Another Old Home Bites the Dust in Crabapple

I'm sad to hear that the house with the blue door on Broadwell Road, the one next to the Beragio development, will finally be torn down on Monday.  This house has not been occupied for some time, but at some point in its history, the occupants made this one of the more charming homes around Crabapple; the blue door, the curving brick walkway, the stacked stone porch in front, the fire pit in back, the plant material - all gracing what is really a tiny 2 or maybe 3 bedroom home.  I loved it.  I would have lived there in a heartbeat.  I would have lived there just for the Quince tree.  

But that's just it, homes need heartbeats to keep them alive and tidy and livable.  They need people who want to live there and certainly in the case of old homes with potential for re-development, people who don't want to sell.  

I know.  Things change.  Highest and best use is open to interpretation.  Take the Dinsmore house in Crabapple.  What a beauty!  And what a beautiful corner that 4 acres was, up until now.  The Dinsmore's were not the only occupants of this home, but the most recent and the ones to decide its fate.  What if you had owned it?  What would you have done with it?  What was its highest and best use?  To become a library?  Would you have lived there?  Could the house have been turned into a restaurant; retail?  What if the city had given some incentive to keep the home?  I'm not trying to argue that a library won't be a nice addition to Crabapple.  But it's a shame, a real shame, to see that house go away.  And I'm sad to hear that the house with the blue door will disappear as well. 

I wish we gave more of a nod to history, meaning, I wish we gave some financial incentive to owners of historical homes and buildings, to keep them around.