Blast from the Past

I'm in love. With a house.

I remember riding around Downtown St. Paul when I was a little girl, and seeing this house. It stood in the middle of what appeared to be a parking lot. I was always fascinated with it...I pictured myself living in it, raising my family, decorating it...and I watched it sit vacant and deteriorate before my eyes.

This house used to be located right across the street from the Xcel Energy Center...well, the city knew better than to have a vacant house sitting on prime parking lot land. I remember being utterly heartbroken when I heard the news that they were not going to be able to keep the house there. I wanted that house. I would've traded in all the piggy banks in the world to buy it.

Some time during college, the house disappeared. No longer a fixture of a bygone era in the middle of a modernized metropolis, the house that always caught my eye was no more. I was heartbroken. Gone were my dreams of owning the most beautiful home I'd ever seen.

Then, in a serendipitous twist of fate, I recently (ok, today) learned that the house had not disappeared -- it had simply moved. While I wasn't looking, they picked up the behemoth beauty, moved it down West 7th Street, and set it next to Irvine Park. My house is still alive!! Through some cryptic research, I believe the plans were to make the house into 4 luxury condos. I don't know if it happened or not, and read about the poor house's continuing neglect. But all is not lost, at least. There is hope again. I could still live in that house!!

Now, to find a few million dollars to buy it...