the circle tower? That was Wendy's room. She had this HUGE leather couch crammed into the circle...It was the tiniest room, but it had the most amazing view of the lake, and the city...Seriously, look at how close the city is from the house...(this is prime Gold Coast) I always wondered how such a spectacular house, in such an A-list location, falls into such disrepair that it becomes rentals for students?

I would walk in the front door, and it opened into the most amazing wooded cascading staircase (think Gone With the Wind). At the same time, it was incredibly spooky. I hated to visit Wendy at night, because the common areas (entry hall, stairway, hallways) never had electricity. This house was dark, brooding, and ominous at night. Street kids would climb up on the roof in back, to drink beer and party into the wee hours. It was scary, strange and beautiful all wrapped into one...Somewhere in the 90's real estate boom, the richest fat cat bought the house. It boggles my mind that one family now lives in this enormous house! (Truth be told, I think I know who the owner is...and their kiddos are out of college...so it's just TWO people living there!) This is easily 12,000 square feet:o

I run past the house every other day, and my mind always takes me back to my kooky design friend, and all the nights I ran up the dark wooded staircase to Wendy's tiny room with the view. I so wish I had taken pictures of the interior of the house (Lord knows, I'll never get the chance now) In many ways, I'm happy for the house that has now been rehabbed to within an inch of it's existence...and yet in some ways, I miss the kooky place that housed all the artsy fartsy types with no business living in The Gold Coast...