18Jun Not Your Granny’s
The homes in actress Debby Boone’s Burbank, California, neighborhood are small and plain. Economy Chevy’s and Fords line the curbs. There are no BMW’s, lush gardens, turquoise pools, or multistory houses.
Then you see it, squeezed between two simple ranch-style dwellings: a stunning chateau. A river-rock turret rises upward, swirled like a licorice vine between strands of red brick. Under a sloped roof are two beautiful stained-glass windows. A cherub with a broken wing kneels with its back at the front door.
When I arrived to interview Boone on assignment, she led me right into her kitchen. I couldn’t help thinking how deliciously lived in it was. Layers of whimsical children’s art, life-sized paper dolls, and funky decorations covered every inch of wall space. Boone told me that while house hunting for this home she had hoped to find space for her husband’s art projects and to raise their four children. Secretly, she hoped also for a certain amount of charm—within their price range. To prove she found just that, she later took me to the master bathroom. Pulling open a tiny door in the ceiling, she folded out a ladder that led to a small attic. All it needed, she said, was a skylight and—presto!—it could become husband Gabriel’s art studio. But that wasn’t all.
Boone’s house is fill of Old World flair, including more than a fair share of nooks and crannies in odd and unused areas. When she toured the house the first time, she couldn’t find the stained- glass bay window that looked so pretty from the outside. It wasn’t until the Realtor took her through the U-shaped closet off the master bedroom that she spied unexpected sunshine spilling onto the floor between racks of clothes.
Suddenly she knew—this was the house.
Once Boone’s family moved in, that three-by-three-foot bay window alcove, with its carpeted platform and walls covered in sunshine, became her personal chapel. “I literally go into my closet to pray like Jesus asked us to do in Matthew,” she said. “From the window I look onto the street with passing cars and people muted by the pink and green glass. The view reminds me there is a world beyond my place, and I also belong to that world.”
I couldn’t help wishing for a prayer niche as ambient as Debby Boone’s when I returned home from my visit with her. But almost no houses built in the last fifty years have anything like our grannies’ nooks and crannies. To re-create the charm of older homes, we have to add to them ourselves, inspired by alcoves we have known from other times and places. Sheltered, inviting, holding our special books and precious objects, such intimate spaces create a natural refuge.One alcove I remember was the staircase in Grandma and Pa Smith’s farmhouse. It was narrow, steep, and cold, taking a sharp left turn toward the second story, after which the stairs seemed to go on forever. As a little girl, I liked sitting on that one angled step and imagining my father as a little boy in flannel pj’s climbing those same stairs every night for bed.
