My father hand built the house our family lived in. He took care of it with a craftsman’s devotion to detail, and I grew up watching him do it and then, later on, helping him out and learning something of his feel for materials and functions and the right way to do a job. Maybe it was inevitable that my search  for a career would lead me, at age of 22, with an apprenticeship in our journalism and a few years in the peace corps behind me, into the home remodeling business.

At that point I was already a housing professional and should have known better than to let my emotions lead me into an actual real estate transaction. The fact is, through, as I reflect on it, my most exciting and successful housing ventures have involved love at first sight. And that was the case with that first house.