BROWN: A home design of the times

Published 10:25 pm Tuesday, October 22, 2024

The house that I remember vividly, as my childhood home, was constructed near downtown Richland, Georgia in 1954.

Our parents searched for the perfect floorplan for months, and when they made their decision, they engaged an architect and builder from nearby Columbus He was constructing a home for the Dr. Earl Mayo family. It was within the same country block, and since he was contracted in the area he willingly negotiated the charges.

Daddy and his brother, my Uncle Bill, were providing their expertise. The house was considered both fashionable and ultra-modern in design.

Finished in traditional red brick, it sits back from the road, atop a small slope, with an expansive lawn, and an elongated paved driveway. The interior walls are plaster and to this day, have few visible fractures. Daddy vowed that workmanship is just as important as quality materials; the infrastructure of the house will probably decompose long before the façade crumbles.
There were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The galley-style kitchen was adjacent to a formal living and dining room, and an inside stairway gave access to the full-sized basement. The screened side porch opens off the dining room and provides added floor space for entertaining. The floors upstairs were polished pine, and the baths are surrounded in exclusive ceramic tile. The center hallway included a coat closet, separate storage for linens, and a pull-down stairway for access to a finished attic.

When we were young, the stick to unfold the stairway to the attic always disappeared before Thanksgiving and reappeared right after Christmas.

We enjoyed a central heating unit in the early years and later a cooling system was added long before it became an expected household convenience.
The floor space in the family bath is limited, and they faced the challenge of how to manage large quantities of dirty laundry. One wall in the large bathroom was designed with cabinets complete with doors, so daddy developed an innovative way to transport items from the main floor to the laundry area, situated in the basement.
His redesigned cabinetry created a secret access way to the basement. We opened the small door, dropped laundry down the chute, and it landed in a basket in the basement near the washing machine. The novel idea became a point of pride. No home in our community had such an advantageous contraption. I talk about the house in present tense because although it does not belong to our family anymore, the house is still occupied and in excellent shape.
Our parents cautioned us youngsters frequently about using the mechanism for transporting anything other than dirty clothes.

David and I sometimes peeked down the clothes shoot just out of curiosity but to my knowledge the only living thing that was ever transported in the chute was one of momma’s precious Siamese kittens.
According to family legend, the unfortunate incident would have never happened if brothers Troy and Steve Woods had not been spending the night with my brother David.