The Yankee Sees Bricks

Recently a friend of mine let people know that she accepted a new position and would be moving to Cape Cod. She included a picture of the house they would rent, a historic cape cod style cottage. You find this type of house throughout the Northeast. It was quite popular for most of the middle decades of the 20th Century. I grew up in one built in 1947. A friend of mine who grew up in an almost identical house in Levittown, NY that was built around the same time.

Another common form of house in the Northeast is the saltbox. This is a picture of the oldest one in Darien, Conncecticut, not far from my childhood home. It was built circa 1690. Both the cape and the saltbox were originally wood frame houses. In fact, most of the houses in New England are--or were--wood frame.




This farmhouse is of a type common in eastern Pennsylvania where my brother and his family live. They still build houses with this kind of stonework in that area. It is a distinctive style that I identify with that part of Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey.





So when I came down to this part of Virginia I found brick. Lots of brick. Like this cape cod. It just doesn't look right to me. The use of brick extends up into Maryland. Last night I had dinner with friends in Bethesda, and their home is a ranch style house built of brick. I've seen frame houses and a stone house here and there, but brick seems to predominate. Almost every building on the Seminary campus is built of brick, though that doesn't strike ma as all that out of place. Most college campuses I've visited or lived on have most buildings constructed of brick. But even the faculty/staff housing on campus is built of brick.

I'm sure there must be, or have been, a reason for the use of so much brick in this area, but I don't know what it is. But even knowing the reason wouldn't lessen the sense of unfamiliarity. I wonder if my somewhat limited knowledge of and interest in architecture increases my sense of dislocation. Or if I'm just more aware of this particular piece of the feeling than most people relocating to a new area, and they're more aware of other pieces than I am.

And there are many pieces to it, but it's not about being unhappy. The longer I'm here, the more I know this was absolutely the right decision. I'm making new friends. I'm catching up with old friends who relocated to this area or have lived here as long as I've known them. My job is all I could have asked for. But as Moses said when he named his firstborn, "I have been a stranger in a strange land."