533 Bradoaks Avenue

After Reed Gwillim Law Jr. and Janice Black Law married and settled in Monrovia, CA, they decided it was time to own a home, especially with Reed Gwillim Law III on the way. They chose 533 Bradoaks Ave. because it was shown to them empty of furniture; the other houses they were shown simply looked like other people's tastes.

533 Bradoaks was on a cul-de-sac of only about eight houses. It was a ranch house on a cement slab. Behind it was a detached garage and an in-ground swimming pool. A cinder-block fence ran around the whole lot, and a chain-link fence enclosed the pool for safety. There were bougainvillea and yucca plants behind the pool.

The house was roughly L-shaped, with the long side parallel to the street. The front-facing rooms from left to right, were two bedrooms, an entrance hall, and a living room. There were brick planter boxes on both sides of the front door (with bird of paradise plants). Farther inside from left to right were a bathroom, the kitchen, and a family room. The division between the kitchen and family room was only defined by the rim of a carpet. The rear protrusion of the L was to the left and contained the master bedroom and bathroom and a laundry room with a back door. Between the family room and the pool, filling the L, was a roofed cement patio, accessed through a sliding glass door in the family room.

The exterior was a pale green earth tone when we moved in. When it came time to repaint, because of miscommunication, we painted it Mandarin blue which was bright enough to evoke a lot of commentary locally. Years later, we repainted it gray with a light blue tint.

The front yard was crossed by the ordinary sidewalk and the walk up to the front door, forming three sections of lawn, which we whimsically called the forest (on the left, because it had a big tree), the meadow (on the right, no trees), and the postal park (by the curb, where the mailbox was).

The house was just around the corner from Bradoaks School, which provided an ever-convenient playground. Later on, a YMCA was built in a park block just across Mountain Avenue. At the opposite end of that block there was a convenience store.

As they were successively born, Evan Stanley Law, Blake Thomas Law, and Shirley Elizabeth Law came home to 533 Bradoaks Ave. Gwil had inconveniently taken over the middle front bedroom with his book collection. We felt tight for space and started shopping around for larger quarters. The solution to that problem sprung on us when Gwil was laid off in 1988. We had already thought long and hard about moving east, and had virtually set our minds on living eventually in Chapel Hill, NC. We used the layoff as a trigger, and actually made the move. We owned the Bradoaks house and allowed a minister's family to live there for a year. When we built our Chapel Hill house, we sold the Bradoaks house to pay for it.