Home Maker
Houses can be built; homes must evolve. From what I can tell, this truth is lost on a lot of people building their quasi-mansions in and around Austin. When they close on their house, they expect it to be finished. The brass coach lamps are hung on either side of the front door. The powder room is wallpapered in a ghastly floral print. The baseboards are nailed in and the nail holes are spackled and painted. The blades are balanced on the ceiling fans. The sod is laid atop the rubble and a couple of wax leaf ligustrum are plopped down on either side of the walkway. The bank says it’s finished. The builder says it’s finished. So, the family assumes it’s finished. And yet, no matter how many trips they make to Pier One, no matter how many faux-country knickknacks they hang on the wall, the house never feels like home.
They could learn a lesson or two from a man I met a few weeks ago in San Patricio, New Mexico. I’d read about Fort Meigs Galleries in a guidebook by Todd Staats, New Mexico, Off the Beaten Path. “There truly aren’t enough superlatives to describe this particular place or the man behind it,” writes Staats. The man is 81-year old John Meigs, an artist/entrepreneur who sailed to Tahiti on the eve of Pearl Harbor, designed the original Hawaiian shirt, hobnobbed with the jetset, was close friends with Georgia O’Keeffe and Helen Hayes, and amassed an incredible collection of art. The place is an adobe warren of courtyards, breezeways, hallways, and unfolding interior spaces. Surprises abound: stained glass windows rescued from pre-fire San Francisco, Roman scroll work carved in stone from 1000 B.C., heavy wooden doors from central Mexico.
Meigs “grew” his house from seed, a tiny adobe he purchased five decades ago for $100. He dubbed his home Fort Meigs and recently donated it to the Benedictine monks for a retreat. He is selling off most of his art treasures. He is donating his 30,000 books to a university. He has moved from the fort to a more modest but no less delightful home next door, down by the Rio Ruidosa.
Meigs has even planned his place in his home after death. In the middle of the courtyard at the entrance to his home is a large granite slab. His adopted son, Clinton Meigs, already rests beneath it. Every year on the anniversary of his death, John Meigs throws a party and guests dance on Clinton’s grave, at Clinton’s request. After John is gone and buried, he hopes the tradition will continue at the place he now calls home and always will.
Write me at Suzebe@aol.com
This article appears in August 29 • 1997 and August 29 • 1997 (Cover).