(re-post)
Call a rose, say –” boop” – sniff it, prove Gertrude Stein right: it does smell sweetly the same.
But give a house a name and something changes, the aspects of ‘home’ increase according to psychologist Brooke Marten. “People treat a house differently when it is personalized with a name,” Marten says. “And the house responds.” She has seen this happen again and again in houses she has honoured with a name over the years.
Carole Hyder, a Feng Shui consultant, agrees that “the process can bring about amazing changes. Naming something enables a person to claim it.” She has seen people improve their financial situation with a house name (Prospero), bring about a job or relationship change (Clare) and even affect a retired couple’s home (Heaven’s Haven) to the extent that guests became so comfortable it was difficult to get them to leave!
Behind high hedges on a small, uniquely-shaped lot in Victoria is a 1914 house bearing a sign, ‘Welcome to Myrtle Acres.’
Sharon Michaels bought the place three years ago and although she had taken a feng shui course she hadn’t come across the concept of house naming. Owner and operator of The Runaround, an errand service, Michaels says her initial impression was of an estate. On a tiny lot. “The house had a definite personality, it needed a name. And it has lived up to it.” She and her son, Michael Delves, designed and installed a pond that enhances the image while keeping to scale.
Some names are not immediately apparent. Gary and Susan Collins, both artists, say the name Cobble Cottage came within the first year. “It’s hard to explain, “ says Susan, “but we felt the house needed stones and as we added more and more stones the name sort of evolved.” Rounded rocks nestle on the walls of the house, in the garden…indoors. The name – on a stone, of course – was designed by Gary and executed by Vancouver Island Brass Foundry.
Little is known about the habit of naming houses says Joyce C Miles in her fascinating book House Names Around the World but the custom runs from early history to the present day. Among the 20,000 names she collected are Crumbledown, Opposite Three Poplars, Hard to Find, Cold Bath Cottage.
Sho Hu Tei is an example of the name given a tea house in Japan. It translates as Wind Through Pines and reflects the careful and thoughtful selection of a name. “Few – very few – people in Japan have a tea house in their garden,” Kanoux Larsen, manager of the Oak Bay Marina Restaurant, originally from Kobe, says “But they are all named, usually from an old poem and using sophisticated words. The name is carved or brush written above the door.” Larsen feels Japanese people are not likely to draw attention to their private homes by naming them but observes that businesses are now being named with more trendy names by the younger generation.
Four-year-old Patrick Ehle lives in Victoria with his family in a large house named Inverary. (“Something to do with Scotland,” his father Dan, thinks, “The name was on the house when we bought it.”) But in the garden, in a magnificent chestnut, is a wonderful tree house for Patrick’s use alone. His siblings named it The Tree House and, although they have outgrown it, the name remains. Patrick does not like the spider webs he has found in his Tree House this year.
September 2008