Attention to details

Our photo shoots always come in with a preponderance of vignettes and intimate closeups. Photographers who specialize in interiors are sent to capture the layout of rooms, colors, and furnishings, to document the “afters” that go with homeowners’ “before” pictures. But the lens is drawn to tiny points of comfort and beauty: an embossed and glazed Victorian tile, worn spots in the leather seat, peony petals fallen on old marble. Some of these visual moments naturally come with age. Other fine points are deliberate gestures by a fond owner who knows every inch of the house.

This issue includes a few very old houses—places that have seen wear and are especially well curated. The owner of an antique house is often deeply involved in its history. These oldest of American homes are magical, no matter our preferences for style or era.

It seemed obvious, said everyone, when the Old-House Journal editorial staff moved to Boston’s North Shore in 1991. OHJ had started as a newsletter in brownstone Brooklyn. Here we were, trading in an urban ethic and New York skyscrapers for Pilgrim furniture— and Seventeenth Century Societies for the owners of houses built before 1700! How very Old House.

The apparent fit wasn’t so obvious to us, as we were moving to the Colonial north from one of the nation’s largest Victorianera historic districts. We marveled as we left houses with 14-foot ceilings and opulent stair halls to those with 72-inch doorway lintels and steep staircases more like ladders.

My own formative old-house obsession goes back to the Dutch-built, Flemish-gabled home of my grade-school friend, in Bergen County, New Jersey. The core dated to 1677, the picturesque roofline to ca. 1765. Its dark staircase had treads deeply hollowed by generations of footsteps. The house occupies my imagination and turns up in my dreams to this day.