Tanner Manor: “The House that Built Me”

The front of Tanner Manor as I remember it

It’s almost too big, too grand a topic to tackle. Much like the structure itself, the story of Tanner Manor, my childhood home, sometimes looms larger than life. For years, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around the magnitude of that place and articulate the role it played in shaping my life.
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Though just another house in town, our home was commonly known and referred to as “Tanner Manor” by friends and strangers alike. Perched atop a hill on nearly an acre of land at the intersection of Fremont Avenue and Buena Vista Street in South Pasadena, California, the almost-9000-square-foot edifice still stands as an icon, I’m told. Schoolmates I haven’t seen in years, including people I didn’t even know well, now connect with me on Facebook and mention my home by its nickname.

Dads and daughters

As a very little girl, I used to love playing in a closet just off the back stairs. If I closed the door, I felt alone in a house otherwise teeming with people but safe in a world full of potential adventure and hidden treasures: hundreds of worn paperbacks, my mother’s colored array of high-heeled shoes, and stylish hats in hatboxes from another era.

Exploring in the closet one day, I played with the door’s heavy, brass lock and accidentally locked myself in. Suddenly, I didn’t feel safe anymore. My fun and adventure quickly turned to fear and isolation--feelings mostly foreign to me as a child. Even those dearest to me couldn’t help me escape. My mother couldn’t explain how to unlatch the lock, my brothers couldn’t unlock it from the outside, and my sisters couldn’t comfort me with their kind words.

You can't take it with you

Relationships matter above all else

A few days ago I went jogging and stopped in front of my parents’ former home in Holladay, Utah. This was their residence long after I left home for college, so I have relatively few memories attached to that place compared to those I have of Tanner Manor, my childhood home in Southern California. My children, however, remember it as their grandparents’ home. It’s the last place we saw my father alive. So, I stopped in front of the house for a brief moment to feel a little sad about good times never to be recaptured.