Redfin, show me a renewed version of myself
In Grover Cleveland’s parents’ house
There, in Redfin, is Grover Cleveland’s parents’ house. Price: $295,000.
Despite my bachelor’s degree in history, I don’t know much about Grover Cleveland. I can’t pick him out of a presidential list unless he’s listed twice for those non-consecutive terms. A Google search turns up a mustache and a vaguely Theodore Roosevelt aura, though I may be romanticizing since I now want to live in his childhood home.
The house, which is a little over our budget, otherwise meets all the requirements: 1500 square meters, two stories, hardwood floors. “Probably original,” says my husband, and not in a flattering tone. After seeing Grover Cleveland’s childhood kitchen, Bryan votes no.
Our daughter is voting against moving to upstate New York. She wants to live in her parents’ house, a blue-green house in California with orange trees in the backyard and lizards sunning themselves on the wall.
Grover Cleveland’s childhood home sits on a grassy lot where he once played boyish pranks on the neighbors. Inside is the only shiplap bathtub I’ve seen on Redfin. The rooms are dark and the wallpaper is floral, but the built-in cabinets and stair railing are as charming as the period. The house has white exterior siding, inviting front steps, and a sign that notes that this building is historically important and the people who live in it are notable.
At Grover Cleveland’s parents’ house, I’ll be so busy baking sourdough bread and reading poetry that I’ll barely surf the Internet. I’ll play with my daughter in Barbies without finding it unbearable. And we’ll have dinner parties. Historical ones, of course. I’ll be myself, but even more fascinating.
What actually happens is this: On the very day that someone else buys Grover Cleveland’s childhood home, we move to an adjacent neighborhood in upstate New York where people walk their dogs twice a day and the kids roam between houses. Since we don’t live in Grover Cleveland’s childhood home, I never join the women’s rugby team or take up knitting. I host exactly zero period dinner parties. I remain ordinary in every way—and by that I mean myself—even as I paint walls and settle into new routines. We watch nuthatches from the kitchen window, play Wordle, walk our dogs along the Erie Canal.
And after school, my daughter calls out the name of a new friend and where she is going, and runs out into the day like kids used to do, and I suppose like Grover Cleveland once did when he lived in his parents’ house.
