Masterpiece Rental: My Life in the ‘American Gothic’ House
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Version 0 of 1. Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” painting (and all of its parodies) may be legendary, but most people don’t realize that the little white farmhouse in the background is real — that it’s located in Eldon, Iowa (pop. 900), that it’s owned by the State Historical Society, and that, until recently, it was a private residence. There are only a handful of people who can say they’ve lived “inside” his masterpiece painting. I am one of them. And it was a wild ride. In 1930, Grant Wood traveled to Eldon, not far from the Missouri border, with his artist friend, John Sharp, who was from the tiny rural burg — a busy railroad hub at that time. They drove past a small farmhouse on the edge of town. It was a humble cottage in the Carpenter Gothic style, typical for that era with one exception: beneath the steeply pitched roof was a pointed-arch window normally found adorning churches. Wood was amused by what he deemed a pretentious detail and asked his friend to stop so he could sketch. It was this house — more precisely, this window — that inspired what has become one of the most famous works of art in the world. Wood drew his sketch on an envelope and returned to his art studio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he imagined what the occupants of the house might look like. Using his sister, Nan, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby, as the models, he created a pair of Midwestern characters — some would say caricatures — with stern, bordering on sour, expressions. He painted the man, the woman and the house individually, on separate occasions, and titled his work “American Gothic.” Its success is well documented, from art history textbooks to the current consideration of Wood’s career at the Whitney Museum of American Art. But what about the house? Its fame did not guarantee the home’s protection. Built in 1881, ten years before Grant Wood was born, it changed hands several times over the years, falling into disrepair after a long stretch of vacancy. Even after it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1974, a visitor during that decade was likely to remark with disappointment, “This is what Grant Wood got excited about?” In 1991, its last owner, Carl Smith, donated the place to the historical society, which spent nearly $100,000 to restore it. The state continued to rent it out as a residence, to two different Eldon postmasters, a schoolteacher, and — from 2010 to 2014 — me. I grew up just 15 miles from the American Gothic House and never knew of its existence until I returned to my birthplace for a visit in 2010. (Worse, I am embarrassed to admit, until that day I thought the painting was by Norman Rockwell.) I was headed east on Highway 34, when I saw the brown-and-white road sign designating a national monument — “American Gothic House, 6 Miles.” In a spontaneous move, I took the exit and followed signs through a maze of Eldon’s threadbare streets, until finally, tucked back in a parklike setting on a sprawling grass lawn, there it was. I laughed when I saw it. It was exactly as Grant Wood had depicted it, his brush strokes capturing every last intricate detail of “the world’s second most famous White House” — the front porch and its carved posts, the screen door, the vertical lines of its board and batten siding, the roof shingles, and, of course, the churchy window. In real life it was so much cuter than I expected. At 700 square feet, it was the ultimate Tiny House, like a beach cottage with a view of a cornfield instead of an ocean. A visitor center with a museum and gift shop had been built next door in 2007, with construction funds raised in true rural Iowa fashion: by holding bake sales. I went inside and learned that the house was for rent. Upon hearing the rent was the same price I was paying for my storage unit in Portland, Ore., — $250 a month — I decided I wanted to live in this house, in the country, and I followed through on my fantasy. As meticulously as Grant Wood portrayed the outside of the American Gothic House, I can, with great intimacy, describe every quirk of the inside. And the quirks are many. Take the upstairs Gothic window, for starters, reaching nearly six feet from floor to ceiling. It is bolted shut, unlike the identical Gothic window on the back side of the house, which is hinged to allow the top half to fold down and then swing open in order to move furniture in and out. Even at 5 foot 5, I had to duck when climbing the stairs. I eventually got used to being woken by laughter and high-beam headlights shining toward it in the middle of the night when travelers wanted a photo. Sometimes I would turn on the light and give them a scare — who would expect anyone to be living there? By day, a steady stream of tourists came, posing for pictures (and peeking in the windows) dressed in the free costumes provided by the visitor center — calico smocks with cameos, overalls and black jackets, even the spectacles — and wielding pitchforks of all sizes. They brought their own props, which included a prized Harley Davidson, a fleet of Stanley steam cars, and a herd of llamas. It was the centerpiece of a Klingon calendar shoot, a bare-chested rock band’s album cover, a marriage proposal, a family reunion — a gamut of creativity daily. Of the 15,000 visitors the house sees each year, a handful were bold enough to walk inside if I left the door unlocked. The hassles were the reason the rent was so low, and also the reason the lease had a special clause reminding its tenant to “always treat the public in a friendly manner.” I was friendly, most of the time, especially during the summers when I ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand out of the living room. I also taught pie classes, which included a tour of the house. I pointed out the odd half-length bathtub in the sliver of a bathroom, an improvement from the original outhouse. I warned guests to watch out for the square nails poking up from the floorboards, the reason I kept a hammer at the ready. Nails were the least of my worries. I was terrorized by tornado warnings, lightning strikes, clanking pipes and, worst of all, six-foot-long bull snakes living in its recesses (there were close encounters in the bathroom and the basement). They are nonvenomous, excellent mouse catchers, and they are illegal to kill in Iowa. If you can catch them. But one can only live in a tourist attraction for so long. I moved on, to Los Angeles for six months and then traveled around the world for three, but my experience in Eldon had changed me. While I would have loved to return to the American Gothic House, it is no longer rented as a private residence. (The good news is that it is finally open to the public, and can be rented for special events.) I did, however, return in 2015 to my native flyover state, where I once again live, only in an even more rural, mercifully private and snake-free farmhouse. Grant Wood, known for his clever quotations, like, “All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow,” also said, “I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa.” Thanks to “American Gothic,” and that little white wooden farmhouse, I have never appreciated Iowa more. |