Saying Goodbye to a Century + House

How do you know when it’s time to downsize? When your senior citizen children shout through a megaphone: you cannot go on living like this!?     

            In the dismal days of late 2020, I stumbled on a tantalizing empty building just two blocks from our front door on Waverly Street, Mile End. A stylish red brick triplex, built in 1910, history scraped back by a developer to reveal good bones. All it needed was a floor plan, electricity, plumbing, lights, walls, flooring – well, everything.  Instead of languishing in lock-down, I thought why not tackle a big creative project? I promised Gwyn that if later we fell in love with the results, we might think of moving. Meanwhile, the challenge would scotch my moaning about the collapse of culture, while changing his daily routine hardly at all.

            When the dust settled on our new abode he agreed to move. We sold 5300 Waverly Street, the 122-year old Victorian house where we’ve lived since 2004. Something like 500 feet of books have been sorted and dispensed to various locations, the most important volumes sifted and catalogued to adorn the walls of shelves constructed around his new workspace. Moving in started in the spring of 2022, and it’s not quite finished yet.

           My worst fear about getting older is losing my thirst for change. As life narrows, we won’t have the energy or hunger to live a different way, or even go somewhere else. Moving house now, before we have to, feels like a beginning, not an end. On the first big day of packing up I wandered around, tearful at the site of sentimental morsels from our past. But the feeling passed. I know Gwyn has had moments of sadness. When I finally confronted him - speak now or forever hold your peace - he said he could think of only one good argument for moving: the new house has put me in a fine mood. So, I have to stay that way.

            We hope the young couple who bought 5300 Waverly will add a happy growing up story to the saga of our former house. A story I know quite well, after sending months of research hunting down details about a young developer William Neville who broke ground in a pasture, field, in the late 19th Century. The Montreal Gazette ran a series in 2006: A Century in This House. Five chapters traced the history of 5300 Waverly from 1900, until we moved in 18 years ago. Someday I may write Chapter Six. Our story. For now it’s best to concentrate on change, and not look back.