My husband and I bought our first home in the spring of 2002. It was a early 20th century Old Portland-style Craftsman Bungalow. Property deed records weren't kept by the city when our house was built -- our deed says 1917 (the year the city started its record keeping), and it's possible it was built then -- but we have reason to believe it was more likely sometime between 1909 and 1915.

We'd always had a particular fondness for the Arts & Crafts style, and Craftsman Bungalows in particular. But we didn't set out to buy one. Our intention was to look for a fixer-upper -- something that needed updating but not a complete renovation -- in one of the city's old neighborhoods. If possible, with a view. Of what, we weren't sure, but we were hoping for a view of trees, or maybe the city, or if we were really lucky, a bridge.

This house was the last of 42 houses we looked at in two days, in a blitzkrieg of house listing drive-bys. We'd seen some good prospects in those two days, although nothing that compelled us to make an offer. Truth be told, we were prepared to search for several months until we found what we were looking for, so there was by no means any hurry. We figured we'd get a good glimpse of what our price range looked like, what different areas of the city offered, and narrow down what we did and didn't like.

The last ten or fifteen houses on our list found us checking out houses in North Portland. We were near the historic St. Johns area, a part of the city we'd driven through only once before, when passing under the St. Johns Bridge on the other side of the river enticed us to cross it on our way back. On the eastern side we found a charming little neighborhood, the remnants of a once-independent little town that still retained much of its original identity. So when our list took us closer and closer to St. Johns, we both wondered if any of the houses we'd see would make this neighborhood that first charmed us our new home. We worked our way further north and west on the Peninsula, and I remember joking in passing -- "wouldn't it be neat if there was one with a view of the bridge?"

The last one on the list led us straight through the former main street, and down toward the hillside. We glimpsed the tops of the bridge spires, and both held our breath, wondering. And the street crested the hill, sloping downward toward the river, and the St. Johns Bridge came fully into view. We were so excited that this -- this! -- might be our view, we could barely contain ourselves. And then there was the house, looking straight out across the water to the magnificent green jungle of the West Hills, and yes, the St. Johns Bridge. With one of the most lovely vistas in the entire city, I'm not embarrassed to say that we probably would've bought whatever house we were looking at just for that view.

We were fortunate, then, that the house turned out to as charming as we could've hoped. And it was a bungalow, complete with most of the original details, and a yard that wasn't too big or small, and the elevated lot I'd always wanted. There were established trees, and a nearby park, and quiet streets. Suddenly, all of the things on our wish list that we thought wouldn't be likely to find, were sitting right there in front of us. As the old adage goes, we didn't know exactly what we wanted, but we knew it when we saw it. Put simply, we were in love.

We didn't get to actually go inside until a week later, and we worried all week that maybe someone would snatch it up before then. But no one did and when the day came, we were oblivious to the poorly-reconstructed front porch, the 30 year-old shag carpet, the decrepit appliances and rotting dining room window trim and neglected back yard. We had eyes only for the leaded glass front window, and original woodwork and paneling, the plate rail and casement windows, the classic bungalow built-ins and what looked to be a treasure of a clawfoot tub obscured by a travesty of a wooden enclosure. There was a dumbwaiter, and original light fixtures, and a secret staircase to a wide open attic, and a shady screened-in summer porch. There was a glorious Japanese maple, and a well-established camellia, and a rockery.

The day we moved in was the first good look we had of just how much needed to be done. Not quite a complete restoration, but far from "a little updating". On a house that was originally intended to be our starter home. But sometime in the summer of 2002, as we were inducted in the Grand Order of Home Improvement Insanity, our initial fondness for our new home and all its old charm changed to a deep, abiding passion...what we'd attributed to an infatuation was, in fact, true love. And with that realization, our plans changed -- no longer would we be fixing it up to sell in a few years. This was going to be the house we lived in for the rest of our lives.

During that first summer, while we started work on the house, I thought a lot about the previous owners. More specifically, about the people who first built it and lived in it. We knew the barest details of the history of our home -- snippets gleaned from neighbors and old photos we found, and what little the seller had told us. Who were they? Was this their dream home? Were they happy here? What memories had they made in this house?

The "apple incident" I wrote about in our newsletter -- that would later become the basis of the first chapter of the story -- happened that summer, and not long after, an unexplained encounter that, however briefly, made us wonder if perhaps we had a ghost. And with them, a story began in my head.

I started writing it in the winter of 2002, and fleshed out the general structure. I knew the story would reveal itself slowly, as we worked on the house and as our own feelings about it evolved, so I got the idea to publish it in our monthly newsletter, chapter by chapter, and the rest of my readers could watch it evolve as I did. As of today, it's still not finished, and I don't know exactly how long it'll end up being, but I hope when it the last chapter is done, it'll be a story that was worth the wait.

Brittney Hall, 05.12.06