It’s a tedious job, boxing up t-shirts, linens, and dishware in preparation for an impending move.
But the memories made inside a home are the most difficult to put away.
While the typically unflappable home values in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow neighborhoods aren’t always reflective of the nation’s volatile real estate market, as homeowners, we too ride the roller coaster as one year prices soar and bidding wars abound, while the next we’re left recalibrating when the market shifts.
For the most part, we treat real estate, at least on paper, as assets. But our homes are rarely just assets.
At some point, we all face a move. Sometimes it’s to a bigger space as children arrive or aging parents join a household. Other times, it’s a bittersweet decision to downsize once the kids leave the nest. No matter the reason, leaving a home behind can be harder than expected.
That actuality hits me every time I drive past the first house my husband and I built together in the 8200 block of Inwood Road. The exterior facade looks very different now — no longer the familiar understated French farmhouse we tried to replicate after stumbling upon a similar beauty in the countryside of Provence.
The house has been dressed to satisfy the new homeowner’s taste, with updated renovations around every perfectly poised corner. But its je ne sais quoi — the intangible charm that made it ours — has been stripped in the process. The original wood floors no longer creak in familiar ways. The sunlight no longer dances through the stained-glass windows we spent weeks strategically placing.
Even after a decade, my neck still turns, almost involuntarily, when I drive by. The house — our home — was so much more than just a fancy facade. Just as a structure only becomes a home when memories swirl through its rooms, the arched brick-clad ceiling of the chef’s kitchen was only complete when the butcher block (found during a jaunt through a French flea market) found its way to our kitchen. It, along with a set of antique planters I’d fawned over, became a repository of nostalgia.
The countless hours my parents and our young boys spent sanding and painting the green shutters and handmade flower boxes that framed the French-yellow façade embedded themselves into the very soul of that home. The kitchen absorbed countless conversations. The playroom held growing kids and shifting routines. The driveway became a proving ground where little ones learned to ride bikes.
While those faint skid marks have faded, the moments they represent never will.
There’s a weight that comes with leaving a home you created. When your finishes aren’t picked by a stranger in a showroom, but your own ideas, energy, and labor are poured into its details, there’s a part of that which always remains embodied in the home.
Real estate is both financial and deeply human. The market evolves. We move on to new spaces. And while the true value of a home isn’t always reflected in its appraisal, our homes stay with us, holding a quiet archive treasured for reasons uniquely our own.
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