Imagine your house being so awkwardly conceived that whenever you make the long trek from the sidewalk to your front door bear-hugging a Steinberg's paper bag laden with Miracle Whip and Twinkies, you are forced to march down your inexplicably long front yard, right past the entire length of your neighbour's homes as their kids stare out from the side windows.And when you look out your front window - rather than seeing the streetscape like normal folks - you spy those same neighbours leaping into above-ground pools and planting tomatoes into back yards which they have the luxury of, but you don't.
Such is the reality for several homes on Hamilton Street in Ville Emard, as well as surely many others around town which saw builders plop houses on the very far end of the property with maximum setbacks and front lawns when they were erected in the late 1920s.
For a long time the houses with those wannabe golf course front lawns on Hamilton between Raudot and Allard - and surely many other streets in the area - were the standard.
But by the early 1950s the rest of the street got filled in with duplexes and these older, smaller and now less-valuable cottages became the oddballs, making an awkward situation among neighbours.
I guess the architects had a fetish for setbacks and not too much appreciation for backyards.
The only real advantage of these houses is that they've got ample parking space in front, which might have been a consideration when they were built at the time, perhaps in preparation for the golden age of the automobile.
