This wasn’t our family’s first home with a garage, but it was our first garage after I received my driver’s license, so it suddenly took on more importance than it might have had previously. It was a single-car affair with a one-piece swing-up access door, probably purchased at a discount via the local Sears Roebuck store (the door, not the garage) because that’s where our home’s previous owner was employed for many years.
If the garage had been built at the same time as the house, it was about forty-five years old by the time my ’69 Mustang was replaced by a slightly used 1970 Ford F-100. I correctly realized that the trip back home to New Jersey from my Art Center graduation in Los Angeles with all my worldly possessions would require significantly more cargo space than the Mustang offered. I’ve related the story of the F-100 before, but perhaps not how that single-car garage played an important part in my stick-shift initiation.
I had never driven a manual-transmission vehicle before our purchase of the F-100, so my father drove it home from the dealership. I followed along in his (Select-Shift equipped) ’69 Torino GT hardtop. The F-100 was usually parked just off the curbside in front of our house, so that I could more easily manage smooth(er) takeoffs, but occasionally the pickup found itself aimed downhill in the driveway. Yes, our driveway sloped downhill about 100 feet or so to the single-car garage at its end.
Not ours (and no Sears Roebuck door either), but not too dissimilar. Probably from roughly the same time period, anywhere from the mid-1920s to the late 30s.
All too often, it seemed, the F-100 was pointed downhill just when I needed the truck for some local errand. Starting off in this situation required simultaneously finding reverse with the imprecise column-mounted shifter while keeping one foot on the brake pedal as I released the parking brake, then, while releasing the clutch, depressing the accelerator just enough to initiate rearward, uphill motion without stalling the engine. Failing this delicate choreography caused the F-100 to coast closer to the garage door before I hurriedly braked it to a stop. Sometimes, three or four successive starting attempts resulted in the truck’s front bumper contacting the garage door with an audible metallic clang. Amazingly enough, neither the truck nor the garage suffered any noticeable damage due to these low-speed collisions.
Strangely enough, no photos of our single-car garage exist – perhaps I intentionally discarded them years ago so as not to be reminded of my early battles with the F-100’s manual controls. Eventually, however, the truck and I came to a mutual understanding, and it served me admirably until its unfortunate demise, documented in this COAL.
After my father’s passing in Spring 1980, I inherited the family home (and its $265/month mortgage). Built in 1928, the two-story, three-bedroom house had a single bathroom and the aforementioned garage. By this time, my Volvo company car was always parked at the top of the driveway, and my ’67 Sunbeam Alpine occupied the garage, along with the lawn mower, a variety of tools, and the many other little-used items that typically find their way from the basement to a more distant resting place.
Winter at home in northern NJ. A later Volvo test car illustrates the sloping driveway.
All this ephemera left little space to actually work on the Alpine, so naturally one of my first home improvement projects was to design a proper two-car garage to replace the original that had been the bane of my early F-150 days. I completed a set of architectural drawings, got them OK’d from the town building inspector, and found a contractor who agreed to do the job for a realistic price.
As the partial dismemberment of the existing garage progressed, it became obvious that the Alpine and yard tools weren’t the only occupants of that structure. By now over fifty years old, the garage had become termite-infested.
Too much of the old garage’s wood looked like this after half a century. As a result, the project quickly expanded in scope. (Source: iStock/P. Wei)
What was intended as a major renovation had now become a full demolition and ground-up rebuild. After the final inspection, I re-ran the electric line from the home’s basement to the new outbuilding (my father and I had added garage power decades earlier) switched the light on and happily surveyed my new, larger, and termite-free two-car garage.
The new garage from the rear, so as not to show its contents just yet. Another home improvement project is seen in the foreground.
They say that nature abhors a vacuum, so when faced with an empty garage space, a car enthusiast’s thoughts naturally turn to… next week’s post.
The first garage reminds me of òur neighbors (when I was a kid). Built in the early 20s in proportion to cars of the era . By the 50s cars were too big to fit comfortably in it. There was a service door on the driver’s side, but the length of their Nash AMBASSADOR wouldn’t allow the doors to close. So the husband Built an addition on the front end with a sloping roof just high enough for the hood to go under. And all passengers got out before driving the car into the garage, hugging the passenger side wall. The driver squeezed out and exited through the service door.
Those old garages fascinate me. In my midwestern area, the termite thing is real, which is probably why so many of those old garages eventually disappear, leaving a big slab in back of many houses in old neighborhoods where people can’t afford to build a new one like you did.
I was fortunate when I bought my first house (built 1927) because it was one of very few in the neighborhood with a 2-car garage behind it that probably dated from the 1930’s or 40’s. It also had some old termite damage that, fortunately, a prior owner found and treated.
That’s exactly the case with my house, though I’m not in the Midwest. As I was reading this article, Stephen’s description of his house and garage sounded exactly like mine. A 1920s house, with a 130′ long driveway that originally terminated at a wooden garage built on a foundation that was ground-level at the front and elevated from the sloping ground in the rear.
Our house’s previous owners demolished the garage structure – likely because the wood looked similar to Stephen’s photo. That left the slab, which is where we park our cars now. Sadly, the slab itself is cracked pretty badly and needs replacement too. We had planned on having it replaced this year, but put it off for budgetary reasons.
I’ve long wished for a house with a garage, but I’ve just come to accept the fact that we’ll have to wait for our next house, at least.
Stephen, well done! Looking forward to the next installment. I had similar dilemma about 30 years ago when my a parents offered me their 1956 built home when planning a move to a 65 and older community. The original one car garage attached garage offered only storage for my 57 Chevy 210 sedan and the single car driveway with side spot embedded with railroad ties wasn’t gonna work. The town had turned shady too, with crime on the rise. With no room to expand on the lot, I headed to central NJ and found a new build home with a 25 x 25 two car garage and a long level driveway. Two sheds later, it’s home to my 67 LeSabre,my Norton Commando, and my son’s 79 MGB
I’m sitting in our Port Orford “cabin” which was a two car pole barn steel “garage” before I converted it, so I guess this is our “Garage of a Lifetime”. Yes, many of those Model T or Model A garages have run their allotted time out.
There are a few of these still left in the neighborhood across I-95 from where my parents live. While their neighborhood was built from the early sixties to the mid seventies, the older neighborhoods across the highway were built between the twenties and forties… some of those neighborhoods during the fifties.
On those streets from the twenties and maybe thirties, many of the houses still have these little garages out back on their concrete slabs. I came across a really well maintained one when the ex and I were looking for a house for her after we split up. Since she was a tech, a garage was definitely on her wish list to be able to work on her own cars.
Sadly, I’ve never owned or even lived in a place with a garage, so I don’t know what I’m missing. This is one of the reasons I’m so on top of washing and, at the very least, spray waxing my cars. Unfortunately, you can only fight entropy for so long, as my 2007 Mustang is starting to prove. The car is showing signs of sun damage in spots, on its otherwise shiny original paint.
That pic near the top of the article, the “no door” cover, rather leaning; had those all over my hometown.
Three in close proximity to our home.
((though one did have doors that could close))
The home I grew up in had no garage, just a very open carport in the backyard accessible by a driveway that predated even the Model T but was presumably far easier to navigate in a horse and buggy than in anything bigger than a Volvo 240. I tried it in my Tacoma and it was a no-go. Two of the three houses we’ve owned since marriage have been on corner lots with detached garages. It’s nice not to have the front of your house dominated by a driveway and garage door. Not so nice when you leave the door open in a community with a lot of theft and burglary. Fortunately our neighbor across the side street is watchful. Trivia: the term garage came into use in English after 1900, ie in the automobile era. We could just call them car stables. In San Francisco the workshops for streetcars and buses were know as “car barns”.
The smallest garage I ever had was a 2-car, the first was a detached behind the house which was built in the 1920s. When I married my first wife we were looking at houses and one was built in the 60s and had some really nice improvements and an amazing basement, but a ONE CAR garage – I just couldn’t go backwards like that. Not to mention the constant juggling required with a one car wide driveway – pure torture. No sale. Even with just a standard 2 car driveway and 2 car garage, I could have 3 vehicles while the bride’s “1” could freely pull in and out of the driveway 🙂
But things are much better in all regards with wife #2 – for the first 10 years we had a 3 car garage with a 6 car driveway, for the past 7 years much more land with 6 car garage and virtually unlimited outdoor parking with 2 separate driveways and large paved areas. Feels like I can finally breathe.
Like a lot of Bay Area homeowners, I dreamed of selling my house and moving out to the “boonies.” I could afford a bigger house on property big enough to build a big workshop garage, besides whatever was attached to the house. After a lot of thought and discussion with my Wife, after my retirement, the dream finally ended. Financially the best thing for us is stay put, as Bay Area housing just continues to increase in value.
So instead of moving somewhere where I could accommodate more cars, I just decided to just have a stable that could be accommodated in our two car garage and driveway. My parent’s first house, which was built post WWII, had a single attached garage. My Dad kept his car inside. When he wanted to start a TV, phonograph, and radio repair business, he built a separating wall between the main garage and the laundry area. Then he built a cantilevered work table that allowed him to continue to park the car inside. I channeled my dad’s idea and built a free standing movable work table that is tall enough to sit above my car’s hood. It doubles as a laundry folding table.
In the spirit of reducing the number of cars that I could own, I decided that my enclosed garage side yard would no longer be used for car storage.
What a great idea for a series, Stephen. Maybe it’s just me, but what I have available for garage space determines to a large extent what cars I am able to keep around, and therefore my personal automotive universe. Garages are indeed very important. I look forward to where this series goes next.
Jeff, Thanks for your feedback. Since I’m relating these posts in something approximating chronological order, Part Two won’t arrive for awhile, and there will eventually be a Part Three.
Perhaps other CC posters will join in with GOALs of their own…
I have a 1940’s house that didn’t have a garage; I had a small tool shed out back, where my outstretched arms would touch both sides. Acting upon my desire, and the advice of a friend, that shed mutated into a 24×32 detached garage, with paved parking space in front and on one side. I learned that building is not all that hard, as 95% of the construction was done by yours truly! Eventually, I ended up building a shed over the side driveway, and across the back for additional storage. Since I’ve downsized my collection, 2 cars reside in the garage, 2 daily drivers reside under the house carport, and the project is under the shed; everything is under shelter! 🙂
I too suffer with a 1923 ‘T’ Model Ford garage, it’s tiny and I’ve never even had a Motocycle inside it .
The termites are terrible, they never sleep so I’m hoping it doesn’t collapse before I die .
-Nate