RINKER ON COLLECTIBLES — Column #1414

Copyright © Harry Rinker, LLC 2014

A Tribute to America's Attics, At Least to Those That Still Remain

America’s attic as a storage and living space is an endangered species.  Although every home has an attic, less than 15 percent of modern homes have an attic with sufficient ease of access to store things, let alone hide, play, or live in it.  I am astonished it took me so long to realize this.  The obvious has been staring me in the face for decades.

My family moved into our row home at 52 West Depot Street, Hellertown, Pennsylvania, in 1948.  It had a small attic, but no easy access.  My parents never stored anything in it.  We stored things in the large unfinished basement, gaining extra storage space in the coal bin after the furnace had been converted to gas.  My first home, a ranch style house on 2150 Drury Lane, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, also did not have an attic.  It had a finished basement and basement crawl space.  The same applied to my large Colonial Revival home at 39 West Springettsbury Avenue in York, Pennsylvania.

In 1977, I rented 414 West Third Street in Bethlehem.  This row house, built prior to World War II, had a staircase leading to a low ceiling attic.  I had to bend over, but a shorter person did not.  It served as a bedroom and storage area.  In 1980, when my second wife Connie and I built our solar-powered home at 7002 Carl’s Hill Road, Zionsville, Pennsylvania, we included storage space above the closet in the foyer, a crawl space beneath the foyer, and an unfinished storage room off my office.  Once again, there was no attic.

There was no attic storage in the townhouse that Linda and I rented at 22 Stillwater Circle in Brookfield, Connecticut.  The second floor was finished.  While there had to be an access door to the attic, I have no memory as to where it was located.  Linda and I moved to 5955 Mill Point Court SE, Kentwood, Michigan, at the end of January 2011.  I never looked in the attic since we lived here.  In fact, prior to writing this article, I searched the upper floor looking for an access panel to the attic.  I found it in the walk-in closet off the master bath.  Access is available only via a tall ladder, something we do not own.  There is no drop-down stairway.

Given my personal experiences, why was I operating under the false assumption that the American attic as a source of future hidden treasures was alive and well?  The answer is simple and complex.  First, one deeply entrenched attic memory clouded my observation analysis.  Second, I have visited over 100 attics in my appraisal and home visit experiences.  I assumed an attic was typical rather than atypical.

From 1946 until the fall of 1948, my parents, brother, and I lived with my mother’s parents at 414 High Street, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  Halfway down the second floor hallway was a door that opened to a set of stairs leading up to a large attic.  I could stand up in it, due in part because I was considerably shorter than my current six foot, three-inch stature.

The High Street attic was a source of wonder, mystery, and adventure.  Although it was unfinished, my Uncle Bill, who was in high school at the time, had established a chemistry laboratory, thanks to an A. C. Gilbert Chemistry set, near the sill of the front dormer overlooking High Street.  In addition to his childhood toys, there also were toys from his older brother Earl.  Earl had married and left the house.   Bill was preoccupied with schoolwork and maintaining his matchbook collection that was displayed across the walls of his room on rows of string held at each end by thumbtacks.  There was no one to tell me not to touch.

While the toys were fun, the real treasures were found in long eaves extending back across the sitting room, dining room, and kitchen.  There were stacks of pictures (ancestors, prints, and framed documents) along with boxes and trunks filled with clothes, clothing accessories, ceramics, glass, souvenirs, and other family memorabilia.  The boxes were open; the trunks unlocked.  I explored them all.  Over 67 years later, I still can picture the High Street attic as vividly as the moment I saw it climbing its steps for the first time in 1946.  If any of the items from that attic survived, I am unaware of them.  Uncle Bill still bemoans the loss of his chemistry set.

I lost track of the number of attics I have visited as a result of my appraisal work and visits with collectors.  The quality attic ranged from highly organized to total disaster.  I saw and found treasures, hundreds of them.  I still do.  The antiques and collectibles business has thrived on family discards that have substantial secondary market resale value.

Having grown up in a Pennsylvania German culture that subscribes to the premises that things are “too good to throw out” and there may come a time when “I will need it,” the attics became a storage place for obsolete and/or older models of objects such as cameras, children’s clothing, furniture, and toys, adult clothing and accessories, replaced furniture, kitchen appliances, luggage, phonographs, prints, radios, records, sewing machines, televisions, typewriters, and much more.  Beds along with their bedsprings and mattresses are standard fare.

Attics stored seasonal objects, holiday decorations being the most common.  Some attics contained a walk-in cedar closet designed to safely store winter outfits, especially furs.  Summer clothing found its way into trunks, also stored in the cedar closet if it was large enough.

In the early 1960s, when I visited my Aunt Verna’s and Uncle Kermit’s home in Cape Coral, Florida, for the first time, I observed it had no attic or basement.  Discovering that most Florida homes lacked these basement and attic amenities, I commented that there was no way I could live in such an environment.  I have since learned not to make such broad generalizations.  Linda’s and my condo in Altamonte Springs, Florida, has no attic, basement, or independent storage unit.  Every time Linda suggests that we retire and live there full time, I cringe.  If she keeps it up, I am likely to have a heart attack.

As indicated earlier, memory is a tricky commodity.  In the course of writing this article, I tried to remember the last time I visited an attic during a walk-through or written appraisal.  The more I thought about the question, the more concerned I became.  Although I did several dozen walk-through appraisals in the past year, I do not remember one of them having an attic.  There was no instance where I pulled down a set of steps and climbed up simply to take a peek.

I spent over a half an hour conducting various internet searches in an attempt to determine when the attic was no longer an integral part of a majority of American home designs.  I failed to find an adequate answer.  Applying common sense, the decline had to occur with the arrival of the ranch home and suburbia in the period immediately following World War II.  Depression era economics may have contributed.  The desire for a finished basement and the back to front split house style were factors.  The arrival in the 1960s and 1970s of the backyard storage shed also played a role.

Attics do survive in older homes, those built in the 19th or early 20th century.  While I can offer no concrete proof other than my best guesstimate, most have been repurposed into apartments or living spaces as opposed to storage spaces.

The attic as a source of hidden treasures from the past is endangered.  America’s tradition as a nation of savers is diminishing.  Newer generations are more likely to discard or recycle unwanted objects instead of saving them.  As such, they do not require large amounts of storage space.

I end each hour of WHATCHA GOT?, my syndicated Sunday morning radio show, by asking my listeners to check their “attics, basements, closets, garages, and sheds” and assemble a pile of items for the purpose of calling into my show in subsequent weeks and asking about them.  Do I have to rethink including “attics” as part of that list?  I wonder.

Do you have an attic memory or memories you would like to share?  Email your stories to harrylrinker@aol.com.

Rinker Enterprises and Harry L. Rinker are on the Internet.  Check out www.harryrinker.com.

You can listen and participate in WHATCHA GOT?, Harry’s antiques and collectibles radio call-in show, on Sunday mornings between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM Eastern Time.  If you cannot find it on a station in your area, WHATCHA GOT? streams live and is archived on the Internet at www.gcnlive.com.

SELL, KEEP OR TOSS?  HOW TO DOWNSIZE A HOME, SETTLE AN ESTATE, AND APPRAISE PERSONAL PROPERTY (House of Collectibles, an imprint of the Random House Information Group, $17.99), Harry’s latest book, is available at your favorite bookstore and via www.harryrinker.com.