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The Architect’s Son
Lessons From My Father’s House As in design, so in life By Peter Freeman Photograph by Amy Freeman
M
y father would have turned 90 this past fall. Time meanders and memories scatter, and from time to time I squint to remember the contours of his face or the tone of his voice. But as chance would have it, the lessons of my father are all around me. My wife, Amy, and I stumbled on the opportunity to purchase the High Point house I grew up in many years ago, and seized the moment — not only for nostalgic reasons, but because the house “got” us. That’s right . . . the quintessentially midcentury Modern
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house was smart, efficient, simple and up-to-date with loads of personality — even though it was designed more than 60 years ago and as you probably guessed, by my father. When he built the house, my dad, Bill Freeman, was an up-and-coming architect of 26, with a young bride and a newborn son. And as I have come to learn, even at that early age, he was able to demonstrate through his craft important lessons that I’ve carried through my life. “Be curious,” he would say, so that I might look at the world from a different perspective, to continue to search or see another approach Spring 2017