Digging dream home from the sea
I guess this is what happens when a 12-year old holds the crown. And the dream house-castle by the sea.
What was your dream house like when you were 12?
Hi, everyone-
For me, my dream house when I was twelve was simple.
I wanted a house with everything. Pool. Tall trees. Fish pond. Waterfall in the bedroom. Lush and shaded study. Toilets that clean themselves. Dining room the size of a town hall. Stained glass living room. By the sea. Up on a hill. And with views that make seeing the reason for living.
It’s ridiculous, of course.
But what else would a twelve year-old imagine?
But the quest for a dream house is different in reality.
I was reminded of this when, some years ago, I had to sell my old house.
The agent who was helping me, gave me an estimated number that she thought I should use to list my house. When she gave me the number, I thought it looked pretty good.
But being a research enthusiast, I got curious. I started burying myself in the numbers. For days. Looking at everything and anything that can point to the how, the where, the when, and the how-much.
What I found, though, made me feel … odd.
My research showed that it should be listed at a vastly higher number than what my agent had given me.
How is this possible? Was my math wrong?
Did I accidentally veer the results in favor of my own ego?
Was I *that* biased in my analysis?
All very likely.
So I redid everything the second time. And then again the third time.
I don’t know what it was, but it’s like I wanted to prove myself wrong. Each time, my eyes got wider and wider. That numerical gap didn’t move.
What is happening!?
I didn’t even know how to approach the subject with my agent. I felt like a kid in school who had to internally battle with how to not offend the teacher, and coming up with nothing better than: “Um … You’re off”.
So after some time, I told my agent.
The response was what you’d expect. She was so convinced I was wrong, that she started telling me that it would never sell, that it’s way above the market rate, and that I was being totally unreasonable.
Maybe she’s right. After all, she was the authoritative gatekeeper.
But this time, I thought about my kids.
When you’re a mother who’s about to let someone cheat your children off the amount that could pay for their one out of four years of university education, things took on a different meaning.
Dream house for me at that particular point, was the possibility of getting my kids through university and student housing in the future.
After everything my parents had gone through: sending me 9,126 miles away against their will, staying behind, splitting their heart in the process, and not seeing their child for more than eight years at a time—I am determined not to keep their grandchildren from a school of their choosing.
And yet, going against my own gatekeeper—the agent—who was supposed to represent my interest …
… felt like going to war with my own house.
And yet, when the listing went up, things took a strange turn.
Within the first five hours, the phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. I had to wake up at four AM to put away the grime from last night’s mac and cheese. And, Oh, their blankets! Those cozy blankets they used to play make-belief castles, smack in the middle of the living room. All had to be put away …
Now!
When 9 AM rolled around, a line of cars was parked all along the street in front. I’m guessing this was how it feels when theater performers peer through the big red curtains to look at the growing audience on opening night: utter panic and self-doubt.
I took off my cleaning gloves and wiped off my knees—all red, from wiping the last drop of my kids’ morning cereal and milk. And like a backstage theater crew who knew it’s time to disappear, I grabbed the kids, went out the back door and walked away from the house.
It must’ve been a good six hours later when my agent called me.
Thalia: Hi. So how did it go?
[There was a pause. An awkward one]
Agent: … You have five offers on the house.
I didn’t know what else she said after that.
I thought I’d feel victorious. Like I had won a battle. I imagined myself feeling smug, with the very justification to say: I told you so.
But I only felt: relief.
Like I had just managed to *not* trip on the theater stage with hundreds watching. Like I had just narrowly escaped a major embarrassment, where everyone seated in suit and ties would’ve otherwise been pointing at me, laughing.
The relief was immediately followed with a thought: I could now begin to think of sending the kids to college … as a reality. Instead of just a dream. And giving them their dream student housing becomes a possibility. And not just theory.
But when the chaos had settled, and I finally had a minute to sit with a mug of hot tea, there was another thought:
Where did all the dream houses go?
People talk about the process of getting a house like it’s fun.
Like it’s a dream.
And I guess parts of it were somewhat fun. But my warfare with my agent—my own “people”, supposedly—showed me that dream houses, at least the ones that make me believe in a resting place by the sea and up on a hill … are much harder to get.
Some might even say: Impossible.
Because what if I hadn’t confronted my agent?
What if I just trusted her advice? Which I should’ve been able to do.
What if I didn’t embrace my curiosity to be a student of both humanity and numbers?
Oh, God …
What if what happened to me—happened to millions others?
People who, like me, also dream of a dream house and dream student housing for their children and grandchildren.
What about those who are still looking for a dream house that could, at least in their minds, turn them from peasant to prince?
Did millions of people just unknowingly get cheated off the means to make all this a reality?
But for one prince who already had a dream house …
… the fight against the unknown was a bit different.
Floris V was already a count with a castle in Netherlands, in the year 1266. He was twelve when he became Count of Egmond Castle. Back when his idea of a dream house was probably not too different from mine. He, like 12-year old me, must’ve also wanted the world: a place that is both everywhere and nowhere.
Floris’ house, by the time he was Count of the castle, was already renovated and rebuilt.
But Floris didn’t sit in his castle and play war. He went out of his house in pursuit of another dream:
To help paupers who would never become princes.
Legend has it that he knighted 40 peasants as members of the Order of St. James. Without the church’s consent. Of course, the church and the knighted nobility wouldn’t have it.
He also gave concessions to farmers, against his advisors’ wishes.
And he even opened up Egmond Castle as a house of refuge for lawbreakers.
He wanted more than a dream house, he wanted a dream … home. Not a building. A people.
Something about the stories of this twelve year old Count, and his idea of ‘dream house,’ made my children’s makeshift blanket-castle … more priceless than that price tag my agent nearly swindled.
Floris must’ve had to fight. A lot. Not just by leading horseback fights against counties and nations. Which he did.
He had to fight against his own house.
Imagine being twelve.
Your voice barely cracking. Your leg muscle tone much less impressive than your advisor’s aged arm. Even if you’re lord of your own house, the dinner table is a place of execution. Being at the head of the table doesn’t mean your eyes no longer shift and twitch when met with your subjects’ eyes. Especially when those eyes had seen more. Believed more. And borne more.
It could be that Floris had to stand up, push the oak-chair back, tilt his chin up just so, press his lips, and eye-battle his advisors’ gaze. The same people who said:
No way can you let refugees in this castle!
Floris had to wage warfare against House Egmond. His own house. His own people. For people he didn’t even know. With a process he didn’t even know was going to work.
He had to dig his people out from around him. Perhaps it’s apt that he’s surrounded by—and was familiar with—Netherlands’ ancient and legendary reclamation engineering: the digging, dumping, and ‘reclaiming’ the grounds in, around, and on water. A process that evolved specifically so you can build something around bodies of water.
Though I doubt they called it engineering or reclamation during Floris’ time. Perhaps then, they simply thought of it as … the claim for solid ground.
Floris knew reclamation is hard work.
But it doesn’t mean it’s unworthy.
And so Floris V did all that he promised to do. The knighting of the peasants. The castle as house of refuges. The sanctioning of lawbreakers. And most importantly:
The reclamation of a house, into a home of his own definition.
He was remembered as a saint by the peasants. Or better yet: "god of the Peasants."
Maybe it was a good thing he was twelve when he was given the power to reign over his house. It was probably even better that he already had a dream house: the castle, the masonry, the iron, the sea, and the hill.
If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have known the difference between a dream house and a dream home.
He wouldn’t have known a reality that I found out too late in life, that:
Building a dream house is about the pursuit of a people. People you’d want to reclaim from the sea … home.
-Thalia
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-Thalia
Loved this.
This was amazing. I love how you stitched a relevant historical anecdote along with your personal connection. It's a good reminder that we're not as separate from those in the past as we think ( in both good and bad ways).
My dream home when I was 12 was definitely influenced by how much fantasy and historical fiction I had been reading. It also involved being married to a Lord or a prince, of course. There was a castle. But, in my late twenties I cleaned houses for a living for a while and I decided, even though the castle dream had faded, that I in fact did not want to live in a castle because I did not want to clean a house that big.
Now I just want somewhere I can set up my books and be near my family. It's simpler, but I think it is much better.