YACK on: Gut
Grant Sanders
Ihave my eye on this piece of property. It's on a nice piece of land up on Sunset Hill. Set back. It's got a great upside-down horseshoe shape on the chimney. I love that. Maybe you've seen it? I think people call it "The Oldest House." It borders Coffin Park so no one could build a big house right next to mine. I think I'm going to contact the owner and make an offer on it this week. For me, money is no object. This is my dream house we're talking about. Everyone has their price. And I've worked hard to get where I am today. I deserve to have what I want. I'm entitled.

Of course, the house there on Sunset is a little small for my needs, so I will have to make a few minor adjustments to it. I understand that the place is old. (Hence the name. Duh.) So I'll try hard to preserve some part of the structure to ensure that my lawyers and designers don't end up costing me a fortune going back and forth to the HDC. Here are some of the things I plan on doing. As I said, money is no object and I deserve it.

First, the place has no electricity. This will have to change as I like to have CNN and MSNBC on large flat screen TVs in every room while I'm getting ready for the beach. Of course, running a few wires will have no real effect on the historic integrity of the structure. What's a few wires, anyway?

Also, there's no real basement in the building. And as I feel that wines should be stored in a climate controlled setting, I will have to lift up the building and dig a new foundation. In addition to the wine cellar, while we're down there, we'll also add a media room with a giant screen TV and real theater seats. (I know the neighbors will complain about the subwoofer when I have my Lord of the Rings marathon parties, but they can call the cops if they want. I'm entitled to enjoy life.) In addition, I'll put in a billiard room and an au pair suite for the Swedish exchange student who will be watching my children while my wife and I play tennis.

When we raise the house up, I will have to make sure I tell the workers to do it carefully. I really like the upside-down horseshoe motif on the chimney and I'd hate for that to be damaged. In fact, I'll stand there, arms akimbo, and watch their every move as they lift the house. Just so they know I mean business.

I've noticed that the doorways in the house are kind of low - something like five feet high - and since I'm six-foot-four and we'll have the whole house up on railroad ties, I plan to lower the floors (and replace them with bubinga wood from Zaire) as well, just to bring the ceilings up slightly and to make it possible for me to walk from the kitchen to the great room without bonking my head on the doorway.

Oh, I forgot, we plan to add a great room to the house. It will involve increasing the size of the footprint of the structure slightly. Well maybe a little more than slightly, but we'll cross that bridge when I sit down with my architects. They're from Miami Beach and I love their use of post-modern shapes and colors. I saw a kitchen they did with a mixture of diamond-tread plate steel, concrete counters and funky old warehouse pendant lights that knocked my socks off. The current kitchen in my dream house is a little "dated" so we will have to make a few changes to accommodate modern living. Nothing too drastic. A little Sub-Zero here, a little Viking there and Alton, our personal chef, will have what he needs to meet the whole family's dietary requirements.

The house has no bathrooms (yeah, like that will fly with the missus!) and that will necessitate some changes. I like a large shower with jets from head to toe. And a soaking tub with a flat screen TV in front of it. And a water closet. I would also like a reflecting pool off the master

bedroom that sits off the back of the house in a kind of solarium that retracts into the wall so that I can be sitting - no, luxuriating - in the pool, in the open air as the sun sets over Coffin Park. Perhaps with a cascading waterfall over rocks imported from a river bed in Costa Rica. I may even make this pool horseshoe shaped to go with the design on the chimney. I'm sure the HDC would like that.

Of course, I'll pay for a security detail to patrol the area at night and keep people from using the park when I luxuriate. For modesty's sake. And to keep the paparazzi at bay.

Some of my friends have said that I'm crazy to renovate this house for modern living when the property has such a big front yard that I can just add the main house to the front of the lot and use the other house, which is smaller, as a guest cottage. This makes sense but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of living in a house with all that history. You know? Like here's a house that has seen so many generations come and go, and it has a great story that I can tell to my guests when they come over to hang out by the horseshoe-shaped pool. And I can point to the original horseshoe-shaped brickwork in the chimney that we saved, and smile.

Think of the historic significance of the house. And now it's all mine. Of course, I like the idea of living in an historic house, it's the actual practice of living in it that I'm not too crazy about. No matter. I can make changes to the insides and raise the comfort level for me and my family (and the help), as long as I don't change the exterior too much.

And why would I? I love that upside-down horseshoe thingy on the chimney.

YACK on.

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, the Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com when he's not luxuriating. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the Nantucket Independent.

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