"God is in the Details" - The House on Teacher's Lane

"God is in the details," said famed modernist German architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who became famous for his minimalist aesthetic. Equally renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright adopted Mies's mantra in his own work, meticulously and artfully obsessing over doorknobs and cabinet doors while simultaneously masterminding the structure and style of entire houses. Whether applied to architecture or writing, this principle opens doors to new worlds and visions.  

The Kentlands House and Garden Tour, "Redo and Renew," is coming up on May 14, 2011. Seven Kentlands families will be opening their homes to the public to share their stories and showcase the results of renovating interiors in a master planned community where many hired their own architects and contractors to build custom homes under a set of design guidelines that prescribed density and variability and the maximum use of natural materials in home building.

In anticipation of this open house event, Rachel Simon, the author of six books and a resident of Wilmington, Delaware, will be speaking at the Arts Barn Theater at 7:30 p.m. on March 9. She will be recounting the laborious process of renovating her row house with her husband Hal, a professional architect.

In its paperback version the book, a memoir, is titled The House on Teacher's Lane: A Memoir of Home, Healing, and Love's Hardest Questions - a change from its former hardback title Building a House with My Husband.

Simon's book traces the endurance of relationships and the power of compromise, as well as the struggles involved in maintaining perspective in a challenging and arduous rebuilding process that often stretches the limits of compassion, forgiveness and the preservation of a common vision. As with any story about a transformative journey, The House on Teacher's Lane, allegorically, descriptively and suspensefully explores themes about marriage, community and through a first person point of view and real-life dialogue.

The Publisher's Weekly review provides further insight into the couple's renovation saga: "When the house is burglarized, the couple considers moving, but decide to renovate instead, both to save money and give Hal, an architect, the opportunity to design their abode...It makes for an intriguing narrative, punctuated by musings on everything from quitting to the definition of design to her life as a writer and public speaker. In this inspirational book, readers who have completed or are contemplating remodeling will empathize with Simon's frustration-induced fits of pique or the couple's rush of gratitude for a lovely home."

Simon’s appearance is co-sponsored by the Kentlands Community Foundation, the Kentlands Garden Club and the City of Gaithersburg.

“The Foundation has a long tradition of focusing on arts within the community,” said event co-organizer Eileen Schlichting.  “Having been through the unsettling process of a major renovation myself, I loved the way Rachel’s book unravels those tender connections between how we live, and how our homes impact our lives.  Rachel’s husband is an architect, so their renovation reflects his vision and craft – but it’s also the outcome of the hundreds of decisions that anyone who tears down a wall or re-tiles a bathroom faces.  And the crazy moments when decisions about paint chips assume earth-shattering importance.”

Rachel Simon's talk is free and open to the general public and will be followed by a book signing.

To learn more about the March 9th book talk and for directions to the event, click here.

For more information about the author, click here.