The House in Susterseel - and a Secret Garden

Ugh. It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. It’s been a whirlwind of activity...mostly! I’ve had to do the taxes, which is more complicated than usual this time, as we have to account for John’s work in Germany last year, and have to interact with some tax specialists who are expert at foreign work situations. But, I expect to get that done this week.

Last time I mentioned that AnnaMK and Toni had a house for us to see--it turned out that we had two. One was nice with an amazing park-like back yard, and a large side garden that could accommodate vegetables. The front yard clearly had roses, which I love. However, it was quite a ways away from John’s workplace, and while it had web access, there was only one bathroom, and that had only a shower, no bathtub. The kitchen was was also miniscule. And yet, there was that gorgeous back yard, and a lovely traditional German fireplace. The current renters were there while we looked over the house, as well as the wife’s mother, who looked somewhat like an elderly and wary Bette Davis, leisurely smoking a cigarette as she watched us tour the house.

The owner’s brother helped show us around, and he was very gracious in that he invited us to have some coffee. In addition, he drove us back to Susterseel, where we had parked our rental car.

Then we saw the other house; this one is in Susterseel, the same town in which Anna H. of Kalitsu’s Compendium blog lives.

Well.

It’s large, and let’s just say it has character. We learned from Toni that it used to be an old farmhouse. As Toni opened the old-fashioned decorated gates, we entered the large courtyard--yes, it has a courtyard, as you can see by the pictures, it seemed grandly old-fashioned to me, and I could almost imagine turn-of-the-century folks bringing in their horses under the lean-to shelter that may have held a trough of hay. When we went through the uncharacteristically large garage doors we could see the hayloft was still there. The vast majority of German houses only have a one-car garage, and you’d be hard put to squeeze in something like a Toyota Corolla through one of them without fear of denting the side-view mirrors; I’d only feel safe parking a Mini Cooper in one of them. However, the owner had renovated the interior of the house, and put in automatic garage door openers, but the doors were large enough to let in a couple of monster trucks and store them, too.

As we opened the French doors to the entryway, the marble staircase that curved upstairs, framed by the dark green Art Deco-style rails, caught my eye, and the room seemed very full of light. I liked the airy look of that staircase, unlike the ones I’d seen in other houses. The living room was painted white, of course, and a pastel yellow glaze had been textured over it. Even though I’m not really a fan of yellow, I rather liked the look of it; it had a cheerful feel about it; indeed, the sun decided to come out as we entered, and the entryway and the whole of the ground floor lit up with lovely natural light. The stairs as well were bright, and the warm wood of the upstairs floors seemed to glow when we opened the shades to let in the sun.

As we went through the house, Toni told us of the history, as he usually does. The owner--a master builder/mason--had lived in it himself with his family. He had renovated it, as I had mentioned, from an old farmhouse, and had renovated it with the era in mind, which looked to me to be somewhere between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. After a while, he built another house into which his growing family had moved, and then rented out this house.

To, unfortunately and unbeknownst to him, Dutch drug dealers, who were eventually evicted by the police.

Toni seemed rather apologetic as he showed us parts of it; the basement had some water damage along the walls; this was where the drug dealers had grown their crops and had liberally sprayed the floors with water; this would be fixed, he said, and the owner would ensure that there would be no mold growth here. Some holes had been drilled through the walls, damaging one of the lighting fixtures. The walls had been only somewhat decoratively painted; upstairs, it seemed that someone had haphazardly decorated one room with children’s wallpaper; children had lived here, along with the drug dealers. Though the kitchen was lovely, the refrigerator was a wreck; that would replaced, we were assured. I could see some childish crayon scrawls on one of the walls. The very small postage-stamp-sized yard was neglected, and trash had been thrown there. Toni said that he didn’t know whether much could be grown in it, as it gets very warm during the summer.

It made me sad to see it, and hear of its history. Such care had been given to the renovation, and to keep with the character of the Art Deco era; I could see this in the lighting fixtures and the stair railing, as well as in the tile design in the very large and lovely bathroom on the 2nd floor. The drug dealers had apparently taken out the fireplace and covered the hole with a picture of Audrey Hepburn. While I love Audrey Hepburn, I cringed thinking of how the renovation had been ruined that way as well.

All of a sudden I felt like I wanted to take care of this house, and help it be the way it was supposed to be, the way I felt it wanted to be. I smiled as Toni had told me that the tiny walled garden was possibly too warm to grow much. I’m from the Pacific Northwest, USA. We know gardens, that’s for sure, large or small. I knew what I could grow there. Roses love warmth, and so do lilies--well most plants do. I could do a lot with that garden, I was sure. Suddenly, I saw in my mind’s eye an espaliered rose bush grown along one of the brick walls, and I almost laughed at myself. It was the picture from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, one of my favorite childhood books--still is a favorite, for that matter.

You can’t see or get to this small plot from the outside--it’s all walled up. You’d have to go into a neighbor’s yard, climb up their wall, and look over, the same way Old Ben used to climb up his ladder and get over to tend the garden before Mary found the key to the Secret Garden. The only way in is through this badly-treated but determinedly cheerful house.

I could do this, I thought. A garden that small--absolutely. I’d always wanted to try growing an espaliered rose bush, and certainly there’s enough info on the internet that I could use. Perhaps I could put in a tiny fountain as well. If there aren’t electrical outlets there, then I could find a battery-operated one. Granted, Mary’s garden didn’t have a fountain, but this would be my garden, and I think a fountain would be nice.

(Side note: I just now Wiki’d the book for a link to the picture I was thinking about, and instead of the illustration I was used to--a later edition’s illustration--the original 1911 book cover came up...which is Art Nouveau in design, and which is about hold old this house is. Coincidence...? Hmm....)

So, of course we decided on this house. There’s not much else out there, as not that many people here in Germany own their own houses, plus we live in a region where the population is rather transient (three NATO bases in close proximity, with attendant military and civilian families). We are at the limit of our 45 days in a hotel that John’s company allows, so we have to decide soon.

We’ll be moving in in a few weeks. :-)