And Then There's This...Shall I Name My House?

Addresses alone seldom convey a sense of splendor and majesty. Oh, sure, there's some glitter attached to “10 Downing Street” and “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” but that's about it.  While it may take a “heap o' livin'” to make a house a home, it just takes a suitably lofty proper name to give a house stature beyond its physical characteristics. Just think of “Tara” (“Gone With the Wind”), “Southfork” (“Dallas”), “Ponderosa” (“Bonanza”), “Xanadu” (“Citizen Kane”) and “Carrington Manor” (“Dynasty”).

My various domiciles have required considerably less upkeep than the fabled enclosures cited above. But the levels of passion, intrigue, double-dealing, flim-flamming, pettifogging, lollygagging, back-stabbing and bombast occurring within my various sets of walls have been roughly the same.

Until I moved into my present retreat in the Ranchettes division of Kingston Springs, I sheltered in the bleaker half of a shabby duplex in Nashville, which, depending on my mood and inspiration, I dubbed either “Chez Debris” or “Casa Morose.” The best part of living amid such squalor was that I could accurately refer to my absentee landlady as “the lessor of two evils.”

Then I moved to the country.

Since wordplay is my life, I thought I might brighten the aura and elevate the market value of my three-bedroom, two-bath showplace, with its five acres of woods and squirrel-friendly chimney, by cloaking it in a title commensurate with the vanity and ego of its owner. So far I'm mulling over “Tumbling Timbers,” “Sisyphus Hill,” “Malady Ranch,” “Elbow Bend,” “Shangri-Naah,” “Cash Chasm,” “Troubled Waters,” “Exitview Farm” and “Valid Point.”

Any ideas?

(Please send your comments or questions to stormcoast@mindspring.com with “And Then There's This” in the subject line. And thanks for reading.)