My neighbor, Irene, reported me to the HOA over my Halloween decorations—plastic skeletons and cobwebs. Less than a day later, she was at my door begging for help. Why the change of heart? You’ll see!
I’m Wendy, a retired schoolteacher and grandma, and apparently, public enemy number one in our neighborhood.
“Wendy! What are you doing?” Irene yelled, hands on hips, when she spotted me decorating.
“It’s Halloween, Irene! Same as I’ve done for 30 years.”
“But it’s so… GARISH!” she exclaimed.
I chuckled. “It’s supposed to be a little garish.”
A week later, I received an HOA letter about my decorations. Guess who complained? I called the HOA, and they said I had to remove my decor in 48 hours or face a fine. Not happening!
ABANDONED STRAWBERRY HOUSE
The house was built in the late twenties of the twentieth century for banker Dimitar Ivanov and his wife Nadezhda Stankovic. Inside, the accent falls on the red marble fireplace located in the reception hall. There is a podium for musicians as well as crystal glasses on the interior doors. Several bedrooms, beautiful terraces, a large study room and service rooms. Nothing of the furniture is preserved, but it is known that high-class Sofia citizens at that time preferred furniture from Central and Western Europe.
The exterior is a large front yard facing the street, separated from the sidewalk by a beautiful wrought iron fence. Triple staircase to the entrance of the house, but it is always very impressive that the special portals for carriages and carriages on both sides of the yard. Even today I imagine a cabin with the members of the invited family entering the yard of the house through one portal, the horseshoes and the carriage staying in the space behind the house, specially tailored for that while waiting for the reception to end and go out again from the yard, but through the other portal.
Banker Ivanov’s family lived happily in the house, at least until 1944. After the war the property was nationalized and originally housed the Romanian embassy. Later in the year, the house was a commercial representation of the USSR in Bulgaria, as well as the headquarters of the administration of various communist structures of unclear purpose.
In the 90’s the house was restituted and returned to the heir of the first owner-banker Dimitar Ivanov. Since 2004 the property is the property of the director of Lukoil-Valentin Zlatev, who has not yet shown any relation to this monument of culture. The beautiful house once ruined for decades and is now sadly sad.
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