Storage Shelves (Roll-ey!)

As the folks moved from the Haven Moor house to their new G-Suite in Highland, they pared down possessions from the garage and food storage room (as well as the rest of the house). They would still have some storage space and Shane and Alicia's ... and even got some new "roll-ey" shelves. The Westra family had these unique type of shelves in the Hermitage and Haven Moor house ... set up to effectively rotate cans. Put the new cans in one end, take from the other to use up the oldest first.   Derek created a new set-up AND made a cute and clever little video ...

https://youtube.com/shorts/uJXaLBE7rJ0?si=xufpM35g5j0pZDET

You can find more of D&D's home improvement projects on their Functional Decor Instagram! 

Below, you can see a glimpse of the Haven Moor set up, taken after it was (mostly) emptied in preparation for the move in 2022. I wish we had some photos of the Hermitage House shelves ... I can picture them in my mind, but can't find a photo. The folks moved from that house November of 1994, and that was before digital photography had taken over ... and I don't know that anyone thought to stop and take pictures of shelves with a film camera. 

(this post will be backdated to 2023)

New Havenmoor

The June 2022 Father's Day at Scott and Amy's house was the last one at the Old English address ... they then moved to the Haven Moor House. The folks were shifting to the G-Suite in Shane and Alicia's new build in Alpine.  While there have been posts on The Hermitage House and the Homes  Before Hermitage, there has yet to be a Haven Moor post featuring the LaMar/Margie years there. These pictures taken April 2023 show the "after" Scott and Amy came in and made the home their own.

Still getting the master suite finished up ...

... Scott and Amy moved into the lower level after their home sold, but before the folks had moved into their new place. Nice full kitchen downstairs now.

Documenting Your Dwelling

 

Here on the blog, we've done several spotlights on where our ancestors lived. Before pictures were so easy to come by in today's technology, finding photos that show the houses from years past are few and far between. Mom/Margie as commented that she wishes she had more pictures of the house she grew up in, and while we do have some photos of the Hermitage House, it would have been nice to have more. Pictures of the outside, the yard, the various rooms. Often we can see parts or portions behind a person, who is the subject of the shot ... but what about taking pictures OF your house, just for the sake of documenting your dwelling?

Derek and Danielle have done a great job decorating their home. They are always adding new projects and clever creations. As a little side-hustle (one of many) D&D have an Instagram and Website to showcase their home and their projects, often with step-by-step instructions. They had Alicia come and capture their home on camera ... both for social media sharing and because it's great to have these things preserved in pictures.  I know it's probably a photography faux pas  to crop/collage these pictures ... but they are all are included in their entirety in Dropbox (D&D/2021). 

Here's a little look at Derek's wallpapering project ... 

Quite the camouflage. 

Consider this a challenge, to make sure you document your dwelling and decor!

Take pictures and write up what you remember, what makes your house a home.

Check out all the Home Sweet Home posts here on the blog.

Hannah's House Haiku & History

Just kidding - the poem featured here is NOT a haiku,

I just liked the alliteration ;)

Hannah and Sylvanus when they were married, and their home in Fairview.

All seven children were born and raised in this house.

Print/Word version at the bottom of the post for easier reading/cut&paste options.

Hannah (Margie's mom's Zada's mom) wrote this poem and had this frame made up for each of her children, so they would remember the house they grew up in. "Up the creek" in Fairview---it was one of the last houses as you head up Fairview Canyon. 

Mom/Margie said "I remember I was a young girl when the house finally got a real bathroom and you didn't have to use the outhouse out back!

You can read more about Hannah HERE. In addition to this poem, she wrote a complete autobiography telling all about her life, the birth of all the babies, the house, the bees. A few excerpts are included below. The wedding was June 4,  1913. After a short honeymoon trip ...

We went up the creek to our new home. Sylvanus had bought this place three years before and had it mostly paid for. The house just consisted of two rooms. They had just been wall papered and painted. We bought a new stove and cupboard and put new linoleum in both rooms. Everything was new and looked neat and I kept things shining. Everything was beautiful up the creek. He had planed a nice garden and radishes, green onions, etc. were ready. He had garden sage, rhubarb and asparagus. He also had a large strawberry patch and several raspberry bushes. The whole place (or the better half of it) was in a young orchard. almost every kind of fruit you would want was on the place. He had a large bee yard which consisted of over one hundred stands of bees. It was truly a garden of Eden.  I got all the water I used out of a well, or carried it across the highway from the ditch. The following summer we bought our first cow. 

From the history of Sylvanus Howell, two excerpts ...

After Sylvanus finished high school, he attended Snow College. He then went on to serve a 27-month mission in Colorado from (June 1901 to Jan 1904). After his return, he lived in Salt Lake City, where he worked on the trolly system for several years. He saved his money and was able to purchase his own farm "up the creek" East of Fairview. There was a two-room house with acres of land where he planted and cultivated all kinds of fruit trees, livestock and bees.

Before they knew it, the couple had four little girls with hardly any place to put them. One slept in a trunk, one in a drawer, and one at the foot of the bed. Sylvanus purchased another house and moved it with a team of horses to attach to the original house with a stairway in between. This more than doubled the space they had, and after that, the children slept upstairs in the addition. Three boys were added to the four girls and the family was complete.

Mom/Margie added some additional memories: I remember there was an addition being built on. I vaguely remember the stairs, but I must have hardly ever gone up there. I remember the kitchen, with a kitchen table and a coal stove, and taking baths in a round metal tub as a child----everyone taking turns in the same water. Seems like you'd end up dirtier than you started, if you were the last to bathe! I remember a pendulum wall clock in the kitchen, and the sound it made-----funny how certain sounds and smells bring back certain memories. I remember the living room and the player piano that was there and we would like to pump the foot peddles to make it play. I vaguely remember a creek out back and greenish yellow apples (seems like they were called "transparent apples." I was scared of the bees and afraid I would get stung. There was a little ditch out in front of the house, by the road. We would pick the yellow dandelions with long stems. We would take a bobby pin with a sharp end and make slices down the long stem. Then we would dunk the the stem in the cold ditch and the 3 or stem slits would curl up to the yellow flower. In my other grandma's house in Mt. Pleasant, they had an upstairs too, with a bedroom. I went up there more. When I went back to that house as an adult and went up the homemade stairs, the staircase seemed so tight, I thought a really large person would maybe not even fit to go up and the ceiling of the stairs was so close. Upstairs, the roof of the bedroom was very slanted on the side (from the roof) and if you would sit up in bed and forgot to be careful, you would bump your head. They raised their 5 children in that house. I remember one bedroom on the main floor, and kitchen, living room, and bathroom. There must have been at least one more bedroom, but I don't remember it. They had a little ditch to the side of their house and we used to play there.

The Home Where I Was Born

By Hannah Howell

Feb. 10, 1892 - Dec. 13, 1986

I remember, I remember

This home where I was born,

The attic window where the sun

Came Peeping through each morn.

The never ending lesson was

To live the golden rule,

And we heard the call each morning

“Come now, it’s time for school.”

I remember, I remember

The groves along the creek

Where we had our childhood parties

Roasting wieners on a stick.

How I loved the joy of freedom

With the pals I’d always known.

And the bright light in the window

Guided me so safely home.

Oh, yes, I do remember

The bee yard in the spring

Where we’d watch for new-formed swarms

And we’d hear the robins sing.

We loved the golden honey

As it rolled from out the comb;

And the blossoms in the orchard

Made a much more “home sweet home”.

Oh well I do remember 

(Now I’m bowed with family cares)

Of this humble home of childhood

And my parents' fervent prayers.

They gave us gentle words of counsel.

(Now they rest beneath the sod)

But they strived to make impressions

That would turn our hearts to God.

Check out more POETRY by family members too!

The House on Harrison Avenue

831 Harrison Avenue - Salt Lake City, Utah

 We've done a blog spotlight on the various homes the WESTRA family lived in as they immigrated to the United States, and then to Utah (A History of Homes...). Also on the Westra side of the family (in our genealogy) are the Erskines. Dad/Lamar's mom, Lucille, and her parents, Claude and Olive Erskine.  

In Lucille's history, she wrote ...

All my life was spent at 831 Harrison Avenue, until I got married in 1935. My mother and dad were married in 1907 and came to live at 831 Harrison Avenue. They lived there all their lives. We had a nice living room, dining room, kitchen, bath, and two bedrooms, and a big sleeping porch. We enjoyed the fireplace and had a fire most every Sunday. We had a piano, which my mother played beautifully. I remember in the summers we would move our beds out on the sleeping porch and use the front bedroom as a playroom. We had a big swing in our backyard. We had a big blackboard out on the porch that we used when we played school. I remember our old coal stove in the kitchen. The good smells of homemade bread and chili sauce and mustard pickles. I remember the flat irons that mother would have on the back of the stove and would wrap in newspaper and put at the bottom of our beds in the winter time. I remember the heatrola in the dining room and how we loved to get behind it to get warm. We had a garden in our backyard and my father grew corn, tomatoes, carrots, beans and peas. I remember taking Grandma Cushing’s dinner over to her two or three nights a week. She just lived on the next block. I would love to visit her and sit at her kitchen table.

Chris did a Google search to see if he could find the house today (in 2021)

 

 

A Plethora of Projects and a Pair of Parodies

 

I think most families are familiar with the popular children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" featuring a cute little mouse who wants more and more ... and more. The parallel to home projects is pretty predictable (continuing on with my title alliteration). You start with one thing, but changing it makes you realize something else should be changed as well, and so on and so on ...

The Blackham family did some home renovations in 2020 ... as Callahan got married and moved out, Keaton would be taking over that bedroom. But the wall was damaged, so it was necessary to fix the wall. Then that wall needed to be painted, so why not paint the whole room ... I mean the whole basement? With the fresh paint, the old carpet looks awful, so replacing the flooring is next. New lights are next. Where do you stop painting? Best to just continue all the way upstairs, right? The Blackham renovations stopped there. For NOW anyway (the kitchen floors no longer match the new paint, but then the cabinets, which match the floor, would need to be replaced too, then would the furniture match?)

Derek and Danielle had numerous projects in their home during 2020 (with quarantine, there wasn't a whole lot else to do!). In August, in an email he mentioned:

I've had a dumb little idea for a parody children's book for a while. We were talking to our friends about their new sofa, and she was saying: "so, we got the new sofa, and we love it - but it doesn't match our room perfectly, so we needed to get some new throw pillows, and then a rug - but the rug was too big for the space so we had to..." then she proceeded to talk about all the things that resulted from the new sofa. I joked how it was like the kid's book "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie." So I finally sat down and wrote out "If You Give a Spouse a Sofa" in the same style. See attached.

Wendy commented that SHE had also written a parody of this SAME little story based on a drippy-door painting project back in 2009! Here's a link to her blog post about it, and the text included below ...

Have you ever heard the story "If you give a mouse a cookie?"
Well, here is our TRUE story of "If you give your husband a request..."

If you ask your husband to put the closet doors back on your daughter's room (that he took off and put in the shed two months ago to paint and never did), then he will go and rent a paint sprayer so that he can spray the door before putting it back on...

And if he rents a spray gun to spray the door, he will decide to spray all of the closet doors that are sitting in the shed before putting them back on...

And if he decides to spray all of the closet doors before putting them back on, he will also take off all of the other doors in the house in order to paint them too (even if his wife tells him over and over not to)...

And if he takes all of the other doors off their hinges, then he will carry them all into the garage and stand them up while he attempts to paint them (even if his wife tells him that it looks very precarious and perhaps he should lean them against the garage wall instead)...

And if he balances the closet doors capriciously, and begins to paint them with the paint sprayer, then right before he is almost finished painting all of them, one will fall over and knock another, which will knock another, which will knock another, until just like dominoes, all of the freshly painted doors are now all over the garage floor with paint everywhere and a husband who is covered from head to toe in splattered white paint...

And if there is a husband covered with splattered white paint and doors all over the ground, then the paint splattered husband will enlist the help of his tired wife who was almost ready to crawl into bed, while he tries to brush the drippy paint (and dirt) off the doors. 

And while brushing debris and splattered paint off the doors, the husband will ask his wife if she will hold the doors while he sprays them. The wife, not wanting to be sprayed in the face with a paint sprayer, politely declines but attempts to help brush the drippy paint. But since the wife's painting skills are no better than her husbands, she is not much help.

And after two frustrated tired people try to salvage messy doors, the husband will try again, re-spraying all of the doors making more drippy paint.

And after leaving the doors dripping with paint and the time almost midnight, the husband will ask the wife if he should go paint the outside doors now.

And if the wife exasperatedly vetoes that idea, the next morning, the husband will go check on the doors and inform his wife that all of the doors look like someone just threw a bucket of paint on them and they are now completely ruined. 

And if the doors are ruined, the determined husband will still go ahead and begin to paint the outside doors of the house.

And if the husband begins to paint the outside doors of the house, the paint sprayer will start to spray paint in every direction.

And after the paint sprayer starts to spray paint in every direction, the husband will bag the paint sprayer and start to paint with a brush.

And after the husband starts to paint with a brush, he will run out of paint and go to Home Depot to get some more.

And if the husband goes to Home Depot in order to get more paint, they will say that they don't have any more paint in that color.

And after going to Home Depot and being told they don't have any more of that kind of paint, the husband will get very indignant, and blame the sprayer and Home Depot and the doors and say, "I never should have started this project..."

And after the husband frets and complains and blames Home Depot, the sprayer, and the doors; the wife will murmur under her breath...but will refrain from thinking, "This is what I get for marrying a musician/teacher instead of a handyman.."

And after the fretting and murmuring, the husband will tell the sons to go ahead and put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges so that he and his wife can fulfill their obligation at the temple that evening...

And after the boys put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges, the husband hurries and puts the still slightly wet outside doors back on so that the baby will not escape and the kids won't freeze with the approaching evening.

And with the doors back on the hinges, the husband and wife leave the 11 year old son in charge of baby-sitting all of the kids, fixing dinner, and putting on the rest of the doorknobs, since the 13 year old daughter got a last minute invitation to see the movie, "New Moon."

And if the husband and wife get home from the temple and find that all is well (except for having to live with dried drippy doors)...

And if all of this happens on the husband's birthday...then the wife has no choice but to close her eyes so that she doesn't see dried drippy doors and ask her husband to sing her a nice soothing love song...and tell him that someday they will laugh over this day, and that they will celebrate his birthday tomorrow...

And please oh please, if you happen to come visit this particular house, just don't ask who painted the doors!

Check out the Westra Writing ~ Stories and Poetry for other creative contributions over the years! And here's a little look at a little book Derek wrote and had animated ...

 

Home Snapshots Before Hermitage ...

A look back at some of the places the Westra's called home before Hermitage & Havenmoor

Memories from Mom: This is me in front of mine and Dad's first apt. in the upstairs corner of an 8-plex. We moved to Richland one year later, so this is probably 1962 after we were married on June 29, 1962 or possibly before we moved in June 1963, when I was 3 months pregnant with Scott. On McClelland St. (about 10th East, I think and north of 21st South, in Sugarhouse, east side of the street). Warm weather.

Dad wrote up some recollections earlier, and Wendy included them in the 50th wedding anniversary book she made. Here's a peek ...

Then the move to Washington, and the addition of kids!

Rainer Street in Richland Washington

in Spring

... and in snow.

In 2018 ... Derek and Danielle went to Washington for a wedding. While there, they tracked down these two homes and took pictures. "We found some time to go as a family over to Richland to drive by the two houses that Mom and Dad and the first four kids lived in in WA. Both houses have changed a lot. The red one has a new, pitched roof, but the brick and front of the house are the same. See the photos attached. The other house has been doubled in size since you rented it. I know, because I had this idea to be "hilarious" and to recreate the photo of Chris standing in the window as a toddler (with me as a grown adult) so I knocked on the door and the owner was happy to let me stand there like a baby against the glass - but the glass was too reflective so the photo didn't turn out. :) The new owner had lived there for 50 years and was very excited that someone was taking an interest in his house. He showed me all around and wanted to tell me about all the additions and improvements he had made. :)"

Check out "Home Sweet Norman Home" for Grandma Zada and Grandpa Rex's homes (which includes Mom/Margie's childhood home). A post about the Hermitage and Havenhill homes will be coming as well.

Home Sweet Norman Home

Grandma Zada Norman and baby Nelva 1939

Rex and Zada got married in April 1938. They lived in Fairview for the first year. Their first apartment was one large room. A small bedroom and a little pantry. Grandma writes in her history that she used to hide behind the kitchen stove to bathe in a round tub.  Nelva was born there March 20, 1939.

Grandpa Rex wrote in his history ~  On July 13, 1938, I went to work for the State Road Commission and a highway survey crew. We were now able to rent us a house of our own in Fairview, for the amount of $5.00 a month. We did have to buy a kitchen range (coal) with a hot water reservoir attached. We lived there until the spring of 1939, at which time our first daughter, Nelva Loy was born. This was on March 20th, and eleven days later we moved to Mt. Pleasant, Utah. We now had to pay $15.00 for our apartment. 

Then Rex got a job with Young & Smith Construction Company and they moved out to Thompson, Utah (near Green River). There wasn't adequate housing, so Rex and his father built a little trailer (pictured above) which became home and it was nice to have it on wheels ... as it traveled!

Rex wrote ~ The job was out in the middle of the desert at a railroad junction. There was no housing available there so Dad decided to build me a trailer house. As I had no money to buy material, I made arrangements with a lumber company for the materials and in return gave the trailer house as security for the loan. I went out to the job alone for the first week and lived, ate, slept and did my book work in the car. I came home after about 10 days and Dad had built the trailer except for some painting and the clearance lights. We worked late into the nights getting it ready and able to leave on Monday morning with all our possessions inside. 

After Thompson, they went to Emery. From Emery, they went to Rockville, which is at the entrance to Zions Park. They had lots of company and sometimes would have to eat in shifts in the little trailer.

From Rockville, they moved to Ogden and parked the trailer at Aunt Leolas. Then they moved into a (Zada's history says motel, Rex's says cabin) for a bit while the trailer house was used out at a job by Rex's Dad. The construction company didn't have any work after that, so Rex and Zada went back to Mt. Pleasant and parked the trailer at Rex's parent's house. 

When spring came, Rex had a job with Morrison & Merrill, paid $100 a month. They rented an apartment at 140 Girard Ave in Salt Lake City. Melvin and Berthell got a job nearby, and slept out back in the trailer house and Zada cooked for them. 

The war was on, and Rex was drafted. Zada had two little girls now (Margie born November 7, 1942) and was pregnant again. Zada moved in with Rex's parents in Mount Pleasant.  She ended up renting a house north of the Theater in Mt. Pleasant and Rex was able to come there a few times. That house was sold to become a car dealership, so they rented another house where Zada had a big garden. 

The war ended, and Rex was coming home. The owners of the home they were renting needed it back, so there was a scramble for somewhere new. They looked to Salt Lake and found an immaculate white frame house with red shutters at 4568 Boxelder Street in Murray. They bought it. 

They quickly replaced the old coal stove with natural gas. The school and church was about a mile away (a new church building was built later, which was much closer). There was a root cellar out back with a dirt floor and cement walls, it kept vegetables fresh all winter. There was a wooden play house above the cellar, where the kids would play. 

After Nelva graduated, they bought a lot and Zada's brother Bert built their home at 2665 Spring Hollow Drive. They moved in October 1959. Zada had a decorator from Sears come help get things set up just right.  This was the house that the Westra kids knew as "Grandma and Grandpa Norman's house". 

Memories from Jen: I remember the steep side slope on the West. We'd run down it going so fast! There was a covered cement patio with cushy chairs where we'd spend many evenings with family. Grandpa had a barbeque grill tied-in directly to the gas line, I hadn't seen that before, all other BBQs needed a propane tank. There was a peach tree and raspberry bushes. There was an elementary school nearby that we'd go play at when we visited. I remember the laundry chute ... dropping things down it to someone waiting below. There were poles down the stairs, and we kids would run down the stairs and grab the bottom pole and swing around. All except one of the cousins (Emily?) whose arm would pop out of socket if she did it. Sometimes some kids would stand on one side, and some on the stairs on the other side, and we'd pretend we were in jail. The old sewing machine with the foot pedal was there in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. The family room downstairs had some of Grandpa's deer heads/antlers hung on the wall. I remember Grandma's glass table in the living room ... I was always a little afraid someone was going to fall on it and break it! She had a lot of little breakable knick-knacks around too. I remember a little glass swan I loved to look at. Grandpa had collected rocks and polished them, and he had a nice arrowhead collection too.

Memories from Wendy: As a child, going to Grandma’s house always meant wonderful, delicious meals. I will never forget her wonderful home-made rolls! She filled a little blue bowl with home-made strawberry jam to spread on the piping hot rolls. Grandma had the most wonderful garden and we loved to pick raspberries at her house and fruit from her fruit trees. I’ll always remember how immaculate Grandma’s house was with everything in its place. I remember Christmas parties and family gatherings and playing with our cousins in Grandma's back yard. I remember rolling down the hill on the side of Grandma's house, blowing bubbles through spools, and bowling with milk jugs on her back porch.

... more memories? Send them to blackhambunch@gmail.com and I'll add them!

Grandpa's Garage and a Stairway to Nowhere

There have been pictures posted of the outside of the Havenmoor House ...  and here's a peek at inside the garage. Garages can get crazy, and I've definitely seen worse. There is an extra fridge and a couple freezers. All sorts of stuff hanging from pegboard along the walls. Shelves holding all sorts of stuff, some organized in apple boxes. Look at all those racquets! That blue metal shelving unit (below) I remember from the Hermitage House. It was right outside the basement backdoor, under the deck. I remember we kept all the "newspaper logs" stacked in it (newspaper logs were papers soaked in water then rolled up and then used in the fireplace instead of wood). 

In 2018, Grayson did a complete redo of the Blackham garage. He spent quite a bit of time (and money) but anyone who has ever seen it is quite impressed. Do you know who else was impressed? Grandma and Grandpa. Probably a little more Grandma ... she decided it was time that the Westra garage was reworked as well.

Here's a peek at Gray's Garage ...

Thus started a big job at the Westra home (well ... garage). A lot of things given or thrown away. Shelves emptied and repainted. Recreating some of the same look with the Gladiator shelving and wood paneling, getting a similar wheeled drawer and some nice big lockers. Crates to replace all the apple boxes, and Grayson even broke out his (up until then unused) CriCut machine to make matching labels for the crates.

... a little look at some of the changes

Some pictures Derek took while over working ...

We need some "after" shots when it was ALL done.

Grandpa doesn't spend quite as much time in his garage as Gray does, he's more known for his love of working in the yard. His pond and plants and buckets ... and holes. In fact, Grandpa has the ULTIMATE hole, a CAVE. It's under the deck. He built a nice set of stone stairs down to his cave entrance (and to the basement backdoor). The stability of the cave got to be a bit worrisome, so some time and money was spent reinforcing the walls and shoring things up.

Chris helped set up the construction, getting bids and deciding which route to take to ensure no cave collapse. After the workers came and did their job they told him " We appreciated serving you. We are here to handle any future cave projects. Keep digging." Future cave projects ;) Dad did once have dreams of having a raquetball court under the house/garage ...

Derek got a little song idea in his head ... Stairway to, instead of Heaven ... to Nowhere. He actually took the time to write the words down, and then to record it. He gave me the clips to work up into a video, and here it is ... Stairway to Nowhere!

Stairway to Nowhere 

There’s a man named LaMar 

And he works very hard 

And he’s building the stairway to nowhere 

When he gets there he knows 

He can store potatoes 

And hoses and junk from anywhere 

Oh, oh oh oh, and he’s building the stairway to nowhere 

There’s a cave in the hole 

Where you feel like a mole 

Living deep underneath Salt Lake City 

Then outside by the pond 

There’s a squirrel who sings 

Oh that stairway and cave are so pretty 

Ooh, it makes me wonder

Ooh, it makes me wonder 

There’s a feeling I get 

When I talk to the West 

Ra, and my spirit is longing for learning 

What drives you to dig 

Boring holes small and big 

And forever your shovel is turning 

And he’s building the stairway to nowhere

The Hermitage House

Ah, the Hermitage House. 1677 Hermitage Circle, off of Steeplechase Lane, in the Jamestown subdivision. Dad/Lamar noted in his history, that the area had been part of the home show the year before. The Westra family moved in August of 1972 and bid the home goodbye in 1994. They were there for 22 years. Moving in, the kids were: Scott (8), Chris (6), Wendy (4), Jen (almost 2). Moving out: Scott (31), Chris (28), Wendy (26), Jen (24), Shane (18) and Derek (12).  Not only did the kids change, but the house did too!

Dad remembers "We moved into this house in the Cottonwood Area of SLC, 2 Sep 1972, after spending about three weeks with Margie's folks while we were house hunting, and while we waited for the house to be completed and closed. We bought it from a builder who was building it for himself, and had to sell -- Richard Dunn, a young man building his first house. We paid $36000 for it and paid about $13000 down, which left a mortgage of about $23000 with Prudential Federal at 7½% interest."

Originally, the house was in black and white ... *Ü*

Mom/Margie remembers (from an email exchange) The house was brand new. The builder was a "drywall" guy and it was his first house to build.  I didn't like the mustard yellow color. It was much better later when we put the rocks and siding on in later years. We stayed with my parents for a few weeks after moving here in Aug. and I had to drive Scott and Chris to school at Woodstock and pick them up each day. Scott was 9 and in 3rd grade (Mrs. Silver, I think). Chris was just turned 6 and in Mrs. Clark's 1st grade. Wendy was 4 1/2 and Jenny not quite 2.

You can see in the pictures above that it was a new build. No landscaping, no plants or trees or fences. A split level with an attached (but no door to the house) garage. In the Westra Home Movies, there are quite a few glimpses of the house and yard. Here's a small clip from right after the move in. Grandma and Grandpa Norman are out helping prep the front for grass, then there's a look at the original back deck (with the stairs on the West side) and some shots inside the house.

(https://youtu.be/OFdf1hp7hvE)

There are more peeks at the house and yard throughout the home movies.

There really aren't that many photos of the house and yard, and even fewer really capturing the inside of the home. Here are a few more photos ... in color.

There were lots of changes and improvements over the years. Trees planted that grew so big. A basketball hoop in the driveway. Replacing the yellow siding with brown slats and rock. Switching out the deck and patio in the back. The addition of a shed, with an original "cave" root cellar. Lots of rockwork - a little pool and steps.

A couple of pictures from the kitchen ... the mustard yellow appliances (they were eventually replaced ... Funny story about the stove. Shane had made gingersnaps, and went to bake the cookies, and they stayed in little hard balls. They did not bake right. Well, the oven was old and apparently broken, so it was replaced. Then, Shane went to bake the cookies ... and they stayed little hard balls and did not bake right. It was the dough that was the problem, not the stove! Jen and Gray were finishing the basement in Gray's mom's house, so they took the stove. Jen convinced Mom and Dad that they should get a new fridge to match the new stove, and then the new little apartment got the old yellow fridge too). There was a flat carpet in the kitchen and in the bathrooms, I don't think there was any tile or hard surface?

This is just a quick sketch of the layout of the house, up and down ...

(maybe someone can create a more professional rendition)

In January 2019, Chris was scanning and sharing some of the pictures showcased above and it started an email discussion of Hermitage Home memories ...

Derek wrote: I have memories of each of the rooms in our old house (that weird under the stairs portion of Wendy's basement bedroom) The high bed in Shane's basement bedroom and the space underneath, the 1980's wood paneling in the basement, and the orange shag carpet upstairs (even carpet in the kitchen right?) :) There were lots of walls since that was before open floor plans became so popular. Small closets, and small bathrooms, and I remember we had a shed in the back and it seems like Dad had a root cellar cave under it (that couldn't have been safe!)

Wendy wrote: Was our home really only 1524 square feet? Or is that not including the basement? Yes, those pictures bring back a lot of memories! Like the ones in the kitchen with the scripture reading chart in the background and the big yellow phone with its looong cord. Sometimes I would try and go in the coat closet with it for privacy. I actually wish we had more pictures of the bedrooms and the unique features of the rooms and yard. I haven’t really seen pictures of the bedrooms – there might be a couple out there – but I wish we had those. If you see a picture of the kitchen carpet let me know! I remember it as patterned with squares and the colors were orange and yellow. We had to use a butter knife to scrape underneath all of the bottom kitchen cupboards in order to vacuum the floor since it didn’t reach well under there. I would be interested in seeing other pictures of the rooms in the house like the room Jen and I shared upstairs and my yellow bedroom in the basement.

Mom had several memories to share ...

• Dad would finish off one new bedroom every time we had a baby.
• I remember how we had to get out of the car to open the garage, carry in the groceries through the front door and then go back and close the garage door---not fun in bad weather and with our little kids. It was Scott when he was in his 20's, that he installed an automatic garage-door opener. For awhile, in later years, our garage door would mysteriously open and close. We finally figured out that Hadleys across the street had the same code so ours was opening every they pushed their buttons!
• Originally there was a cement patio. Shane fell once when it was icy and got a concussion and didn't know what was going on for awhile. As I remember the stairs from the deck originally went down on the West side. Then Dad did the shed. We hired a fellow in the 11th ward to build us a new redwood deck and patio and changed the stairs to the East side, so they landed on the patio.
• I think we had your big deep sandpile where the shed was later built. Then it was under the deck. It was about 3 feet deep. You kids would put on your swimming suits and take the hose into the sandpile and play "muddy mess."
• Yes, Dad excavated under the shed---supposedly for a food cellar. But it was too moist and full of spiders, so none of you wanted to go down the ladder through the trapdoor in the shed floor!
• I too wish we had photos of each room----so kids, take photos now in depth in each of your homes inside and out. I wish I had more of my growing-up home on Boxelder St. in Murray. I only have one bit of the kitchen photo and not even a photo of the outside.

Derek took this advice to heart ... Documenting Your Dwelling and Jen has quite a few posts on the BlackhamBunchBlog with the Home Sweet Home label, showcasing home improvements and room rearranges. 

Jen didn't chime in on the email exchange back in 2019, but has lots of memories about the Hermitage House ...

• Originally the basement was unfinished. Just cement floors ... which was a perfect place for roller skating in the big family room. Wendy and I would put the Xanadu record on and skate away. The Wonderful Westra sisters!
• There were unique spaces ... the closet under the stairs (great for hide-and-seek) with shelves at the back where we stored the sleeping bags (when we weren't using the green slippery ones to slide down the stairs), the little space behind the closet in Wendy's room. The "high" bed, the space under it was actually part of the food storage room. 
• The food storage room had so many "rolley" shelves, which was to help keep things in rotation. Put the new cans in one end, take out the oldest ones from the other end.
• Finishing the basement rooms, the older kids got to pick out their own colors for carpet and such. Scott's room was brown, Chris's was blue I think? Wendy's was yellow (I remember her dresser and cabinet were yellow). The basement bathroom was the first to have Dad's secret toilet paper storage (or am I thinking of the Havenmoor house?)
• Only the master bath had a bathtub. The master just had a shower, as did the basement bathroom.
• The main upstairs living area ... living room and "dining" room. The "sheer" curtains. The lava-rock fireplace. The yellow couch and loveseat, the stereo (record player and storage), the piano, the white couch. What was technically the dining area was the "tv room" with a little television, and then Mom's recliner.
• The kitchen had carpet. The appliances were mustard yellow (I can't recall the colors of the replacements). No built in microwave, originally there wasn't one, then we got one that would sit on the counter. There was a decent sized pantry in the corner ... we'd keep our boxes of cereal there that we'd get for Easter/Christmas. The "job chart" (there were a few different iterations) would hang on the wall, or on a big green pinboard. 
• The main phone hung on the kitchen wall. It was a rotary phone for most of my memory. Yellow, with a loooooong cord like Wendy mentioned. There was a second phone in the master bedroom, and then eventually one downstairs. Cordless phones became common in the 80s, not sure when we got our first set. I don't remember ever having an answering machine.
• The family room downstairs was finished at some point ... paneling on the walls, built in desk and cabinets, a countertop (for the boxes and boxes of Mom's coupons and refunds). The rock fireplace that Dad gathered rocks from the canyon to piece together ... extended to include a built in planter.
• The furnace room, with the washer/dryer, extra freezer and storage, was never finished. Always had cement floors. A door to the back of the house, exited under the deck. Another freezer just outside.
• Lots of pine trees in the yard ... cut down for Christmas trees later on. Lots of flowers. Chickens and Hens succulents among the rocks. Lots of rockwork. The side yard on the East had a rock pathway and the back had a little pond, planter and steps. There was a little hill/slope in the backyard.  Directly behind the deck was the vegetable garden.
• When the deck originally had the stairs on the West side, it was quite the trek to take things down to the patio. I think it was probably Scott who rigged a rope and bucket that we'd put things in and then lower over the side, rather than going down the steps and around each time. 
• Under the deck was the sandbox ... muddy mess (as Mom mentioned). 
• Mom and I would dry fruit leather on tables on the back deck ... Square frames with nails, to place mesh over to keep out the birds and bugs. We sketched out plans for custom frames, but never made them happen. 
• Dad always talked about building a racquetball court under the house ;) 

Here's a couple pieces of artwork, featuring the Hermitage House ...

This one was done by Derek ...

Complete with a Christmas tree in the front window (that's where it was always placed)... 

Mom remembers ... When it came time to move into the Havenmoor House, it had really been a seller's market for several years, so we expected to sell with ease. Many homes were being sold to the first person looking at it! We tried to sell it ourselves first, but that didn't work out. So we listed with a realtor in our ward. We started out asking $200,000, then lowered it to $180,000. We passed up one offer for $160,000. Then we ended up months later selling it for $160,000. We closed on the Havenmoor House on my birthday, Nov. 7, 1994 and moved in shortly thereafter.

Derek also commented: From a "Fixer-Upper" perspective, Zillow estimates our old home at $446K. 
https://www.zillow.com/homes/1677-Hermitage-Circle,-Salt-Lake-City,-UT_rb/12864397_zpid/

That was January 2019 ... interesting to see how that continues to change over the years! As of this posting (Nov2022) ... $631,000