Highland Park Model Home

This place was located in one of those well-to-do North Shore subdivisions, where the streets meander like Florida retirees and each house is larger and more lavish than the one before it.

It was, in short, my kind of place.

Well, kind of. Actually, there was something a little off about it.

It wasn't just the predominantly white-on-white color scheme. It felt as if no one had ever really lived there. Like it had started off as a model home, and never graduated to a real one.

It was a big house, but only had two bedrooms. One was mostly used as an office.

The other was more like a hotel room. Make that a motel room. In Florida. During the eighties. After a long night.

Even the basement was pretty bland.

Also enormous.

Pretty much anything unusual or interesting -- the things you find in a lived-in home -- had been stored back here. And yes, that's a turnstyle sitting in front of that mattress. I'd like to think it had once been installed at the door of that turquoise bedroom.

There were shelves, too, with vases and glassware, computer equipment and kitchen appliances, books and records.

This is also where I ran into Streisand and Kristofferson for the second time that day. You two should really get a room. Have you seen the one upstairs?

Purchased: Vintage cashmere sweater, $10; lithograph, $20.