lines with a view

This is the view that put the house with no name in my name.

The realtor and I had been walking around the house for about five minutes when I looked up to my left and saw what you are looking at right now. I had spent a couple of years looking at houses in this area, but none of them had That Something that I was looking for.

Sure, I had several ideas in mind. I wanted a place with four bedrooms and all of the rooms on one level to accommodate my mother, my brother, and my sister-in-law on what they hoped would be frequent long-term visits. But those were the criteria one would use looking for hotel accommodations.

I was looking for a place that I could call home -- someplace that would reflect my personality. Or, better yet, put a better spin of patina on my personalty.

And there it was. The answer. While I was walking through the house, I could see its design was original. Or original in a derivative sense. But it was the Barragánesque lines that joined with the acute angles that sold the house to me.

There was something else. When I was in the sixth grade, I designed a house around a swimming pool -- with all of the rooms opening on the center patio. All I knew back then was that was how Imperial Roman houses were designed. Even my niece designed a similar house when she was about the same age. The design seemed to speak to something in the Cottons.

Today while I was reading in the pool, I glanced up at that same view. The sky was more London than Mexico. That pale gray beloved of some manor owners as a color for their sitting room. The sky was a bit pensive.

Usually, the backdrop for the house lines is a bright tropical blue. Often streaked with white clouds, but blue nonetheless. Almost something Piet Mondrian would have painted. Not so today. Everything is multiple shades of gray.

Light -- and its accompanying color palette -- are what make Mexico Mexico. Christopher Wren's St. Paul's cathedral is well-suited for gray surroundings. London wears the color well. But even the dome of the cathedral can take on an almost Florentine air when the sun is bright and the skies are clear (during the nine days of English summer).

I had one reader who despised my house. He called it "a barn" and "the pipe dream of a school boy." He was wrong about the barn. But I wear the "school boy" slight with honor. He thought it was an insult. To me, it was simply a fact.

He has now moved on. I suspect he tired of trying to recruit me into his rather odd combination of socialist blood-and-soil politics peppered with a parade of various conspiracy theories.

One of nature's best assets is that it is constantly changing. Certainly, the blocks of blue are better-suited to show off the house's lines. But, even in the gray, I can find the serenity that the architect built into this dream house of hers.

And I thank her for it.