Just, Ilove Bernacle. What a clever name.

Stone, Oscar is a cat's name but I love it!

Linelle, Cabernet House sounds like a lovely name to me. Our other house is on Melrose Lane and I call it Melrose Place.

Chick, we called my first DH's house 312.

Gladys, I love Living Water, of course it is the reference to your faith that makes that name so special.

Now Bee, are you sure it's the house he has names for? We actually called our builder Wayne the Pain. My kids were fairly young at the time and when he was finishing our screened porch my daughter told him that I called him that. Needless to say I was mortified!

Keep them coming gang! I love hearing the names.

Cathy. Homes seem to find a name of it's own!

Lirio, still laughing over that one!

Love this post..especially the farm story.
I have named cars but not our houses.

Officially ours is called Devonfield Farm, but when we were in the process of trying to buy it as a foreclosure, we called it "Bolles Road or Bust" because it was such a leap of faith to buy a house at a foreclosure auction with out seeing the inside, when you've already sold the house you were living in!

Interesting thread. The names are so clever. Two of my grandchildren were discussing the origin of the names of our houses just today. Our vacation home came to be called the Riverhouse. Not sure who is responsible, but the name stuck. There is a little cottage at the Riverhouse property for which my husband recently made a sign calling it the Lightkeeper's Cottage. We like the name but still call it the little house. I overheard the 11 year and the 8 year old grands discussing their plans to live in the little house when they are older. They plan to rent it from Grandpa. When the grandkids were pre-shoolers, they started to refer to our first home as the Woodhouse. The house is on a treed lot. .

I just lurk here, trying to lessen my anxiety about a someday remodel/update of my 1980's kitchen, but I had to post on this thread. My house is affectionately known as the "Wailing Inn." Two of my girlfriends both broke up with THEIR girlfriends during the same 6 month period and both needed a place to stay temporarily. I lost a good friend in one of the break-ups ("it's her or me") which broke my heart. Both my friends moved in with my husband and me and we used to sit around and talk and cry about it all. (My husband didn't cry, he just shook his head at all of us).

So when both of my friends moved on and out, they gifted me with a beautiful hand carved sign for the "Wailing Inn." Many years later a newer friend saw the sign and was appalled. She was certain that naming the house with a name like that was certain to doom it and its residents to a life filled with sadness and bad luck.

We bought our house from an English couple. It came with the name Shangrila beside the front door and it stuck.
T.

I think of our house as Nuthaven, not for the occupants but for the noggin-battering fall of acorns every year. If we were nuttier I'd definitely have a sign made! My grandparents' was called "Five Oaks", and the current owners keep the sign in nice condition.

Thanks for this post! We have yet to name our house/farm, all of our creativeness has gone to the building of it and its not finished yet!
People seem to like places better if it has a name; or else maybe when you name something, it becomes a personality of its own.
My parents farm was Cherry Rock Farm, it lived next to Cherry Rock Bridge. The farm is now a park - Cherry Rock Park.

Tangier Chicken Ranch. It kind of started when we moved out here. It was originally just the homestead. Then I somehow managed to get well over 100 chickens ranging the property. Neighbor would stop by to see how things were going at the chicken ranch and it just kind of stuck. We have no sign, but even the locals know it by name.

I don't have a name for the house, but I do have a story.

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved old houses. Spanish style was my favorite, but I loved them all. Starting in college, and for 20-something years I had a mantra about the house I would buy. I would say I wanted "a 1929 Spanish bungalow with wood floors and crystal doorknobs". No reason for the year, it just stuck.

When I saw the ad for my house, I had just committed to buying in my area. My realtor hadn't even taken me out to look at homes yet. I saw it online - no pictures- I called her and said we had to look at it that day. She thought I was nuts.

We wrote the offer in the living room and my mantra came true!

I grew up in a house named "Fair Marsh" while growing up on the water in SE Georgia. Was fun to tell friends to just look for the sign to find our house. Our current home has been nicknamed "Camellia House" by our friends as we have several bushes (all over 12' high) of camellias that are over 80 years old and just define our small space on this quaint little street.

This is a fun thread.

When my aunt moved to South Carolina, my grandmother could not understand how my aunt could possibly move to "the brambles". Well it stuck, my aunt named her beautiful lakeside home "The Brambles".

Doesn't anyone want to know StoneTech's house's middle name?

It's very common to name the houses at our beach. I think that may be common at all beaches ? Our house is named "A Pirates Life". Yo-ho, yo-ho !!

Thank you all for your wonderful stories. It is so much fun to hear how others chose a name for their home!

LOL Java.

I read an autobiography where the family named their home "Sursum Corda", Latin for something like "Lift up your hearts", and made a sign for the gate. They overheard a passerby on the other side of the fence notice the new sign and comment "Oh, the K's have moved; I wonder what the Cordas will be like?"

Mother named our old house "Little Nutmeg" as the pond had a shape similar to that of Connecticut. She thought we should name our new home Pond View as there is a view of a pond from every window in the house. But instead I've named it Terrasol Woods as those are the primary sources of energy...geothermal, solar and wood fire.

We've never named our houses but ours came with "The Cabin". The previous owners /builders put up a cabin in the 50s. When they decided to move here full time, they built the house around the original cabin, making it the living room and back hall/laundry room. Somehow, 2400sqft doesn't quite fit the moniker anymore, but the sign is still there.

cheers

Dh calls ours "Dogpatch"

Holly-kay: What a great thread! I just love reading everyone's stories.

I don't have a name for our home, but this thread has got me thinking...

My step-son names his houses. He bought his grandmothers farm in Virginia. She had called it HIgh Horizon and he renamed it Whispering Oaks. Now he has a house that he has named Soaring Rock because there is actually a large rock up in the crook of a tree along his road frontage! They don't know if the tree grew around it or if some blasting sent it sailing into the tree.

I've only had one house that sort of had a name. I bought an old tavern built in 1780 in New England. It had a sign provided by the town that said it was the Kimball Tavern.

I've never named our houses - we moved around a lot.
My mother did have a name for one of their houses. They bought it from a family named Nelson, and she referred to it as "Mrs. Nelson's House" the entire three years they lived there and ever since. It gives a pretty clear idea how she felt about the house!

This is a fun thread. My house has 2 names, one for the first owner, Thankful Hatch who bought the house when new in 1861. When we got a small backyard flock of laying hens, we began calling it Henbogle, a riff on a fictional Scottish Castle (Glenbogle), and I have a blog of the same name.

I love some of these names, Bernacle and The Brambles, ha!

Well, if I HAD to name our house that we have been in almost 30 years it would be the "nothing makes sense silk purse sow's ear house." Kitchen is too small and not enough storage and not where you need it. No window (just a slider) but a nice window in the adjacent laundry room--who needs a window in the LR--Im there for 30 seconds to throw clothes in and take them out! Small closets, even smaller bathrooms (5x5) for a 4BR, 2.5 BR house. Walk out basement with a slider situated away from the living space so it does nothing to brighten the room. No rough in (we just assumed it would come with a rough in--we were young) so we've never put in a BR, and all the mechanical stuff plopped in the dead center which makes the finished space all cut up. It backs onto woods with plenty of deer so that is nice. And it's where we raised the kids--so sentimental---but otherwise..not my cup of tea!

Current house: Weedy Acres. Named because when we bought it it was surrounded by 7 acres of weeds and overgrowth. The "acres" part was aspirational (estate-like), and now it's all mowed and cleared and has a nice view of the lake we're on. We also completely renovated/updated the now 4500 sf inside.

We're now trying to sell Weedy Acres, and are working on our latest project, called Little Beau, in the town we're moving to when Weedy Acres sells. It's a tiny 940 sf (more crash pad than long-term home), and has bowing basement walls. Bow/Beau is a play on words for the walls (which we had fixed) and the future state once we're done with it.

For us, having names helps because we own 3 houses (the other is a rental, named after the street it's on) and names provide shorthand for "the house in town X" when we're talking about one or the other of them and our never-ending to-do lists.

But even when we move, I'll always be Weedy. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Little Beau website

Our home was built in 1890 by the local professional photographer Mr Abbott. So it is called The Abbott house by all in this area. When he died his wife loaded up everything that had to do with his photography and had it carted to the dump ! The neighbor across the street is now a well known photographer and he was a little boy at the time. He and his grandfather got wind of what the widow was doing and they chased the truck all the way to the dump..they were too late. Why she acted that way and what might have been saved and enjoyed by the generations after and the town remains a mystery. c

:) Trauma does that to you.

Our little vacation place is "Mangrove" after the mangroves that line the estuary it backs to. A little misleading to those who haven't seen it, perhaps, because our town's main street is 4 blocks away and 3 city centers are within 20-30 minute drives.

I am loving the stories! Keep them coming.

RKB, it may just end up being called The Kitchen House. I read a very good book of the same name.

I have a penchant for naming inanimate objects of all sorts :-)
Our last house was in need of dire attention when we bought it and in the process of removing a wall we found a magazine cover that named it for us- "Chateau Belle". How I miss my pretty little house...

Nope, but we named the owl hooting outside our window Lenny Geronimo.

Holly-Kay: the Kitchen House... That's funny! Even though its not done, we can actually use our kitchen now so that's a step in the right direction :)

Not really, but I call it "The Circus," based on a drawing by my 8 year old that depicts all of us as circus acts and is titled "Welcome to the Circus." I hung it on the garage entrance to the house. :)

"Seaward" ...a few hundred feet from the ocean :)

We nicknamed ours The Ponderosa because of the oversized city lot on which it sits.

Our house has two names. 'Rainbow's End', because we see the end of rainbows here... The other is 'Rough and Ready Red'. (Because our house is painted red and it has a Rough and Ready address.)

No, but DH refers to the chicken coop as "The Joy Cluck Club."

No name for our house. Name for cars but never for our house.

However my daughter lives in Bermuda and every home has a name and you even enter it on the mailing address!

We bought our house out of the estate of the original owner builder. We found pictures of him -- one of those composites of images from childhood to adulthood in a single frame. We imagine that we are taking care of and restoring "his" house and that he is still present in some form hopefully approving what we're doing. His name was Emil Rodenbeck and we still sometimes think of the house as Rodenbeck's house. (We also have a picture of the actual builder --his name was Hasenfeld-- and pictures of the house when it was under construction in 1927.)

Sayde, that is amazing. How lovely that you have pictures of both the builder and the original owner. So nice to have that piece of history.

My houses have always seemed to name themselves because eventually there is something that happens or is present in a home that just seems to cry out to be the home's name.

Thanks all for taking the time to answer. I have enjoyed all the stories that you took the time to tell. Have a wonderful Independence Day!

We have a neighbor who has a beautifully carved sign on the front of his house with the name in large letters:

MORTAGE MANOR

I once stayed in a ski condo in Taos called:

Chateau Relaxo

We still laugh about that, what a wreck...

Jane was the owner we bought our house from. We have been here for 13 years, but we still call it "Jane's house".

After we moved in, we learned the house once was owned by a loose woman who had all kinds of "visitors" and lots of drama. I thought about giving the house a different name more aligned with that period of history, but DH stopped me.

This post was edited by azmom on Thu, Jul 4, 13 at 13:03

My house is named "Mine."
This means a lot to me.

LOL Azmom!

My friends call their house "Barcini Manor," which combine their two last names together.

For the longest time I thought it would be fun to name the house, and finally (7 years later) figured out something catchy that I use on Facebook when speaking about the house. Can't say it here though, since it's a play on our last name and I don't give that out on forums.

I was reluctant to buy our first house which the realtors called Hidden Hollow. It was a small cape on 5 gorgeous acres 45 miles from NYC. I grew to love it.
22 years later we were ready to move and I found our current house on a day when DH was traveling. I fell madly in love with the house and the land. DH came to see it and picked it apart. There was an oil stain on the garage floor and assorted other "problems" that he could find. Finally he said that since he had kind of pushed me into our first house he would sacrifice and purchase this house. The house is now called "Billy's Sacrifice." I made a sign. He truly loves the house now. The sign is hidden in the trees.

These are great!

I like Christine's best though :-)

Mine was named after the 1850's builder by the Historical Building Survey and that's what's listed in the Library of Congress; if it's good enough for them, I guess I'll keep it!