My Condo Needs a Name

 
Manderly. Pemberly. Tara. Every house should have a meaningful name, don't you think? Especially every vacation home. The summer house of my childhood, which I've mentioned in this blog before, was named Su-Nan-To. Built by my grandfather in the twenties, he named it after his wife, Susan, his daughter, Nan and himself, Thomas. Although the house has long been out of our family, we talk about Su-Nan-To as if it had been a member of the family.  

My first husband and I shared ownership of a beach cottage in Duck, North Carolina. We called it Macaw Landing, which might sound like a strange name for a beach cottage unless you know that my ex and I and the couple we shared ownership with had both lived in the same house on Macaw Lane in San Diego (at different times. It's a long story!) 

Now I have a little condo right on a North Carolina beach. Somehow, it seems goofy to name a condo and yet everytime I'm there, I feel as though it needs a name. It was the success of one of my books, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes, that allowed me to buy the condo, so I've been auditioning the name Sea-Sea, but that's not quite working for me.

 I love looking at the names of beach cottages and imagining the people who live inside. I thought I'd share some of those names with you. My personal favorite? Beach Potato. I mean, don't you love it?   

This is the house to rent if you want to bring your pups with you on vacation.

 
Then there are the names that give you clues to the owner's occupation.

I like the clever personalized names, too.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then there's folks just expressing how they feel about their home away from home.

 

 

 

 
 

And then there are those that leave you scratching your head.

 

Last night, I dreamt I went to the Sea Rooster again. . .

I don't think so!

I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board for a name for my little condo. But how about you? If you have a home away from home, have you named it? Or if you only wish you had a home away from home, what name would you give it?

(My apologies to the amazing sign artists. I wish I knew who you were so I could credit your work!)

Comments

[Reine]

Oh Diane, I love your cottage stories. I am partial to "The Grape Escape!" Steve and I, and our two oldest, made a purple fiberglass canoe and called it Moby Grape. Nope. Sorry. That's wrong. I wanted to make it purple and call it Moby Grape. The "men" won, and we made a red canoe. They called it Cherry. I refused. Cherry. Cherry? Cherry.

My great-grandmother Troy named her summer home Breezy Meadows. She had a beautiful painted sign over the front door with it's name. It had pictures of pine and birch trees by a meadow - just the way it was there. I loved it. I loved her. I loved the home. I loved the sign. Someday I'd like to buy the property and rebuild the house, now gone.

[Josh]

My apartment doesn't have a name, but if I were naming a Shore (NJ) or Beach (Delaware) home, I might be partial the "The Admiral Benbow." Adventures certainly start there.

[William]

The first thing that popped into my head is HOUSE OF PAGES. I've got some plays on Jimmy Buffet songs in my head; short, pungent, and single-entrendre, so I won't post them at the moment.

However, as we are all writers, I do believe to do this justice, TLC needs to come and visit the area 'en masse', soak up the ambiance, hang out at the beach house, in order to stimulate the creative juices. Every good story needs characters, and as it's for you, I will step up and volunteer to be the Guy in the Hammock with a Big Straw Hat Over His Face. I'm not snoring, it's that good sea air cleaning out all the Big City Corruption in my head, honest.

No cell phones allowed. No Internet. No TV; DVD's okay, as long as it's something cool like STAR TREK or LEVERAGE or the Die Hard Series.

I'll even bring the root beer....:)

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

On my way out, but here is my contribution to the process.

I have a wall sign above my work computer that says:

stoneharbor.calm

We have been going to Stone Harbor, NJ since I was a little kid. Just turning on to the island makes me feel better.

[Margaret Maron]

How can you not work Cee-Cee into the name? Cee Side? Cee Salts? Cee-Cee Rider? Merci, Cee-Cee? Sí, Sí?

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Ah, yes, Margaret you are on a ROLL.

Si, Si, Cee Cee.

Or: Comme Cee Cee, Comme Ca.

From Cee Cee to Shining Sea Sea

Good luck..and I too, will volunteer to be a Cee Cee Seasider!

xoox

[Karen in Ohio]

Of course your condo has to have a name. But naming things is hard. Book titles, cars, boats, homes. Children. Pets. The mind boggles.

After a summer spent watching thousands of cedar waxwings flit in and out of the cedar trees and the big hickory tree behind the house at the farm, and since the place is mostly vertical, we decided to name the joint Waxwing Hill Farm. However, we have seen nary a waxwing the past two summers. Since one of my goals is to grow lavender commercially, I then thought of Lavender Hill Farm. Problem with that: we still only have seven lavender plants. And there's already a Lavender Hill Farm, one county over, that really does grow lavender commercially. Who knew Kentucky was a great place to grow it, and to grow wine grapes? (True, there are more than 25 excellent wineries in KY.)

Is that sculpture on the porch of The Grape Escape made of discarded Absolut bottles? Wow.

[Shelley]

Wilkes Memorial, Secret Seas

No official home names although I tend to refer to them per their locales; Lake House, Water Street, etc. The old family home in Ireland is named Woodhouse, and that's its address. I love that there is a place where the name of the house doubles as an address and the mail actually knows where to go.

[xena]

Since my family name is Deringer our escape is called The Gun Point.
Go ahead...make my day.

[Laura (in PA)]

I love this! Those signs are so fun.

I'm with William - I can't come up with a creative name until I spend a week there, lolling around, reading. :)

However, Margaret is much more creative than I. I like Cee Side.

OK, I can't resist. Cee Scape? Cee View?

Or play on the Wilkes part, with an Amish Hex sign for Welcome - Willkommen:
http://www.amishnews.com/hexsigns/willkommen.htm

[Nancy Pickard]

Chamber Lane, of course.

Hee. I love your photos, Diane. Such fun to see them. Thanks for going to the effort for us.

[Margaret Maron]

If you want to see how much Diane's books mean to her readers, check out the video on her blog site http://dianechamberlain.com/blog/
Made me misty-eyed.

[Storyteller Mary]

Oh, that video is wonderful! Such cooperative efforts to make a happy birthday.

I haven't named my home, but I am trying to get people to refer to the little pond as Walden Pond -- my alderman likes the idea. This area is called Ellington Place, and I thought of naming the tree frog houseguest Duke, since he was musical, but he seemed more of a Prince . . .
My old condo had an unfortunate number, 666, which some people found off-putting. I looked into changing the number when I was trying to sell it, but fortunately found a non-superstition buyer.

[Hester from Atlanta]

Crabby Gets To Rest

[Margaret Maron]

Brief hijack here, please excuse, Diane, but I posted so late yesterday, I think only Reine and Carol R. saw it, but y'all should know this about Elaine and Nancy P:
When Elaine was one of the Malice Domestic honorees the year Murder With Reservations came out, her health forced her to miss and Nancy Pickard stepped in. Now some of my friends and I had already begun to leave a small tip for the maids every day, instead of one large one at the end (when it might go to a maid who hadn't actually cleaned our rooms), but Nancy addressed the whole convention: "If you want to truly honor Elaine, please tip Housekeeping every day. And generously." You could almost see the lightbulbs going off in everyone's head. And big smiles on the faces of the maids in the hallways for the rest of our stay.

Books can make a difference. (And so can people like Nancy and Elaine.)

Now go back to finding a name for Diane!

[Storyteller Mary]

Karen, you are amazingly observant!! Now that I see it, the sculpture reminds me of the tradition of putting blue bottles on a tree, to ward off evil . . . I should have done that for the condo perhaps. Granny Sue wrote about it at one point http://grannysu.blogspot.com/search/label/blue%20bottle%20bush

[Pam aka SisterZip]

My dad and 13 of his friends bought a small piece of ground with a shack on it about 40 years ago. It was in the woods in mid-eastern MO and was used for hunting. At least that is what all of the guys said. But the guys called it "The Ponderosa". Mostly we referred to it as "The Shack". It looked NOTHING like the Cartwright's house; it was almost falling down then. Since my dad and one other are the only two left, no one goes down much anymore. And it really is about to fall down now, lol.

[Deb]

I've been wanting to name my own condo "Breaking Winds", since I'm just a couple of streets up from Long Island Sound (and the gentle breezes off the water) - but for some reason, family and friends have vetoed that:-) Gee, where's their sense of humor?!

Friends who live one town over from me have named their home "Beach Cloud". The husband has been using that as a return address for some of his mail, and he has begun to receive mail just addressed to Beach Cloud, minus the street address, so it has definitely caught on with the Post Office. And the wife, who is an artist, painted a lovely sign naming their house and showing a beach under scattered clouds.

I do like Nancy Pickard's suggestion for you, Diane.

[Alan P.]

I am partial to the 'literary' names in Ian Flemming's works: Strangways, Goldeneye, Palmyra.

Something with a book connotation that won't get you book store supply junk mail.

How about Beach Read?

[Alan P.]

Here's your sign
http://www.theportmans.name/photoalbum/main.php?cmd=imageview&var1=photoshop%2Fbeach+read.png

[Diane Chamberlain]

I JUST walked in the house after touring, so it's taken me a while to get online today, but I've been looking forward to reading your responses. William, after this wacky couple of weeks of travel, I adore your idea of a place with no Internet or cell phones or TV and lots of root beer. Perfect!

[Diane Chamberlain]

Margaret, I do love CeeSide. Simple. I may go with it!

Karen, I wonder what happened to the waxwings? I believe there's a story to be written about that. . .

Xena, that's a good one that should have passers by scratching their heads!

[Diane Chamberlain]

Laura, there is a cottage on Topsail with a hex sign on it. Now you've got me wondering. . .

Margaret, that video got to me, too. I'm totally in love with Oliver and Sam!

Deb, I bet the sign for Beach Cloud is lovely, but I don't think I'd want to see the sign for Breaking Wind.

[Diane Chamberlain]

Alan, Beach Read is definitely a great name! Like Chamber Lane, too, Nancy. Have to ponder. . .

[Harley]

I'm reminded, for some reason, of Mary Stewart's ROSE COTTAGE . . . it seems to me that a place is easier to name if it's followed by one of the following words: Cottage, Ranch, Farm, Pond, Castle, Creek, Dunes . . . Condo's a bit trickier, but not impossible.

I live in a suburb where someone with a florid imagination got to name the streets: Forest Cove (with not a forest in sight), Quail Run (nope, no quails) but my very favorite is Medea Middle School. Excuse me? They name a middle school after a character in Greek Mythology who got so mad at her husband that she killed their children and served them to him in his dinner?

But I digress. I don't think you can do better than CeeSide or CeeScape, Diane.

[Kelly Johnson]

The Secret Chamber...

[Pam aka SisterZip]

I think the sign on my house would read "Hell Hole".

;-)

[[email protected]]

Our summer house in New Hampshire is named Camp Brunonia. It's not named after me, I am named after it. Luckily my mother gave me Brunonia as a middle name, she assumed that the nickname would be Bruno. She was a kind woman.

[Ann Weightman]

Cee-Cee's Perfection. Villa Cee-Cee. Chauteau Dijon. Lol. I'm not very good at this, but it's fun.

[Deb]

If my "people" won't let me use the name "Breaking Winds" maybe I can name my home "Deb's Digs". And due to my grey thumb I can also call it "The Plant Cemetery"... ("Plant it here, or six feet under; it's all the same in the end".)

By the way, thanks to all of you and one of my sisters, I have found myself turning into a Buffy fanatic. I am off to said sister's home tomorrow afternoon to spend the night so we can do a Buffy Marathon, as she owns all of the DVDs. I will be returning to her the ones I borrowed from her a few weeks ago, and we'll try to fit in as many others as we can before I leave to go home Sunday afternoon.

[Laura (in PA)]

Cee Chamber!

[Reine]

I think Cee-Side is great.

And I love Beach Read.

[Alan, I think I still have that Anne Frank book you want, the one with the parts Otto Frank expurgated. If you are interested I'll start checking boxes.]

[Reine]

And Chamber Lane!

[Karen in Ohio]

Diane, my husband, the naturalist/wildlife photographer, says cedar trees only produce the berries one year of every three. That was what the cedar waxwings were after, since our many cedar were loaded with clumps of the pretty blue berries.

And he let me get all excited, too. Not only did I name the place after them, I also bought a bunch of wire wreath forms to make Christmas wreaths for everyone the next year, and then no berries. Harumph.

[Margaret Maron]

Plant Fostoria hollies, Karen. I guarantee you waxwings!

[Lora in Florida]

As the only time I will get a seaside cottage will be when the kids are gone, I'd call mine "No Room at the Inn"

[Reine]

Lora, please come name our little adobe.

[Karen in Ohio]

Thanks for the tip, Margaret.

[Reine]

Karen, just wondering if those trees might not actually be juniper. The females have tiny cones that look like blue berries. They take from 2-3 years to ripen and become attractive to the birds. The cones on the male trees stay brown.

[Karen in Ohio]

Reine, I'll be darned. It looks as though what everyone around here calls Eastern Red Cedar is really a variety of juniper:

http://www.ehow.com/how_6050418_identify-juniper-cedar-cypress-trees.html

Steve has cut some down to use for my raised bed gardens, and the fragrance is unmistakeably like a cedar chest.

You learn something new every day, if you pay attention!

[Reine]

I love trees.

[Reine]

Karen, if Steve cut down the female trees, you won't have any blue "berries."

[Diane Chamberlain]

Brunonia, you have a great name! I love that you were named after a house.

I'm learning so much! Going to go check my trees now.

[Karen in Ohio]

Reine, he cut down maybe 10 trees. Out of somewhere close to 10,000. I'm not worried. :-)

I love trees, too, and am so glad we bought our farm, which has a lot of them. Everyone else thinks we're nuts.

[Reine]

Diane, that video of Sam is so touching! xo

[Diane Chamberlain]

I know, Reine. She made me cry, too.

[Nancy Lauzon]

Our family had a cottage called "Rose Cottage", named after the house in "The Jewel in the Crown". It was really only a cabin, not a house, and so named because of the many rose buses in the back.

http://nancylauzon.blogspot.com/

[Al_S]

All this talk about beach houses and cozy get aways has been very relaxing. I love the idea of naming homes. We were walking up the hill on a chilly January day and saw a raven on a post shaking like it was shivering. I told my wife it was an omen and we should name our house Coldraven. She thought it'd be better for a fictional house in a mystery. I like Sea Side or Cee Side or See Sea Side. 900 CC's of pure fun.

[Reine]

Al, are you really looking for the de-Otto-Franked book?

[gaylin in vancouver]

I was thinking you could name the cottage
Rest Full
Chamber

and then I realized that it sounded like a room at a funeral home . . .

[Reine]

Wrong Al, maybe... sorry everyone.

[Darius Cartmell]

What a cute article. I know many people are naming their gadgets, but I never imagined that I can actually give a name to my property. Thank you for the wonderful idea. I have to think of a name for my beach front condominum: I think "Sea Dragon" would be a nice name, hehehe.

[Colby Moore]

Haha! Yeah, it's nice to give names to your home. Well, depending on the season you traveled and moved in to this house; perhaps, you wanna call it "(insert season here) Escape". Or, "Diane's Darling" if you want it to be more personalized.