On the cusp of entering his fantastic Chocolate Room, Willy Wonka quipped:
Inside this room, all of my dreams become realities, and some of my realities become dreams.
I’ve had this recurring dream: I’m making my way through a house of endless rooms. It’s a satisfying dream fermented by real memories.
You see, my second home was The Troutman House, an unusual abode in my very conventional Pennsylvania hometown.
Not Suitable for Public Viewing (Yet)
I recently dropped in on Mrs. Troutman to see how she’s faring since her husband Marlin’s death in 2022. She’s pushing through some health issues, but other than that, she’s getting along well enough. Her edifice overlooking town is home sweet home, and she can’t imagine leaving it.
On my visit I snapped a few pictures to verify my memories, though I didn’t really need to. I was also curious about some additions Marlin made since I left town in 1980.
For the sake of privacy, I’ve included only two close-ups, but try to imagine:
An artist’s mid-century lair sculpted of concrete, exposed hardwood beams, and sky lights.
A labyrinth of halls, ascents, and descents requiring mental mapping just to find the bathroom.
A Xanadu on the edge of a small town.
It could easily be a museum. Privately it is already, and that’s part of the descendants’ dilemma: What to do with the repository of student art projects from Marlin’s art teaching career at Warrior Run High school, his enormous HO train collection, and the requisite cache of books, art, and myriad do-dads.
“What’s in Town, PA?” Some History
One of Marlin and Dorothy’s children was Tom, my best friend in Watsontown. Born a month apart in 1962, we were inseparable up through graduation from Warrior Run High School. The original Tom-Toms.
Tom T. lived in a small brick house that my grandparents owned and sat in an alley between Third and Fourth Streets. My house sat on the same hill. At the enterprising age of three we dug two holes under a large bush, one for boys and one for girls. No girls or boys ever visited them, but this was our first joint project of many to come.
When Tom was four his dad designed and built a newer home further up the hill on Cemetery Drive. To get there I rode my bike or walked briskly across a field that bordered Watsontown Cemetery.
The front of their house is quite featureless with a large garage door on the right and a recessed mud room to the left serving as the main entrance. It feels a bit like entering a Mars colony or a spy installation.
What Marlin designed for his family of six boasted features you could only find in a magazine:
A concrete ramp curves from the foyer up to a landing and passes his working art studio
The kitchen and dining room overlook the living room that sits below an arched and curved cathedral ceiling
A chute of open staircases made of finished wood beams connect the three floors at the rear of the home
A family library with a piano lies just beyond the foyer1
The view from the front is over the town cemetery and the Susquehanna River below. At the rear the house grows to three stories and overlooks a wooded track at the far edge of town.
The street level garage could easily fit four full-sized cars and contains a 1963 VW Beetle convertible under an overhang. It has sat there since the day in 1980 Tom blew its engine racing me up Route 15. I was in a 1978 Plymouth Horizon. He had no chance.
Because most of the construction was asymmetrical, at the rear of the garage a "bat cave" emerged with a trap door leading to a long concrete hideout for Tom and me.
What To Do with Xanadu?
It’s amazing to me that Marlin walked into a small town bank to ask for a mortgage on a one-off home clearly designed by a young art teacher. I suppose the town elders recognized his industriousness as a Penn State graduate and gainfully employed school teacher.
The Troutmans’ palace usually smelled of paints, baking, photo chemicals, and pipe tobacco. They were the only family I knew who ate home-made bread, thanks to Dottie, while there rest of us bourgeoisie chowed down on mass-produced Strohman’s.
After their kids grew up and moved out, Marlin built a 60' train room off the back of the basement level. He wanted a soda bar, theater, and Finnish spa—all of which he got.
He kept up his fervent spirit of creative entrepreneurship till the day he died and left quite a warehouse of stuff.
Why he was so driven to turn his dreams into realities is a question that remains as unsettled as his estate.
All of this unconventionality was fascinating to me as a kid, yet utterly normal. Tom T. and I are alike in that we’re chess board knights; We play by the rules, but there’s usually a hook in our approach. Maybe it has something to do with our time in his house messing with vehicles, shooting Super 8 movies, or concocting miniaturized race car layouts, all under the watchful and ornery gaze of Marlin Troutman.
News From Town
Welcome to our 7 newest Town Characters:
1 Readers: Jeff, Mosh, Joel, Hobie, Jesse, Seth, and Amanda!
2 Yearly $ubscriber: Duane.
3 THANKS, Y’ALL!
Current Stats:
1 Readers: 307
2 Financial $ubscribers: 25
First there was Zillow, the home seeker’s equivalent of a dating app. And then came zillowgonewild, the Instagram feed that is a testament to the property realities of dreamers.
The Troutman house is certainly a candidate for such company, and I’ll be watching to see what becomes of it one day. Hopefully there’s someone out there with the Wonka spirit, elbow grease, and piggy bank to carry on a bit of eccentricity in that neck of the woods.
Marlin Troutman certainly didn’t buy, create, or render all his dreams. Mercifully, his family life (and dutiful wife!) kept him within the rails of reality.
But some of his realities became dreams of mine about living an extraordinary life in this wonderful world.
As I approached the front door a few months ago I took note of a piece of art that I’ve always admired: A psychedelic snail crafted by our classmate Brad Reedy out of plaster cast and lavished with copious amounts of acrylic paint. It’s covered in dust, and like many things in that house that fueled my imagination, it’s still there, keeping pace with time.
The front room of our row house in Lancaster where I do most my writing is a family library. Inspiration, I suppose.