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