We buy houses the same way we bought a car. If it fits in the garage, we'll buy it. I am reminded of how we have bought every home we have lived in. We don't check to see the direction of the afternoon sun, we forget about neighbors, we don't
think of alternate street parking . If it felt right, we bought it. Our first home in Evanston was bought on a street that I said I would never live on. Reba Place. It sounded like a loser street in a Monopoly game. We had looked at houses with my father
in law and he didn't like any of them. That was interesting because he wasn't offering to help pay for them, but felt the need to take control. After he went back home, we saw an ad in the paper for this house. I was not too happy with the street
name. We opened the front door, stood in the foyer and that was I-T ,it. I didn't have to see any more. It felt right. So we bought ît and stayed for years. With our condo in Chicago, it felt so European to me. It was on the National registry list because
of the architecture and I loved that place. A professor of mine lived in the building and I had been to her apartment and loved hers. After we bought it but before we moved in, we went back to check it out. There was someone asleep in the second bedroom.
Seems as if a niece didn't realized it had been sold and was spending the night. She was sure surprised. So were we. We changed the locks. The next condo we bought was also on the national registry . It was built in the 20's and at that time, Chicago
had a thriving movie industry. It was said that Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson lived in our building. I loved that apartment too.Only parking was a problem. It was built before everyone owned a car or two. The door man was named Charlie. So was one of
our dogs.
We bought our place here because it was dog friendly. I didn't like the name, Bird Bay, too much either. Being pet friendly was, I guess ,as good of a reason as any, since we had two dogs. We walked in, saw the light coming
in through the sliders and the golf course and said, we'll buy it. If there is any other way to buy a house, we haven't heard of it. If it feels right, it must be right.And it takes dogs.