We are always friendly and sociable with Marty Smith, our new next-door neighbor. "How are you Marty? Isn't it a beautiful day?" It seems to drives him crazy. He is not a chatter, or even a talker. He prefers working.
The county delayed his residency permit for a couple months, presumably because he covered too much of the lot with impermeable surface and placed his house too close to our property line. Even for Arlington County, which is pretty much sold out to developers, his structure is extreme. But he was delayed only a few weeks, because he's a professional builder, and knows how to work the system. He said he was forced to spend $400K on adding additional "canopy."
I asked him where that canopy is, hoping that I could get a look at it. "It's just a formula," he answered. "So what's the formula?" I asked. He said he'll have to get back to me on it. I am trying to get the county board of Zoning appeals to answer that question.
In the days before he and his family (wife, toddler and mother in law) moved in, I spoke to him as he and his crew watered his newly laid sod.
I started by saying, “If you hadn’t used this scorched earth approach–eliminating all plants, and bulldozing down to bare clay--the county wouldn’t have delayed you so long, and you wouldn’t have so much attitude from your neighbors.”
I shouldn’t rub it in. Marty seems to be overextended financially on his $2 million-plus house.
His level of materials and finish is something that I’ve never seen. Call it Mc-Rococo: Overdetailed everywhere, with coffered ceilings, extra-thick stone paneling on the outside—of house and garage, crown moldings everywhere inside, including the garage. All on a nice old Craftsman pattern blown up to the size of a Macy’s parade balloon.
It truly would not be out of place in San Simeon, W.R. Heart’s castle in CA.
In building it, Marty bulldozed Norma’s cute little (but uninhabitable) shotgun shack and associated outbuildings (in similar condition).
Norma’s husband Del died by crashing his Harley Davidson Sportster into an overpass back in the 1970s.
Marty says it’s his dream house, “because it’s a great country.”
I agree it’s a great country. And why shouldn’t he be allowed to build his dream, even if it wipes out several ecosystems?
He thinks we are slobs, and our house is an “eyesore.” He mistakes us for his earlier victim (Norma next door worked like a farmworker at Giant Food for 30 years, went to church on Sundays, and did no maintenance beyond emergency patches. Then she sold to Marty at the peak of the bubble for $535 K.)
Marty had hoped to rent Norma’s place out, but had to hold onto it for a couple years, when it turned out to be so termite- ridden.
Norma would tell you “I don’t do maintenance.”
She was a long-legged blonde farm girl from Wisconsin and a big time Lutheran. She worked hours at Giant Food, and church on Sunday, and spent raucous Saturday nights with a series of boyfriends. Actually retail weekends are Tuesdays, she said.
Our house and lifestyle, like Norma's, also clearly present problems for Marty. Is it a crack-house or meth cooking shack?
By today’s standards in this neighborhood it’s modest. But it is structurally sound and recently roofed, has a full basement (where we have our offices) and two attic bedrooms, and is perfectly usable for the two of us and our dog. (That’s another thing that Marty complains about--our large and rambuctious dog Shuggie.)
Marty is angry because he must live next to riffraff like us. “And you have too much old junk.” (Are we the junk he is talking about?)
To us it’s recycling, and extends to building materials like 2” by 10” boards, concrete rubble and brick and quartzite boulders and bluestone flagstones, which we use for terracing our steep lot. (We just lost a giant maple tree, which was supporting the whole backyard, so terracing is urgently needed, and we are always scouting for other peoples' discards.)
Because we believe the County’s propaganda:
http://www.arlingtonva.us/portals/topics/TopicsEnvironment.aspx
But for me that doesn’t extend to 20% soybean biodiesel (which the county website says cuts particulate matter of buses and dump trucks –
http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/gsd/equipment/fleet/altfuels/altfuels.aspx
but it surely doesn’t cut greenhouse gases Seattle used to think biodiesel was "carbon neutral" until it found out it was largely palm oil.
This is completely brilliant!
ReplyDelete