ArchitectureThe Kerouac House
by Stephanie D’Ercole
The Jack Kerouac House at 1418 Clouser Ave., Orlando
I am of the belief that architecture fails to be significant if we don’t
address it in the context of its intended use for humans. If we somehow fail to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between edifice
and dweller, we’re doing a great injustice to both. I surmise that, like
people, buildings must have souls, and their often nearly anthropomorphic qualities are proliferated by the energy from occupants both
past and present.
This is the magic of historic architecture—its lasting, unadulterated
features forge a connection between inhabitants from different eras of
the home’s narrative. Camacho tells me that she quickly felt a sense of
ownership and stewardship of the home. “Things end up feeling like
yours. You protect the space and you worry about it. The house feels
you out just as much as you feel it out, and you consider what energy
you’re going to bring to it.” It was clear that the space had already
provided an affecting experience, as she
was lamenting her upcoming departure.
...she sat on [the steps] while
imagining Kerouac doing
the same decades prior.
It didn’t take me long to decide that
I wanted to write about the Jack
Kerouac house when tasked with
this month’s architecture feature.
I had walked by the College Park
bungalow many times with friends
who lived in the neighborhood, but had never been inside. Though
merely a modest 1920s home not unlike one I had lived in, it always
intrigued me. At the rear of the home, there is a tiny bedroom, bathroom, and a sunroom that spans the back—this is the apartment space
that Kerouac rented and lived in with his mother in the late 1950s.
I spent an afternoon and explored the space with the house’s current
writer-in-residence, Glendaliz Camacho. She pointed out the back
steps outside—three, nondescript brick ones—and remarked that she
sat on them while imagining Kerouac doing the same decades prior.
Orlando’s Art Scene, v. 1.6
Though the home is somewhat unremarkable and commonplace from an
architectural design standpoint, it’s
undeniably clear that it imbues its residents with an extraordinary energy. As for the idea of an apparition of
Kerouac haunting the house? “My thinking of him is a summoning,”
Camacho posits. Surely, all of our ruminating on him as a literary
figure and previous tenant invited him into the space while we were
there, and his presence suffused the day with a plenitude of inspiration
I’m not soon to forget.
You can see more at:
KerouacProject.org
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