Buy Bob’s Old House
Posted on April 3, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 25 Comments
Facebook Friend Charles Cogar alerts me to the fact that the house Robert Heinlein built in Colorado Springs is now up for sale. And for just $650,000! It can be your own freehold!
No, I don’t plan to buy it. The Scalzi Compound suits me just fine, thanks.
For $650,000 the inside of that house is pretty damn pixelated. I’d get headaches trying to make lunch on that blurry counter!
I understand that there have been many renovations since Heinlein’s ownership. I do wonder if the bomb shelter is still intact.
I’d do it in a second, but that’d be a hell of a commute!
That’s Robert Heinlein’s place? I thought he built a crooked house.
Do you think there are Cyborgs in the walls? Maybe mass hysterical writings on the inside of the wall panels or closed off rooms a la Diary by Chuck Palahniuk?
i expected it to be more SciFi like :(
Overhead fluorescent lighting? Shoot me now, please.
If I had the spare moolah, I might be tempted to explore turning it into a Heinlein museum / library…
Unfortunately, other than the 1776 adress, not much has survived of the original house RAH built. The original house was between 1100-1200 square feet.
here is the Popular mechanics article from 1952, showing it as Heinlein built it.:
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/pm652-art-hi.html
And $145/sq ft is way overpriced for the Colorado Springs market.
That’s Robert Heinlein’s place? I thought he built a crooked house.
He did, but it turned out to be dimensionally unstable.
If you want a cryptic hidden message the appropriate one would be “Creation took Eight Days”.
Does it also include a door into summer?
Just had to say it.
It does during summer!
In the mid-90’s, in Colorado Springs, I worked with a woman who told this wonderful story about living in Heinlein’s neighborhood as a teenager. They were doing a scavenger hunt once (back in the days when people still did door-to-door scavenger hunts), and one of the items on their list was a lock of red hair. They knocked on the Heinlein’s door, Virginia Heinlein answered, and they got their lock of red hair.
Re: #9: I’m guessing part of what you’re paying for is the view. But yeesh; it’s been so heavily renovated that it’s downright misleading to put Heinlein’s name on the real estate listing.
The sliding kitchen table in the original house is kind of cool.
I recall that Heinlein liked to do garden work as a kind of physical therapy. I wonder if the “three cascading ponds” are his work.
What if I offer to you in trade for writing a novel for me?
“It does during summer!”
Shows you don’t know Colorado weather: right now is rather summery here in Denver (20° C and sunny). Later tonight and tomorrow we are expecting about six inches of snow.
C’mon Scalzi, don’t you want to join us in the Evangelical Christian Mecca?
I wonder if the people running Green Egg Magazine, AKA The Church Of All Worlds, could buy the place. That’d be both fitting and probably have annoyed RAH.
I wonder if the people running Green Egg Magazine, AKA The Church Of All Worlds, could buy the place.
Well, you could come to our convention in May and ask church leader Oberon Zell yourself. And we have some other interesting guests….
Actually, Tully, I’ve met Oberon a while back when he was still at the Ravenheart commune. I doubt he remembers me, but it was at an “Addams Family Reunion” party. He’s a pretty gracious host.
The con sounds great. Wish I could afford to go. Damn recession.
I was driving cross country with a friend and we decided to stop by and see the house. We knocked on the front door mostly for permission to take a few snaps of her house and the lady (whose folks had purchased the house from the Heinleins) was good enough to give us a tour, including of the bomb shelter (which is off to the right of the house). Much of it was totally remodeled, as I understand it, but the laundry room near the kitchen he used for writing was still in tact.
Here’s the bomb shelter.
Captain Button: I’m too lazy to go looking for the source of my info, but yes, I think he (and/or Virginia) built those decorative ponds. FWIW.
*covet*
Bearpaw: It’s been a good fifteen years since I read Grumbles from the Grave, but I do think there’s a reference to building rock-lined ponds in there.