LOSE YOUR HEART

JANIS HALL LOVES OLD HOUSES.

- TIM COUNTS

“I grew up in San Francisco,” she explains, recalling the years among the city’s celebrated Victorians, but also Tudor and Arts & Crafts style homes. “In the back of my mind, I’ve always been an old-house fan.”

In 1996, Janis, her husband Terry Gahan, and their young daughter were living in a 1950s house in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Contrary to the popular concept of midcentury houses having airy, light-filled interiors, Janis’s experience was different. “It was the style of house that had a long, dark hallway that dead-ended in a bathroom,” she says. Even the iconic living room plate glass window left her cold. “People walking by would literally look at me through that window.”

MOVING FORWARD BY TURNING BACK

The couple’s chance for “upgrading” to an even older home came in 1996. Janis saw a real estate notice about an open house for a 1916 home, and arrived promptly at the scheduled starting time on a Sunday morning. “I walked in, and the place was packed,” she laughs. “Wall-to-wall people. We were all sort of eyeballing each other.” As she made her way through the house, she gathered that the sale was the result of a divorce, and that it was priced to sell fast.

By the time she made it to the main bathroom on the second floor, she was smitten. “I couldn’t believe that previous owners hadn’t trashed that original bathroom,” says Janis. “I really wanted this house.”