The "It Isn't Our House!" Story

It was an ordinary day. Dave Hessen had just delivered the miniature model of our Beach House we had ordered from him. Dave is the son of John, who was a classmate of mine from MTHS. John and I were both members of the Lancaster County Corvette Club and during one of our club meetings we got to talking about miniature models much like the Cat's Meow buildings. Thought we could have someone make different year Corvette models. John said his son could probably do something like this since he was an artist. I then asked him if his son does consignment work, since Carol and I wanted to have a small model of our new house made. "I'll have him get in touch with you," John said. Gave him my phone number and a few days later Dave called me. I told him we would like a miniature replica of our house. He said he did quite a few of these and would be glad to do it. He said all he would need would be my address and a brief description of what the house looked like and he would come and take a photo of it. I gave him the address and we waited for the results. A few weeks later he called and said it was finished and asked for a time to deliver it. He has just arrived with the piece of art. Fantastic except for one small thing ........ it wasn't our house! Seems he took a photo of my neighbor's house which is also modern architecture and the same color. He apologized and said he would take another photo and have it to us soon. I offered to take the one he had just finished and see if my neighbor, Hank, would be interested in buying it. Hank loved the detail and craftsmanship and bought it. A week later he brought his new miniature house and it was beautiful. Looked EXACTLY like our house, driftwood and all. Paid him for both pieces of artwork and asked if he could make one of our old house. I gave him a photo and we again waited. This was done just as well as the other one. I then had him make a few trees to go with the houses. When he returned with them I inquired if he was up to doing a painting on a chest-of-drawers. You bet! It was more than beautiful!! More than we could have hoped for. A few years later we wanted to hire Dave to do more work for us, but found he had given up his art business. He found it to hard to survive on the income of an artist. Such a shame to waste so much talent. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - Photos from top are: Beach House, old house on Janet Ave. and chest of drawers Dave painted for us.