CURB APPEAL

Watts offers a memoir of many houses and a successful marriage.

In 1987, the newly married author and her husband, Bob, bought a 600-square-foot condo in Boston, beginning an adventure in homeownership that has lasted their entire married life; over almost 40 years, they have owned 15 houses. Some of the moves to new states or cities were job-related as Bob’s work took them to colleges in Connecticut, Ohio, and North Carolina. Other relocations were to different houses located nearby, each offering “the promise of enhancement” (the constant moves led friends to joke that the family was secretly in the witness protection program). Watts reveled in “the joys and intrigues of making another house our home” as she and Bob raised two children (she worked a variety of full-time, part-time, and freelance jobs, and Bob changed his career path from being a college athletic director to obtaining his doctorate degree and becoming a professor). Their domiciles included second “getaway” homes near the water in both Rhode Island and North Carolina, as the family enjoyed time outdoors. Facing retirement, they moved to Rhode Island but returned to their close community in North Carolina when Bob was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s follicular lymphoma. After his treatment, they returned to Rhode Island, to a house that may be their last, in order to be closer to their adult children living in New York and Boston. Each chapter begins with a charming watercolor by Watts of the house in question, nicely complementing its verbal portrait. She has an endearing way of giving the houses personality: One is “a partner who doesn’t necessarily inspire passion but also doesn’t make demands”; another is “how I’d imagine a fling might feel with an older patrician.” The author’s enthusiasm for the communities and friends she found in each place, from small-town Wooster, Ohio, to the gentrifying urban Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood of Durham, is clearly communicated. Although relocating is something many find stressful, Watts offers a fun perspective as she reflects, “Home is something Bob and I brought with us on each move.”

Fans of house-hunting shows will particularly enjoy this upbeat narrative.