The Comfort of Old Houses

by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., July 10, 2026

I feel more comfortable in old houses than new ones. I am more at ease in a musty cellar where a brewer once sold his beer than in a modern basement filled with buzzing electronics and signs declaring that “what happens in…stays in…” I am more at peace with time-darkened woodwork than freshly painted drywall; more aligned with dipping floors and sagging roofs than faux wood flooring and perfectly straight eaves; more at home with pencil lines inside a closet door marking the passage of a child’s growth than with clean, white door frames.

I am more attuned to ghosts than pop culture, more in sync with the tinkling notes of a Swiss-made Stella than the hard edges of electronica, more able to interpret the layered meanings of history than the significance of social media feeds. Give me an old house any day—one filled with heartaches and hopes, laments and laughter, where lives have left traces of themselves—over a new home still waiting for life to unfold.