Like farmers, construction workers around here work “all the hours God sends,” so it is not unusual to see them working on a Saturday, especially if there has been inclement weather earlier in the week. On Sunday mornings, though, one can generally count on finding construction sites deserted, so I schedule my new home construction explorations for my Sunday-morning walks.
This morning I checked again on the “mystery room” I’ve been wondering about. I’ve been forced to conclude it must be intended as a sort of butler’s pantry. It opens off a small hallway that connects the kitchen with the dining room and living room/study, and it now has counters and shelves that suggest storage of crockery or even food. I’m still a little puzzled by two tall cabinets without shelves (one might be a broom closet, but two?). I will continue to keep tabs on this room as long as I can get into the house.
I spent considerably more time exploring the gigantic edifice going up around the corner. Although it doesn’t have actual bay frontage (it’s on a bluff above the City’s bayfront park), it does overlook the bay, so I guess it is technically a “bay house.” My first assumption, given its scale, was that it was intended as a sort of family compound, where extended family could be accommodated for summer vacations. It has a three-car garage, a “breakfast room” larger than most formal dining rooms (large enough for a table seating at least 12), and a huge open space (connected dining room and family room) extending across the width of the house and opening onto a porch facing the bay (one of several porches opening off various rooms). It also appeared to have numerous bedrooms upstairs and down. It seemed clearly designed for housing and/or entertaining a large crowd.
Today I was pleased to see a sheaf of house plans laid out on a table. But the first-floor plan was crossed out with a large red X and had “Do Not Use” written across it, and it quickly became evident that the second-floor plan also bore no relation to the actual framing. The original plan was for a spacious master suite on the first floor, along with a “study” with its own closet and adjoining full bath; the general lines of these remained, but the master bath suite had been drastically rearranged (with one shower room not connected with the rest of the bath at all but instead opening off the entrance to the master suite), and the study bath was also different. Similarly, the large room adjoining the kitchen, originally designated as an entry/laundry room with a pantry and powder room opening off it, had clearly been rethought. (The architect who designed the house is one who doesn’t come cheap, and I shudder to think how much all these changes must be costing.)
Upstairs, the area (on the plan) is divided into Bedroom A (with its adjoining bath, closet, and attic space) and Bedroom B (ditto), but the actual upstairs is now cut up into smaller and more puzzling portions. The most inexplicable is the bath suite of one of the bedrooms. Although the toilet is in a separate room (with window), the tub and lavatory open into the bedroom through a double-width cased opening. Even assuming that double doors will fill the opening, this seems odd. It would be overkill even for handicapped access, and since there is no evidence of any plan for an elevator to the second floor, this would be nonsense, anyway. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on this puzzle to see how it develops!
