Michael's Great House Hunt

My first foray was the Internet, where I saw that for a price not much more than my first real car, I could own a home complete with plywood for window treatments. So yeah – I began looking around. And let me tell you… there just isn't much in Indiana beyond the pre-fab Davis home death traps that have sprung up like dandelions in the spring. And I mean that.

So I'm not nearly cool enough, nor rich enough to have landed one of the Victorian era monsters downtown on the Old North Side just before the neighborhood boomed and now the price of a gutted fixer-upper will buy you a block of houses west of the White River. I'm not kidding. You can pick up a house across the river from IUPUI for about 15K. Try finding a house near 16th and Delaware that has more than just "good bones" for less than 100K. Good luck. I'm not cheap, but I'm not about to drown myself in mortgage debt either.

Let me retract part of my previous statement. There are some interesting homes in Indianapolis. But after having spent some time in Los Angeles, Miami and Tampa Bay/St Pete, you tend to fall in love with Mission and Mediterraranean style architecture from the 1950s. So we all can't live in a home that looks like a swank getaway for the Rat Pack, but I want something more than four walls and a 5x5 concrete block to serve as my porch and my patio.

Where are all the interesting houses in Indianapolis? Was there a ban on style around here over the last 100 years? Is there still a ban on style? Someone get me out of this 3-bedroom ranch countrified boring city and give me a town with some sauciness! Give me some curved walls! Give me some brick! Give me some eaves and overhangs! Give me some palm trees!

Ok, so the palm trees aren't going to happen. And really, Indianapolis isn't that bad. If you'll bear with me, I'll somehow try to make sense of this hunt for a stylish house for the right price over the days to come.