“Netherfield Hall Has Been Let at Last!”

So, we are moving to this very nice house in Salt Lake City next month. It used to belong to Brian’s maternal grandmother, but she moved out of it last fall and it has been sitting vacant since then. By a great stroke of kindness and generostiy, our family has gotten permission to live there. It’s close to the hospital, in a cute neighborhood, and has a big ol’ backyard with a fence. We are over the moon about how lovely it is. It’s a 1950s-style ranch house, very mid-century modern.

The question is, what shall we name it?

I’ve always wanted to have a name for my house. When I was ten, my parents took me on a trip to London, and while strolling up and down residential neighborhoods, we were charmed by how so many homes had signs declaring the name of the residence. Not the residents, but the house itself. “Time Cottage,” “Sunnyside,” “Primrose House,” etc.

In high school, nerd that I was, I read Lord of the Rings and was tickled by how tidy and whimsical the name “Rivendell” was as a house name. Then the movie came out, and now everybody knows the origin of the name. Oh, well.

We missed the boat on naming our house here in Pittsburgh. By the time we had finally finished procrastinating and chose a name (“Cardinal House,” after the family of said birds in the forest nearby) a whole year had gone by and it was going to look even more eccentric than usual to suddenly spring out with a name.

So, I say: name the new house now. Besides, if I name it before we leave, I’ll be able to put the name of our house on the change-of-address cards that I’m sending out. Like so:

Brooke Lastname

The Whatever House

123 Fake St.

Salt Lake City, UT 87654

So, my dear readers, what names would you suggest for our house? We’ve found it interesting to see what is considered acceptable as a house name. The suffixes -dell, -side, -field, -view, and -haven are frequently used. It’s also common to name the place after any prominent plants on the property, especially (for some reason) oak trees. Alas, we have no oaks. But we think there may be an elm.

Elmdell! Eh, no.

There are a number of stumps left from fruit trees. But as amusing as “The Old Stumping Ground” may be, it seems somehow lacking.

Enough of this silliness — do you have a suggestion?

Edit on 6/1 —

So, some of you requested a photo of the new house.  Fine, fine — but to tell the truth, I don’t have an image of the house that I’ve taken myself (I know, I know).  The only thing I can give you is the image you get when you look the house up on Google Maps.  Here it is, although it’s somewhat obscured by trees: