Sturbridge Hill

I apologize in advance if this entry sounds boastful or is detailed to the point of boring. My intention is to document this house as I remember it.  

Our Connecticut home was my Mom's crowning achievement. My Dad's employer had finally promised that this was the last relocation we'd have to go through. This gave Mom an opportunity to design and build a house for our family with everything she'd wished for.  A building lot was purchased in a small Connecticut town with a commuter train to NYC and excellent schools. The plan was to build a house so it was ready for us by the summer of 1969.  

Mom had been storing thoughts of her dream house for years. She did not take it well when the builder said some of her ideas were impossible to implement. 

One of the most important things Mom wanted was a designated laundry room on the second floor with the bedrooms. This room needed enough space to sort, presoak (in a washtub sink), wash, dry, fold, iron and stack clothes, sheets and towels for a family of eleven. When she was told it couldn't be done upstairs, she altered the blueprints to include her laundry room and gave the builder a solution to how a washtub and washing machine could be placed on the second floor without worry of water overflows. Her design included room for a hanging rack and shelves for folded clothes. 

When her laundry room was finally built (after she signed a waiver accepting responsibility for possible water damage), the washing machine stood next to the washtub in a pretty tiled insert, complete with a drain underneath. It was built exactly like a double shower floor. It was so nice, in fact, that it became a signature upgrade for all the future homes constructed by our builder. Clothes, fresh out of the dryer, were folded into neat stacks and placed on shelves labeled with our names. (It was our responsibility to collect our clean clothes and put them away).  No more carrying tons of clothes up and down the stairs. Talk about a V-8 moment! 

The house took about a year to be completed, with almost all Mom's changes intact. In fashion true to Mom's vision, the front door was the furthest from the street and not used by children. We had our own entrance, downstairs bathroom (very close to the door by design) and stairway off the family room. On the other end of the house, the front door gave entrance to a spacious foyer with the main staircase, a walk-in coat closet, powder room and the formal living room. If guests arrived without notice, Mom knew there was an area of the house that was always presentable for company. 

Other than the family room and living room, the main floor had a large eat-in kitchen, a formal dining room that easily sat twelve at the table, the foyer and our library. The library was especially cool to us because it had hidden closets (you pushed on the paneling)  and built in bookcases that held all the books and records my parents had accumulated through the years. A huge painting of Moses holding the Ten Commandments looked down on us as we read, listened to music or played endless hours of backgammon. It was the heart of the house, and most of us spent more time in the library than any other room (except maybe our bedrooms).

The floor plan upstairs put the rooms in four areas. The boys were at one end of the house - Tom in one bedroom, Rick & Greg sharing another, and a "boys" bathroom. In the middle, Cherie (and Barbie when she was home from college) had their room, separated from my bedroom by a connecting bathroom. Across the hall, Margie, Susie and Kitty had the same arrangement. On the end of the house was the master bedroom suite. There was a total of seven bedrooms and four bathrooms on the second floor. Plus, of course, the laundry room. 

We arrived in July 1969. That summer was special. Mom and Dad were happy as newlyweds and everything was organized, clean and shinny. I was sad that Barbie was leaving for college in the fall, but her excitement about school in Boston was infectious. We made many new friends in the neighborhood and spent lots of time hanging out with them. 

The house on Sturbridge Hill road was where our family grew up and changed more than in any other house. We had many good times and bad times too. But throughout, in less than ten short years, we learned to depend on each other, and on ourselves. And even as we started to branch out and move away from home, we were always connected.