built to last would shake only under tectonic forces.
Having spent so many early years in houses that fell short in one way or another, in neighborhoods so sterile and geometric that they thwarted happiness, Paul dreamed of creating instant communities, which would protect their inhabitants just as they invited a form of neighborly sociability tempered by privacy. He wanted not only to work on the construction of houses, as he had during summers in high school, not just to set up a carpentry and contracting business, but to design homes that aspired to a vision of residential America so distilled it could only improve the lives of the people within them. It had been his adolescent dream to design houses that would be places of safety as well as congregation, set in neighborhoods where the streets and public areas, the parks and sidewalks, would be half-enclosed by trees and low hedges, walls and fences, with pergolas and bandstands and gazebos: an idyllic small-town American space with enough land between houses that neighbors need never hear the secrets of one another’s intimate lives.
“An architect?” his father said. “I’ve never needed an architect. I don’t—you have to understand, Paul—I don’t understand the point of being an architect. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I’m saying I think you could choose better. Why don’t you join the Air Force?”
“I don’t like flying,” Paul remembers protesting. “I don’t even like birds.” He knew from an early age that military discipline wasn’t for him. His father had made Paul fold his clothes according to military rules: t-shirts in six-inch squares, underwear in tight white sausages. From the age of twelve Paul got a haircut every Sunday night after dinner. Ralph put down towels in the living room while Dolores used the electric clippers: number three on the sides and four on top. That was a compromise, because Ralph wanted his son’s hair shorter, buzzed all over, and Paul wanted it longer. As he sat in the chair, his father watching while his mother managed the clippers, Paul knew he was getting only the smallest taste of what real military life would be like.
His father said that if he wanted to go to college instead of serving his country Paul would have to do it on his own. For Ralph, Paul understood, it was a matter of principle; there was nothing vindictive about the position. The Kroviks had always been military men and Paul was the first to fail in this legacy. His grades were decent but not good enough for a scholarship, so he knew that if he wanted a college education he would have to support himself. Ralph asked him to be out of the house by his nineteenth birthday, which was, thank God, a whole year after the end of high school, so Paul had time to get himself organized, save up money, apply to college. Friends of his were not so lucky, and found themselves, on the day they turned eighteen, shown the door by their parents. At least his mother kept saying to him, “I believe in you, Pablo. You can do it. You’re gonna make it.” She slipped him money, bought groceries on the sly, did whatever she could to help without Ralph finding out.
Paul was accepted into the architectural studies program at State. He took out loans and worked three jobs. He spent two years in college but couldn’t keep up with the tuition and fees and left without a degree. Not long after that he met Amanda. She was already working in the city’s planning department, well on her way to having a good career. So while Paul got on his feet with the construction business and secured his contractor’s license, she supported them. Six months after their first meeting they were married.
Looking at the neighborhood now, Paul understands that he lacked adequate training. In their finished form, there is something obviously wrong with both the design and execution of the houses, in the way he has situated them on their lots, the way the lots were apportioned and
Having spent so many early years in houses that fell short in one way or another, in neighborhoods so sterile and geometric that they thwarted happiness, Paul dreamed of creating instant communities, which would protect their inhabitants just as they invited a form of neighborly sociability tempered by privacy. He wanted not only to work on the construction of houses, as he had during summers in high school, not just to set up a carpentry and contracting business, but to design homes that aspired to a vision of residential America so distilled it could only improve the lives of the people within them. It had been his adolescent dream to design houses that would be places of safety as well as congregation, set in neighborhoods where the streets and public areas, the parks and sidewalks, would be half-enclosed by trees and low hedges, walls and fences, with pergolas and bandstands and gazebos: an idyllic small-town American space with enough land between houses that neighbors need never hear the secrets of one another’s intimate lives.
“An architect?” his father said. “I’ve never needed an architect. I don’t—you have to understand, Paul—I don’t understand the point of being an architect. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I’m saying I think you could choose better. Why don’t you join the Air Force?”
“I don’t like flying,” Paul remembers protesting. “I don’t even like birds.” He knew from an early age that military discipline wasn’t for him. His father had made Paul fold his clothes according to military rules: t-shirts in six-inch squares, underwear in tight white sausages. From the age of twelve Paul got a haircut every Sunday night after dinner. Ralph put down towels in the living room while Dolores used the electric clippers: number three on the sides and four on top. That was a compromise, because Ralph wanted his son’s hair shorter, buzzed all over, and Paul wanted it longer. As he sat in the chair, his father watching while his mother managed the clippers, Paul knew he was getting only the smallest taste of what real military life would be like.
His father said that if he wanted to go to college instead of serving his country Paul would have to do it on his own. For Ralph, Paul understood, it was a matter of principle; there was nothing vindictive about the position. The Kroviks had always been military men and Paul was the first to fail in this legacy. His grades were decent but not good enough for a scholarship, so he knew that if he wanted a college education he would have to support himself. Ralph asked him to be out of the house by his nineteenth birthday, which was, thank God, a whole year after the end of high school, so Paul had time to get himself organized, save up money, apply to college. Friends of his were not so lucky, and found themselves, on the day they turned eighteen, shown the door by their parents. At least his mother kept saying to him, “I believe in you, Pablo. You can do it. You’re gonna make it.” She slipped him money, bought groceries on the sly, did whatever she could to help without Ralph finding out.
Paul was accepted into the architectural studies program at State. He took out loans and worked three jobs. He spent two years in college but couldn’t keep up with the tuition and fees and left without a degree. Not long after that he met Amanda. She was already working in the city’s planning department, well on her way to having a good career. So while Paul got on his feet with the construction business and secured his contractor’s license, she supported them. Six months after their first meeting they were married.
Looking at the neighborhood now, Paul understands that he lacked adequate training. In their finished form, there is something obviously wrong with both the design and execution of the houses, in the way he has situated them on their lots, the way the lots were apportioned and
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