Houses: And Some Things That Matter

By Charles R. Work

“Houses” is a memoir of a life in which architecture was a source of considerable interest, perhaps best described as a pleasant hobby. In short Mr. Work makes the case that architecture plays a more important role in how we live than is commonly understood. Mr.Work hopes that the primary audience for whom this volume is intended, his children and their children, will also find therein some stories they might enjoy and some additional things that matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664132870

Charles R. Work

The Hon. Charles R. Work is a retired lawyer now living in Naples, Florida, He is a former President of the District of Columbia Bar, a former Deputy Administrator of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration ( appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate) and a former Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1978 Mr. Work received the Rockefeller Public Service Award for Administering Justice and Reducing Crime. Mr. Work was a partner in the law firm of McDermott, Will and Emery for many years and was the partner in charge of McDermott’s Washington Office from 1983 to 1977.

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Copyright © 2020 by Charles R. Work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 11/06/2020

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

910 Everett Street Glendale, California

Chapter 2

190 Stonewall Road Berkeley, California

Chapter 3

539 East Mountain Street Glendale, California

Chapter 4

1638 Don Carlos Avenue Glendale, California

Chapter 5

175 Lansdale Avenue San Francisco, California

Chapter 6

The Buckhorn The Cabin on the Feather River Plumas National Forest near Spring Valley, California

Chapter 7

Olive View A Tuberculosis Hospital in the San Fernando Valley

Chapter 8

The Webb School of California 1175 Baseline Road Claremont, CA

Chapter 9

690 Sixteenth Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah

Chapter 10

The Eclectic House 200 High Street Middletown. Connecticut

Chapter 11

506 Independence Avenue SE Washington, DC

Chapter 12

218 Kentucky Avenue Washington, DC

Chapter 13

U.S. Army Reserves Dower House Road Suitland, Maryland

Chapter 14

3210 Tennyson Street NW Washington, DC

Chapter 15

1150 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC

Chapter 16

2920 Forty-Fourth Place NW Washington, DC

Chapter 17

1850 K Street NW Washington, DC

Chapter 18

2805 Battery Place NW Washington, DC

Chapter 19

Lady Slipper Lane Wintergreen, Virginia

Chapter 20

4042 Forty-First Street North McLean, Virginia

Chapter 21

4206 Old Banyan Way Sanibel, Florida

Chapter 22

1990 Durion Court Sanibel, Florida

Chapter 23

1621 Maddux Lane McLean, Virginia

Chapter 24

304 Cove Creek Road Stevensville, MD

Chapter 25

Wyndemere Wheaton, Illinois

Chapter 26

600 Thirteenth Street NW Washington, DC

Chapter 27

Unit 101 Regent Grand Turks and Caicos

Chapter 28

304 Cove Creek Road (the New House) Stevensville, MD

Chapter 29

2769 Tiburon Boulevard East Unit 102 Naples, FL

To Roni, my beloved wife, and

for Matthew, Molly, Ben, and Andrew

and our grandchildren

so they won’t have to remember and

while I can.

Introduction

You probably have heard most of these stories. I am writing them down because I wish that someone had written down the stories that my parents told me and that their parents had told them.

Why Houses? I needed some sort of unifying theme, and then, it came to me. I have always been interested in architecture and houses. I think both define our lives more than we realize. Among other things, they are a framework for our memories. The theme does change the flow of my description of events; they are not always chronological.

Fortunate, blessed, I have been both of those things all my life. I do believe that God has had a hand in it. I cannot explain why some people are more fortunate than others. I do believe that what you do with your gifts defines your success.

Disappointments. Of course, I have had disappointments. I believe this is part of the human condition. We are all dealt different hands. There are at least two different kinds of disappointments, one you disappoint yourself and another people disappoint you. In what follows, I have by and large left out the latter and glossed over most of the former. It does little good to dwell on them. I have always been pretty good about moving on. It is important to forgive both others and yourself. It helps to keep you sane.

Institutions. Studying how they work is a great interest of mine. Of course, architecture affects how they work. Making them work better is one of my passions. It can be any kind of institution. My views on this subject have been influenced by a book called Asylums by Erving Goffman, which is about institutions generally and how certain principles can be applied to every kind of institution, not just asylums. Architecture is a part of this analysis.

Things that matter. I am now of the view, after writing more than eighty pages, that this memoir should have a subtitle, And Some Things That Matter. I have tried to discuss things that matter; as I grow older in these pages, I hope they will become clear, at least to my children and their children. I do believe, along with the lyricist in South Pacific, that the most important things you leave to your children are the ideas you put in their heads. I hope my children and theirs will find some of the ideas here that were put in my head by my parents, as well as those I hope to inculcate in them.

Words. My father’s favorite Bible passage was John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word. Words do matter, and they are what distinguish us from other animals.

My favorite Bible passage is St. Paul’s message in I Thessalonians 5:21 Hold fast to what is good This thought is part of almost every benediction I have heard and is always for me an important part of the service. I never tire of hearing: Go into the world in peace and courage. Hold to the Good. Honor all God’s Children. Serve the Lord with Gladness, Rejoicing in the Power of the Spirit.

A sense of humor. It helps. It is important to remember that some forms of humor can be a blunt instrument and can hurt people. Self-deprecating humor is the best.

Chapter 1

910 EVERETT STREET

GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

I was born on June 21, 1940, in the Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in Glendale. Mother and Dad were living in a house on Everett Street. They played Ping-Pong to urge me out of the womb. We have a picture or two of me with Mom and her eldest sister, Aunt Dodi, who came down from San Francisco to help. I do not remember this house. I was named for both of my grandfathers, Charles John Fricke and Robert Marshall Work. They were both deceased when I was born.

Chapter 2

190 STONEWALL ROAD

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

I remember the house where I was baptized. Of course, I do not remember my baptism; it occurred shortly after I was born. There is a small picture. There is also a newspaper clipping. I was baptized by a friend of my maternal grandfather. It was 1940; Paris fell to the Nazis the week I was born.

I remember the Stonewall Road house because I visited it several times as a child. It was the longtime home of my great-aunt Josephine Work Brown and her husband, Arch. Uncle Arch, by the time I knew him, was bedridden. His bed was placed in a large room with a very large plate glass window looking out over the San Francisco Bay. Uncle Arch usually had some sort of small magnetic toy for me to play with. I remember both of them as warm and charming.

Chapter 3

539 EAST MOUNTAIN STREET

GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

I do not remember the Mountain Street home either, but as I was growing up in Glendale, we drove by it often. It had an impressive street-side view. It had a ballroom and leaded windows. It was perfect for my father because it was in need of repair. There is a picture of Mom, Dad and me on the doorstep. Mother often recalled that she carried me several times a day up seventy-six steps from the garage. It had a view. My father loved views. On a clear day, you could see Catalina Island.

My parents sold the house when I was three or four. I was told that my father had secured a commission in the navy and did not want to leave Mom with that much work. As it turned out, he failed the physical. He had tuberculosis as a child and still had spots on his lungs. He never left for the war.

The Mountain Street house was sold to Dr. and Mrs. Robinson, and I think my folks did well. Mrs. Robinson gave me a cookie jar she had painted, which I still have. The real estate agent was a chess-playing buddy of Dad’s. Dad belonged to a chess club. He made his own chess men and board. I have the board.

Chapter 4

1638 DON CARLOS AVENUE

GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

Looking at Google Maps and Zillow today, this house and the neighborhood look quite like they did when Dad, Mom, my younger brother David, and I lived there from about 1944 to 1954. It had a fairly large living room and dining room, a kitchen, a breakfast room, 1½ baths, and a laundry room or what we called a back porch. When we moved there, we had a wringer washing machine on the back porch. The clothes dried on a pulley system Dad rigged up off that porch. David and I sat on that porch while Pop cut our hair, something I regarded as an ordeal and tried to avoid. Dad brought home silver dollars to induce us to sit still.

There was a fairly large, two-car garage. Half of the garage was devoted to Pop’s workshop. Pop could make or fix anything. I was far along in my childhood before I realized how remarkable that was. He had an uncommon mind. What he fixed often came out better than new. The first thing he made for us was a gigantic slide. It had a platform about fifteen feet above the ground.

The yard was almost an acre. We also had a very tall swing and a jungle gym. The backyard had a dirt badminton/basketball court. Dad built the backboard. We burned our trash in an outdoor fireplace. There were fourteen fruit trees on the property: two different kinds of plums, satsuma and Santa Rosa; a very big apricot tree that produced so much fruit that we often had to rake it into the humus pile; a lemon tree; a tangerine tree, which survived even though we had to move it when it was about fourteen feet tall; several different kinds of figs grafted by dad onto one tree; and two avocado trees (I sold avocados in the neighborhood for ten cents apiece). We raised a few turkeys when I was young. There is at least one photograph of me trying to ride them. Dad rigged up a water fountain from an outdoor faucet and put a pollywog pond underneath it so we would not have to go in the house for a drink of water.

We learned to shoot the bow and arrow in the backyard. Dad brought three bales of hay and stacked them up against the garage wall and pinned a target on them.

We had at least one difficult dog, a beagle named Wimpy. He would never come when I called. I was frequently charged with wandering all over the neighborhood calling his name and looking for that dog.

Dad spent a good deal of time in the shop. He set up various projects for me and David. We made our own bows and arrows. I made a gouging tool set. Dad was also our Cub Scout leader, and the whole troop made gouging tools. Dad’s friend, Loren East, gave me a beautiful old steam engine that actually worked. I still have it.

We enjoyed Saturday trips to the war surplus store and Mr. Casey’s junkyard. As Dad said when I asked him why Mr. Casey drove a Cadillac, Mr. Casey has done well in junk. Dad, on one war surplus trip, bought a wired walkie-talkie system. We strung it all around the yard and house, up the attic, in the shop, in the tree house in the apricot tree, and in the underground fort. In addition to the walkie-talkie the attic housed our train set; it was second-hand but quite elaborate.

My mother’s job was the community. She was important in a number of civic organizations, including the Girl Scouts, the Hospital Auxiliary, PEO and AAUW. She was a a leader; you did not want to get in her way.

We belonged to the First Congregational Church on Brand Avenue. We have a good picture of the family on the front steps of the church with the Reverend Jesse Perrin. Dad was on the board of trustees of the church and was chairman when they were searching for a new preacher. We drove to Santa Barbara to hear a potential new minister preach. I enjoyed singing in the youth choir, which was big and pretty good.

I was called Chic in my early years. My mother told me she did not like the name Chuck, and there was a football player at Cal named Chic. I did not get rid of that nickname until I went away to school.

Dad also built us a tepee. It was quite elaborate. The bamboo poles must have been fifteen or sixteen feet high. The tent was made of parachute silk from the war surplus store. Dad sat at the sewing machine stitching that parachute and turning it into a tent. It had smoke flaps, the whole works. I cannot remember my mother ever using that machine.

The song of the whip-poor-will was the family whistle. Before cell phones, that was how the family kept track of one another. We fed the birds at that house. Dad built a feeding tray that ran the width of the front bay window.

One year, Dad decided to dry apricots. He made these big drying racks and set them up on the badminton court. He only did that once. Another year, he bought a freezer, put it in the garage and froze all the apricots. In the early days, Mom and Dad together made plum jelly and poured paraffin on top. It was good.

Dad could grow almost anything better than anyone else and with seemingly little effort. I remember beautiful big dahlias and a plethora of snapdragons up against the house. Our wonderful neighbor Agnes Cornelius worked for hours in her garden and often expressed amazement at dad’s gardening skills. Dad and Mom could accomplish a great deal in a limited period.

We ate most of our meals in the breakfast room. We hardly ever ate out. During the Korean War, dad kept a big map on the wall with pins in it to mark the ebb and flow of the battles on that peninsula. That room also contained our telephone. The number was Citrus 2-6796. There was only one phone.

It was my job to mow the lawn, and it was a big lawn. All we had was a push mower. I also had to help rake the lawn. Dad made a very large rake out of aluminum. It was tough to lift, but it covered a lot of ground. When it was hot, we ran through the sprinklers.

The neighborhood was called the Verdugo Woodlands. It was beautiful, filled with old eucalyptus trees. It was named for the Mexican family, the Verdugos, who held a Spanish grant for all the surrounding land.