@HomeWithDean: 2/27 Homily - a podcast by KFI AM 640 (KFI-AM)

It sounds a bit silly to say it out loud but from time to time I ask myself why exactly I spend so much of my life attempting to design beautiful homes, and also why I spend so much energy encouraging others to design and build beautiful homes.

A beautiful home … is it a vanity? Is a stunning ceiling, a comfortable chair, or a masterfully crafted table some kind of First World leisure class conceit? Do we err in seeking more than a dry roof and a warm fire? Does any reach beyond our most essential needs become a self-serving distraction from that which is truly important in life? Is a beautiful home truly just a well appointed prison for our souls? Do we own our homes or do our homes own us?

These are all valid and worthy questions that deserve, I think, honest answers. So—after a morning of encouraging you to invest in the finest craftsmanship you can afford—how would I answer? Well, I don’t fault anyone for their material success. There’s nothing wrong with nice things. Nice things are by definition, nice. But also my particular life experiences have pretty well convinced me that there is indeed a line that can be crossed in each of us where we become possessed by our possessions and diminished by our luxuries. Luxuries, in my thinking, should be a blessing and not a curse. They should enable us, not disable us. We live in a land where Twinkies are more readily available than vegetables, so I think it’s fair to say there are very few of us who have not at least tasted what I call debilitating prosperity. In contrast, most of the best things in my life have not come via luxury but wrapped in a kind of humble simplicity. So I’ve become a fan of simplicity whenever simplicity can be achieved.

But I am not the one to endorse to sell it all and gather berries in the meadow. I will never agree that a home, if it is a beautiful home, is not a worthy pursuit. And here is why …

I was brought up to believe if you are going to do something, do it right. Humans require shelter and I am therefore committed to creating the best possible shelters. Shelters that speak to the entire breadth and depth of our human needs, both physical and emotional. I am not offended by wealth and I am not offended by poverty. I am however offended by mediocrity because mediocrity only happens when you have the means to do better but choose not to. I agree with the great Chicago architect Daniel Burnham who said, “Make no small plans because they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”

I believe in building beautiful homes because some of us love to build and are built to build. To quote Robert Louis Stevenson, “If a man loves the labor of his trade apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.” No one pays a true craftsman to create beauty or quality. We hire them because they know they’re already called to it.

I believe in building beautiful homes because of the way I know they impact our lives. As Winston Churchill once said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

And finally, I believe in building beautiful homes because we are stewards of this earth and owe a debt of beauty to the nature we consume to live here. A commitment to art, artistry, creativity and craftsmanship are how I begin to repay Mother Nature for the materials she provides. Or, as Alain de Botton would say, “We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced. We owe it to the worms and the trees that the building we cover them with will stand as promises of the highest and most intelligent kinds of happiness.”

I suppose this all came out sounding like a manifesto but all I intended was to share my heart with you. I aspire to build beautiful homes, and I want you to build a beautiful home. Because the land it sits upon deserves nothing less than a beautiful home. Because integrity demands nothing less than to build it well. And once built, a beautiful home deserves nothing less from you than to inhabit it and use it to build yourself a beautiful life.

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