Dreamworlds of Bellaire

In 1991, my family moved a few miles over into a new white house in the city of Bellaire, a small suburb in southwest Houston. Well, actually an old house built in 1930. I think my parents were moving into their dreamhouse. Enough bedrooms for us three kids and a garage apartment for my dad to convert into an office. Over the past few years, they renovated the kitchen, one of the restrooms, put up a white picket fence, etc. etc. They are always finding new ways to remodel the place. Every time I go home now, I am caught off guard … little things have moved around, the paint on the wall is a slightly different color. Their gradual changes all of a sudden seem much more drastic only because I don’t live with them everyday. The house is no longer my home.

I think they moved into their 1950s TV dreamhouse. When we first made the move, our house was not anything out of the ordinary on our street. Most of the houses were the same size, from the same era. Lots of families, lots of kids, but not too many my age. The fact that I didn’t like sports and didn’t go the school down the street didn’t help me make friends either. But I think the Leave it to Beaver American suburb was dead for my generation even if it was raging in the minds of the parents on the street. We even had annual block parties with brisket, moon walks, and an inevitable water balloon fight. I think a few times they even had a pony ride for little kids. Weird stuff, right?

I should ask my father if this is what his childhood neighborhood was like. He grew up in Briargrove, another Houston suburb only a few miles north of Bellaire. His parents’ red/brown house was built in the 40s. That neighborhood still looks much like it did then with the exception of the trees which are now magnificently large. Most of the houses are still there, and many grandparents (like my own) still live there although the younger generations are gradually taking hold. The feel of “neighborhood” there, however, does not seem to have quite evaporated.

Bellaire has a different story. My mom often tells friends of the family about how over the course of our first ten years in this house, there was always at least one house being torn down and rebuilt. Our house along with three or four others are now the only original houses on the street. And they are now dwarfed by the pseudo-stucco three story behemoths that have come to characterize Houston exurbs. The street is littered with showy luxury vehicles, and most of the new neighbors don’t really socialize with us or one another. And you should hear my father lament the plight of the trees on our street (and I am totally with this one). My mom stopped organizing the block party a few years ago simply because no one else expressed interest or willingness to help out.

Although I didn’t really get all that into the “neighborhood kid” thing when I was growing up, my observation of Bellaire over the past decade and a half tells me that the “middle class” American suburban community only continues to disintegrate. But I do find it somewhat uplifting (and curious) that my grandparents’ neighborhood hasn’t fallen for this sort of insulated short-term showy newness.
christopher