Reluctantly, I Became my Father’s Daughter
We may not love our parents, but like it or not, we are them.
“Manny, stop here and back up, there’s a house you should look at,.” my mom ordered from the passenger seat.
“Another boring house,” I whined from the back of the car. “Why can’t we ever take a ride without looking at houses?”
“We’re looking for ideas,” Erica.
We lived in an apartment, but my parents were saving money to build a house, which my architect father would design.
It was the 1950s, I was a kid, and my father’s life’s dream was to design and build houses in the modern style inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. Although people said he was a brilliant and talented architect, he was not a successful one. The tragedy of his life was that he had to make a living designing hospital interiors, not private homes, because, he said, who you knew was more important than talent when clients decided on an architect. My introverted father wasn’t much good at chatting up the right people.
So, he and my mother lived vicariously, spending weekends driving around our suburban neighborhood, scornfully dissecting the flaws of each new, ugly, pretentious house, and admiring the sleek modern ones. We knew my father could design something infinitely more beautiful, if only someone would hire him.
When we weren’t looking at houses, we were shopping for furniture, which I found even more boring. My parents were modern all the way. They especially loved curvy, Alvar Aalto chairs and Knoll tables. They pursued this stuff so single-mindedly that, despite their relative poverty, they eventually wound up owning a number of Aalto chairs and one museum quality chaise similar to the image you see above.
Their house dream came true when I was fifteen years old. My parents finally amassed the down payment to build a house in the suburbs of New Jersey.
I’d never seen my father so happy as during the time that house went up. Usually withdrawn and moody, he came to life while discussing such details as cabinetry and foyer design. My mother, a schoolteacher, whose enthusiasm for home decoration rivaled his, got to make all the decisions about the kitchen, and she came up with such innovations as a blender mechanism built into the counter, so all you had to do was insert the blender jar and flick a switch.
A couple who generally agreed about nothing and bickered constantly, they worked happily and harmoniously on that house.
I felt left out. I didn’t like the idea of moving away from my friends. I was furious that my pet Scottie would not be allowed on the main floor of the house because he might ruin the carpet. I felt that my father loved that house more than me, and certainly more than my beloved doggie, whom I felt shared my identity. I didn’t understand his obsession at all. I couldn’t see what was wrong with living in an apartment. I liked the one we lived in just fine.
No matter. We moved into the house, which was, even I had to admit, breathtaking Even though it was rather nondescript from the outside, because the local zoning didn’t allow the kind of design my father wanted--and they couldn’t afford the redwood siding they coveted-- on the inside it soared.
The living room was 30 feet long with a two-story stone fireplace and a small open room at the end, up a few steps, which showcased the Aalto chaise. Two handsome but uncomfortable Swedish modern couches sat catty-corner to each other facing the fireplace. In front of them was a kidney shaped inch-thick glass coffee table, with a freeform base, that my father designed and had custom made.
The house and I did not get along. My beatnik attire didn’t match the elegance of my surroundings. My poor dog went crazy and started biting people after being locked in the basement and I was forced to have him euthanized. I never forgave my father for that.
I was in the full flower of teen rebellion, and I hated the house as much as my parents loved it.
I moved out as soon as I possibly could, at nineteen, and never looked back. My parents stayed there, rattling around as they termed it because the house was so huge, finally moving to Florida and selling the house when my father became ill about fifteen years later.
Even though I hated the house, I felt sad that strangers were going to take over my father’s life’s work.
My mother took the Alvar Aalto furniture and the glass coffee table to Florida and re-created the modern look in their condo, which was much-admired by their fellow retirees, all of whose condos housed the same cookie-cutter white squishy furniture and beige rugs so popular in the 70s.
I lived in tiny Manhattan apartments with thrift shop furniture and loudly proclaimed to my parents my lack of interest in ever owning a house, or a husband for that matter. As time went on, I changed my mind about the husband, finally moving in with a husband-to-be in my early 40s. I still had no interest in houses until we started spending summers in a rented house in the Catskills and I fell in love with the mountains.
I don’t know when or how I underwent such a profound change, but all I know is that one day I woke up with a passionate determination to own my own home. We would have to move far away from New York City to be able to afford it, but my mother, now widowed, generously offered us to give us the down payment.
We bought a dilapidated fixer upper, even though neither of us could fix anything. But it had possibilities. It was tucked into tall woods of maple and oak, had two-story (leaking) cathedral windows with a view of a babbling brook, and a lake across the road I could swim in.
I miraculously discovered within myself a talent and passion for construction and interior design. I became my own contractor and supervised the repairs.
I confidently made decisions about furniture, flooring, window treatments. My tastes did not run to sleek mid-century modern, but to the rustic -- country tables, pine floors and weathered sideboards. I found Craig, an old hippie master carpenter who had been out of work so long he gave me a ridiculously low estimate for the job. He and I collaborated on designing a great room. I confidently instructed Craig and other workmen to take down walls, lay floors, put in new windows, and install a wood stove. Once finished, our home was as breathtaking as my parents’ home had ever been.
My mother was in awe. She told me she’d never have had the nerve to do what I did, make such sweeping structural changes.
My mother died after we’d been living in our house for a few years. When I went to close out her apartment in Florida, I had to decide what to take and what to sell. I sold the Aalto and Knoll furniture. I couldn’t imagine what I would do with it in our house and it was worth a good deal of money.
But I couldn’t part with the kidney shaped glass table my father had designed. I shipped it to our house where it fit perfectly in front of the fireplace. It was the only modern touch but proudly held its own, standing out as the fine work of art it truly was.
I had to sell it eventually when I moved to a smaller house after my marriage fell apart. I took it to art dealers in Hudson, NY--which had become a center for antiques and mid-century modern furniture. One store owner liked it and asked who designed it. I told him Manuel Manfred. He took it and wrote that on the tag attached to the table: Designed by M. Manfred, as if he was a known furniture designer. My dad would have been thrilled.
Despite my mixed feelings about my father, I am proud that he got that little bit of recognition although posthumously.
And I’m glad I inherited his passion for art and design. We may not love our parents, but like it or not, we are them.