Yes, it's beautiful. In point of fact, it's absolutely gorgeous. Nice lawns; great brickwork and interior architecture; a nice kitchen and the landscaping is attractive too. 1800 square feet, 3/2.5. And of course, my inner consumer who always wants, wants, wants - he wants this house.

But ... it's well over a million dollars. Something its builder, who subscribed to the idea of simple, straightforward living for a price that most people could afford, would shudder at. This house has been reinvented as something so grand and rare that it requires a real estate agent with a Harvard JD to sell it.

I'm not against rewarding people for their work (or, I guess, for holding onto property until it reaches ridiculous heights of "value"). But it is shocking to see something like this - a perfect example of a populist architecture, something built to last but also to be affordable, selling for a price that less than 1/4 of 1% of the population can ever hope to pay. An entire middle-class movement made precious by collectors, to the point that none of the people such homes were imagined to be for could possibly even participate.