(That house could be a skull with two eyes looking out.)
Today the job brought us to
Beaux
Arts Village,
a self-styled "bohemian" enclave established in 1908.
This house was ahead of its time. At first we thought
it'd been built in the 1970's (that
Brady
Bunch style),
but when we started taking up the oak floor we found
square nails and a
shiplap
substrate circa 1950 or
even earlier. Beaux Arts Village was for artists and
craftspeople; one large room in this house seems to have been a dressmaker's
salon. Well, the new owners are knocking the whole big place down. We see
it all
the time--people buy perfectly good and solid homes
only to demolish and replace them with their own
oversized ego manifestations. A disproportionate sense
of entitlement probably explains only half of it. There
are also financial incentives to build. People would
rather use up precious resources than have to pay
capital
gains taxes. Use it or lose it, as they say. Sadly,
such selfish uses are losses to the rest of the planet.
Oh well, welcome to the field crew, Caley. We see
waste every day but I still haven't gotten used to it. |
