Latest / Ridiculous History / The Architecture of Spite, Part Three: The Pie House and a Scorned Argentine

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The Architecture of Spite, Part Three: The Pie House and a Scorned Argentine · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, the myth,
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Speaker 1: the legend, the spite free hopefully super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: I got a spite at both of y'all. You guys
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Speaker 2: were singing before we started this, and you didn't invite
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Speaker 2: me into it. I didn't know what you were singing
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Speaker 2: because it was probably before my time, but yaw, you
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Speaker 2: give me spiteful.
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Speaker 3: First of all, you don't need to be invited to sing, Max,
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Speaker 3: That's not how singing works. You're just in yes, please, Yes.
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Speaker 2: I'm building. I'm want to find we're I want to
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Speaker 2: find the point that's equidistance between your two places of residence.
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Speaker 2: I'm want to build a giant, ugly wall just spite
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Speaker 2: you two.
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Speaker 3: Well, I don't leave the house, so it won't affect me.
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Speaker 1: Would you say that we left you with some feathers
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Speaker 1: in your hand? Does it make it any easier to
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Speaker 1: leave you where you stand?
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Speaker 3: Oh? Boy, Ben, Now I got to complete the holes,
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Speaker 3: and I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to
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Speaker 3: be I will not be an enemy at anything. I
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Speaker 3: only stand here waiting for us to start the show.
1:30
Speaker 3: Big Counting Crows, by the way, they get a bad rap,
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Speaker 3: first of all because Adam Durtz and his white boy dreads,
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Speaker 3: but also, like you know, the shrekification of so many
1:39
Speaker 3: artists I think was unfortunate, and I think the Counting
1:42
Speaker 3: Crows fell victim to that.
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Speaker 1: Such a good writer there, I agree, it's such a
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Speaker 1: good writer. And as especially we're talking their first two
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Speaker 1: albums and just you know, they're very much off the
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Speaker 1: tie and there's some beauty to it.
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Speaker 3: The song we're talking about, the Angels of the Silences
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Speaker 3: off of their second album, I Believe, which is called
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Speaker 3: something about Satellites. But I played it for my kid
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Speaker 3: and they loved it. It was just like, you know,
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Speaker 3: this is emo. It sounds like I'm like, you know,
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Speaker 3: some of the like like my Chemical Romance or something
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Speaker 3: like that, and I did. It occurred to me that
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Speaker 3: they did have a sort of a proto emo kind
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Speaker 3: of vibe on that record. Doesn't sound like their other stuff.
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Speaker 3: But check them out, don't don't write them off.
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Speaker 1: Don't don't. Yeah, there's a reason that people.
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Speaker 3: Enjoy it.
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Speaker 1: So it's recovering the satellites, that's what we're trying to think.
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Speaker 1: That's recovering the satellites from like nineteen ninety six.
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Speaker 3: That's right.
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Speaker 1: God, that was a long record, a good record, good record.
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Speaker 1: And with this we want to continue our record of
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Speaker 1: examining spiteful architecture. Your nol I'm Ben Max, hopefully you're
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Speaker 1: still Max.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 1: I saw that Max did a deuce deuce on that one.
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Speaker 1: Nice In our previous episode earlier this week, we talked
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Speaker 1: we explore two very spiteful structures, one called the Skinny
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Speaker 1: House and one that's a very strange story about Macy's
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Speaker 1: the ropes and sunglasses sunglass hot.
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Speaker 3: At the very end, Yeah for sure. Yeah yeah.
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Speaker 1: Where are we going today?
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Speaker 3: Though, God, where aren't we going today? Actually gets a
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Speaker 3: pretty limited place. We're going to a couple of places today.
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Speaker 3: We are traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area. You know,
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Speaker 3: to keep in to stay with the music theme, it's
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Speaker 3: you know, when the sun shines on the bay and
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Speaker 3: when the lights go out in the city, and that's
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Speaker 3: the titular bay of journey fame, the Bay area, the
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Speaker 3: San Francisco Bay, beautiful beautiful place, if not a little
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Speaker 3: bit over gentrified at this point and swarming with startup
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Speaker 3: bro types, but still lovely stuff. And if you go
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Speaker 3: to certain parts of the city, it's yeah, exactly, if
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Speaker 3: you go to a certain part of the city, there
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Speaker 3: are things that haven't been, you know, overtaken by this culture.
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Speaker 3: You can find places that have been grandfathered in or
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Speaker 3: like family businesses that I think exist is there for
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Speaker 3: so long, but it's become one of these places that's
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Speaker 3: just so prohibitively expensive to live or set up a
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Speaker 3: business that it's almost starting to feel like it's losing
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Speaker 3: its culture, if I may be so bold.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is a cyclical thing we see with
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Speaker 1: a lot of cities and a lot of communities when
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Speaker 1: they become financially successful. You see it often with more
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Speaker 1: artistic and bohemian areas, little five Points in Atlanta, Georgia,
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Speaker 1: Montemarte in Paris.
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Speaker 3: Right, absolutely, yeah, I mean these are these little enclaves
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Speaker 3: that do usually have some governing body that tries at
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Speaker 3: the very least to keep you know, corporate interests out.
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Speaker 3: You know, because these places exist and their stock and
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Speaker 3: trade is their uniqueness and the fact that they have
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Speaker 3: this certain kind of you know, authentic vibe and authentic quality.
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Speaker 1: Right this story, this one is different though. This house
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Speaker 1: really leans into the fact that it is a spiked house.
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Speaker 1: It's fifty four feet long, it's twenty feet tall, and
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Speaker 1: if you look at the front door, there's stained glass
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Speaker 1: above the door, and in the stained glass it literally
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Speaker 1: says spite house there on the quarterer of what is
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Speaker 1: it Christ in Broadway? Is that how you would say
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Speaker 1: it Christ?
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Speaker 3: I think that's right. I don't imagine that it's pronounced Christ,
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Speaker 3: but haven't actually heard anybody speak it. But boy do
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Speaker 3: I love that. First of all, I love a good
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Speaker 3: stained glass I may have mentioned that my partner is
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Speaker 3: a stained glass artist, so I'm a huge fan of
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Speaker 3: the craft. The lot goes into it. I've learned more
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Speaker 3: about it than I ever cared to know since we've
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Speaker 3: been together. But I just adore the fact that they
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Speaker 3: just went right to the most direct thing possible in
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Speaker 3: saying spite house and a beautiful piece of stained glass art.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you look at this, if you look
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Speaker 1: into this story, you'll see that it really begins in
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Speaker 1: nineteen oh eight with a man named Charles Frohling, we
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Speaker 1: know that to be true, but very quickly the origins
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Speaker 1: of the Spite House faded into myth and legend, and
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Speaker 1: so you'll hear at times contradictory stories about how this
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Speaker 1: thing came to be. We'll get the main one out
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Speaker 1: of the way. The most popular one says that our
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Speaker 1: pal Charlie built the house as a means of revenge
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Speaker 1: against the city of Alameda. They used imminent domain to
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Speaker 1: create this street, Christ Street, and when they did this,
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Speaker 1: they removed a lot of his property. So imminent domain,
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Speaker 1: for anybody unfamiliar, is this concept that a municipality or
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Speaker 1: a government can say, for the great good, we are
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Speaker 1: taking your private property. We're gonna pay you what we
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Speaker 1: feel is fair, but you cannot refuse to sell it
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Speaker 1: to us. And we hear about this mostly in the
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Speaker 1: US when it comes to things like widening roads, like
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Speaker 1: making a two lane road a four lane road and
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Speaker 1: so on.
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Speaker 3: That's right, And the neighbor in this case wasn't really
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Speaker 3: feeling this situation at all. He in fact, was quite
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Speaker 3: unsympathetic actually to this situation, as was written in the
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Speaker 3: San Francisco Gate article on the subject by Jordan Gwynn.
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Speaker 3: Unsympathetic to the point of spite. Actually, you know, so
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Speaker 3: in another situation of trying to block the light out
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Speaker 3: of somebody's domicile, he said about building a home adjacent
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Speaker 3: to the property that would block the sunlight from entering
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Speaker 3: the northeast side of this Victorian home.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So basically the city made his original home building
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Speaker 1: plans impossible, and his neighbor was kind of rude to
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Speaker 1: him about it. So he said, Okay, new plan. I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna screw over your house. But people who look into
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Speaker 1: this actually don't believe this most common story.
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Speaker 3: We see a lot of this in these spiite tales,
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Speaker 3: right where there's like conflicting narratives or just nameless brothers,
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Speaker 3: you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so we found one historian mentioned in the San
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Speaker 1: Francisco newspaper you said it just a second ago, who says, first,
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Speaker 1: Chris Street already existed and the city of Alameda actually
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Speaker 1: didn't seize any of Charlie's land. Instead, this spite house
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Speaker 1: may go back to a good old case of old
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Speaker 1: fashioned sibling rivalry.
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Speaker 3: That's right.
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Speaker 1: We're doing a callback to our earlier episode Brother against
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Speaker 1: Brother love it.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I hate to see it, but also usually
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Speaker 3: makes for some interesting drama. So in this version of
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Speaker 3: the tale, once again a couple of brothers, you know,
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Speaker 3: brothers related to one another.
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Speaker 1: It keeps reminding me of that inter dimensional cable episode
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Speaker 1: from Rick and Morton, for sure.
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Speaker 2: Two brothers and a van, and then a meteor comes
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Speaker 2: and they run from giant cat monsters and two brothers
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Speaker 2: meteor stuff and another and then there's giant cat ladies
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Speaker 2: and there's an armauna of tomato wielding things. And then
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Speaker 2: you wouldn't know this, but the brothers they're just normal brothers.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I.
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Speaker 2: Think, like, I think, I'm sure about seventy percent accurate.
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Speaker 3: All this to say that, you know, a pair of
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Speaker 3: brothers feuding or just going on an adventure is a
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Speaker 3: good starting place for any story, right, yeah, okay, that
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Speaker 3: would take away, So that's away, I think. So in
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Speaker 3: this version of detail, a pair of nameless brothers once
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Speaker 3: again inherited this lot and uh a very similar callback
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Speaker 3: to the previous story. One of them sold most of
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Speaker 3: the land while his sibling was out of town, not
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Speaker 3: necessarily at war, just just out on a little excursion,
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Speaker 3: you know, codition, Yeah, who knows, And of course this
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Speaker 3: led to the other brother feeling wronged in some you know,
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Speaker 3: really that's pretty pretty messed up. It's not nice to
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Speaker 3: sell your co property out from under, you know, one
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Speaker 3: of the other co owners.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. And one thing that's funny to me about this
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Speaker 1: is when I hear these bro v bro stories, it
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Speaker 1: always makes me very very thankful that all of my
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Speaker 1: friends who do have siblings actually seem to get on
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Speaker 1: with each other pretty well. You know, like Max and
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Speaker 1: Alex Williams. No savior, savior come to see commissa hands there, Savior,
10:57
Speaker 1: middling handwave there, Max, you and like to actually get
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Speaker 1: along quite well, at least when company's over.
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Speaker 3: Well, look, Max Brazil. You know, mile age may vary
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Speaker 3: in terms of your interpretation, but I will side with
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Speaker 3: Ben and saying that observationally speaking, y'all are some of
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Speaker 3: the most amicable siblings that I've ever encountered, So take
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Speaker 3: that for what it's worth.
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Speaker 2: We're basically the exact same age. I mean, we're eighteen
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Speaker 2: months apart, and we get along very well. I mean
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Speaker 2: we've now worked at two jobs together. We have lived
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Speaker 2: together in college, and then we lived six houses.
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Speaker 3: Apart from each other for three years.
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Speaker 1: And you taught me to play dice.
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Speaker 2: Yes, same, Yeah, it's always calls me the rule masters.
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Speaker 2: I think it's because I'm like mega neurotic and very
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Speaker 2: organized in every aspect of my life.
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Speaker 3: I learned how to play dice from the two of
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Speaker 3: you as well. And yeah, I really can I can
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Speaker 3: attest that you are the rule master at least in
11:49
Speaker 3: what was it One for twenty four? I think it
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Speaker 3: was the game that we like to play. Oh yeah,
11:52
Speaker 3: One for twenty four is the best. That's a good one.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, I think that's when we were playing Ben.
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Speaker 3: Probably, So it's a go to. It's classic. It's good
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Speaker 3: fun to you know, when you make it interesting. You know,
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Speaker 3: wager few shekels in there, and it's a lot of fun.
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Speaker 3: So unless I'm mistaken, though, Max, neither one of you
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Speaker 3: have either sold a parcel of land out from under
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Speaker 3: the other. No, not yet.
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Speaker 2: And to be completely honest, if one of us was
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Speaker 2: gonna be the villain brother, it would probably be me.
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Speaker 1: It just seems so. It seems like the kind of
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Speaker 1: move you wouldn't even do to a non related colleague,
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Speaker 1: you know, if you are, if you are in the
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Speaker 1: same boat together. You know what it gets me about
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Speaker 1: these stories and beat me here, Max. What gets me
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Speaker 1: about these stories is the real gewitness about it. It's
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Speaker 1: not just selling the land or building on the land.
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Speaker 1: It's that you're selling most of it and leaving.
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Speaker 3: The dregs the dregs.
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Speaker 1: But that's like giving someone a partially used Starbucks gift
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Speaker 1: card for their birthday and saying, I know it says
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Speaker 1: twenty dollars on there, but I think there's about four
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Speaker 1: dollars left. I thought of you, bro, Yeah, that's exactly right.
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Speaker 1: It means purposely hurtful.
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Speaker 3: It's a little different, but it is. It does remind
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Speaker 3: me of the Macy story with the weird little corner
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Speaker 3: that was barely useful but still useful in this kind
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Speaker 3: of like weird spiteful flex situation. But this is not that.
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Speaker 3: This is the reverse of that, because this is someone
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Speaker 3: who is purposefully leaving that amount to the other, whether
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Speaker 3: purposefully or just absent mindedly perhaps and just thoughtlessly. Right, yeah,
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Speaker 3: and why not sell the whole thing? Was he really thinking? Question?
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Speaker 3: This would be cool? He'll be fine with this, Like
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Speaker 3: what is this his consolation prize?
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Speaker 1: Like? Ugh, so this house? It actually does it reminds
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Speaker 1: me of house is I said this previously in part one.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of some houses you might see in
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Speaker 1: other countries. Right, it's built into a awkward small amount
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Speaker 1: of space. I think it's twelve feet wide at its
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Speaker 1: most broad points broadest point. And we still don't know
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Speaker 1: a ton of facts about it because of the time
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Speaker 1: of which it was constructed. But thank goodness, historians have
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Speaker 1: done some pretty serious digging here and they learned some
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Speaker 1: strange things. One unfortunate fact they learned is that Charles
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Speaker 1: Frowling's neighbor, one Annette Westerdall, actually died a few weeks
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Speaker 1: before the spite House was completely built, and it appears,
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Speaker 1: unfortunately that she may have taken her own life. One
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Speaker 1: neighbor said that before she passed away, she was worried
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Speaker 1: the erection of this two story dwelling would shut out
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Speaker 1: the sunlight from a part of her house, and that
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Speaker 1: was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle back in eight nineteen.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, back back in eighty nineteen o eight, that is
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Speaker 3: for sure. And this unfortunate death did lead to some
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Speaker 3: you know, some whispers on the street, whispers in the
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Speaker 3: front yard. I heard about knights out in the school yard.
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Speaker 3: Sorry back in the nineties, better than Ezra? Right, the
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Speaker 3: idea of these other properties were haunted, that both of
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Speaker 3: these homes were haunted. And actually there was some evidence
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Speaker 3: that exorcisms took place in the seventies nineteen seventies.
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Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know if we did that last one,
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Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, yeah, And at this point the people who.
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Speaker 3: Have real Jim Blossom, sorry, not better than.
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Speaker 1: Well, they were very much of the era. Better than Ezra.
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Speaker 1: What they have King of New Orleans that was also
15:51
Speaker 1: desperately wanting, desperately want behind Who is Ezra? Why is
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Speaker 1: it so.
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Speaker 3: He's apparently less than He's deficient in some way?
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Speaker 1: Right we and yes, dear ridiculous historians, we know we
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Speaker 1: could solve this very quickly if we just typed it
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Speaker 1: into a search engine. But we're having fun.
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Speaker 3: I have a sense that it's a biblical reference. What
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Speaker 3: do you think?
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Speaker 1: I feel like I read about it one time, the
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Speaker 1: last time I was in a nineties rabbit hole, but
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Speaker 1: whatever the answer was didn't really stick with me. I'm
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Speaker 1: sure it's out there though, and there's there's still around, right,
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Speaker 1: Actually they are.
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Speaker 3: I just found an article and said better than Ezra
16:37
Speaker 3: front man won't divulge the secret behind the band's name.
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Speaker 3: Oh oh, mystery remains.
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Speaker 1: He's like Tom Yorke with that lip syncing in that
16:48
Speaker 1: one music video. Remember I don't know if I do,
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Speaker 1: but there's a radio Head video where one of the
16:54
Speaker 1: actors in the in the film is saying, it's like
16:56
Speaker 1: a short film in course his mouth yeah, and he
16:59
Speaker 1: talked box uh and the mainstream doesn't know what he's saying.
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Speaker 3: Any really quickly, and then we sort of move on.
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Speaker 3: There is also a really great clip of Tom York
17:11
Speaker 3: being asked, like in the nineties, what creep is about
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Speaker 3: and he goes, creep is about up Now it's gone on.
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Speaker 1: Fantas I love when he trolls people in interviews.
17:27
Speaker 3: And Greenwood is standing there catatonic. Give him. The man
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Speaker 3: never says a word. It was also an ageless vampire,
17:33
Speaker 3: by the way.
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Speaker 1: And there's also the thing is Tom Yorke has a
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Speaker 1: bit of a Tom Waits esque or a Bob Dylan
17:41
Speaker 1: esque approach to interviews. Oh gosh, I love it anyway,
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Speaker 1: So these guys probably would be in despite architecture as
17:49
Speaker 1: just a thing. In addition to music, you're always.
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Speaker 3: Quote Waits is what's he building in there? That makes
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Speaker 3: me think of it's a Spike house. That's what he's building.
17:58
Speaker 3: That's what he's building. We found the answer, well done, man,
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Speaker 3: I like that one.
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Speaker 1: So the people who live in the alimated spite House
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Speaker 1: have never themselves encountered paranormal activity, but we do know
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Speaker 1: that at one point a single person owned both the
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Speaker 1: spite House and a Victorian house next door, and this
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Speaker 1: guy threw parties at the spite House and turned the
18:22
Speaker 1: lower level into a bar. We know the house was
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Speaker 1: abandoned at one point. It got it became derelict, and
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Speaker 1: it was almost torn down completely. But the public got
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Speaker 1: together and they said save the spite House, Saved the
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Speaker 1: Spite House, or something akin to that.
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Speaker 3: Earlier in the episode, I think it was in part
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Speaker 3: or maybe it was the last one. You said something
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Speaker 3: about how the house was made of spite, and I
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Speaker 3: just love the idea of spite as like a building material.
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Speaker 3: I want to know what it's graded for. Can it
18:51
Speaker 3: be load bearing? You know, like it's just I don't know.
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Speaker 3: My mind ran wild when you said that.
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Speaker 1: The house that Spiite built. Yeah, that does sound sohat poetic.
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Speaker 1: We could we could do a ridiculous history studios on
19:04
Speaker 1: that one.
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Speaker 3: I got a problem with this.
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Speaker 1: Nice nice And so you can read again in that
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Speaker 1: excellent article that you cited, folks, you can read about
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Speaker 1: the day to day life of the family that lives there.
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Speaker 3: Now.
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Speaker 1: They are living there by choice, not because they were
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Speaker 1: driven to it by privation or danger. But that is
19:26
Speaker 1: one example of something that ended well overall, Now you're
19:32
Speaker 1: living in a little bit of history. There's no bad blood,
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Speaker 1: it's not haunted. It's also not the last example of
19:41
Speaker 1: a spiked house. This one's confusing to me. The mont
19:46
Speaker 1: Lake Pie House.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, first of all, I mean it sounds.
19:50
Speaker 1: Like fun, like a restaurant. Yeah, I want to go
19:53
Speaker 1: to the pie House.
19:53
Speaker 3: Well, have you ever seen that show Pushing Daisies. It
19:56
Speaker 3: didn't run that long, but it was.
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Speaker 1: Really criminally unbreable Susian.
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Speaker 3: I believe that the creator went on to do Hannibal,
20:05
Speaker 3: which is also amazing and not like that show at all.
20:09
Speaker 3: Pushing Daisy was very colorful, and I mean, so it
20:11
Speaker 3: was Hannibal, but it had some death qualities where people
20:14
Speaker 3: could be like like brought back to life. But it
20:16
Speaker 3: revolved around a pie shop called the Pie Hole. That
20:20
Speaker 3: I believe was shaped like a pie. If I'm not mistaken.
20:23
Speaker 3: In the show, it had like you know, and when
20:25
Speaker 3: I think about things like that, I think about Pizza
20:28
Speaker 3: Hut and how like early in the branding of Pizza
20:31
Speaker 3: they decided they were going to have a unique design
20:34
Speaker 3: to all of their buildings. And then when you know,
20:37
Speaker 3: time rendered that sort of dated, uh, and the company
20:41
Speaker 3: pivoted and rebranded. You have all these weird pizza hut
20:45
Speaker 3: former pizza huts just just scatter everywhere the hither and
20:48
Speaker 3: yon you know, if you don't know what I'm talking about,
20:51
Speaker 3: it's obviously that weird hat shaped red roof situation. So
20:55
Speaker 3: that's what I think of when I think of a
20:56
Speaker 3: pie house. But maybe I'm wrong here.
20:58
Speaker 1: No, you're you're making I mean, if you look at it,
21:02
Speaker 1: it simply looks like a door as someone built a
21:06
Speaker 1: door frame and they just kept going into the back.
21:11
Speaker 1: It is only fifty five inches across at its narrowest point,
21:17
Speaker 1: and it is a pie shaped house that was apparently
21:21
Speaker 1: built entirely to cut off a larger home from the street.
21:27
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the geography in a way. It
21:31
Speaker 1: reminds me of the geography of Croatia and Serbia. You
21:34
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, Like, how have you guys
21:37
Speaker 1: seen that? Hang on, wait, I want to show you.
21:40
Speaker 1: This is I see it shaped like a slice of pie,
21:43
Speaker 1: like a slice of pie, not like a fully piece.
21:47
Speaker 3: Got see. I was confused there for a second, but
21:49
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it. Yeah, it's almost like it disappears
21:53
Speaker 3: off into the horizon, like the walls get narrower as
21:56
Speaker 3: you continue to walk. It could be used as like
21:59
Speaker 3: some sort of weird you know, the labyrinth kind of
22:02
Speaker 3: tactic where if you're like going, you eventually get crushed
22:05
Speaker 3: to death by the walls or something like that. But
22:07
Speaker 3: this is a little more lighthearted than that.
22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I want to amend what I was
22:13
Speaker 1: saying earlier there. That was my folks, guys, I said Serbia,
22:16
Speaker 1: I meant Bosnia and Herzegovina. Let me let me share.
22:21
Speaker 1: Let me share this with you. I promise it'll be
22:23
Speaker 1: worth it. This is an example of what I think
22:25
Speaker 1: we could call spikee geography. Can you see that.
22:31
Speaker 3: A little bit at the bottom of cand you describe it?
22:35
Speaker 3: It's the dregs. I mean, once again, it's just like
22:38
Speaker 3: it's it's such a tiny crumb of land as to
22:41
Speaker 3: be absolutely useless.
22:43
Speaker 2: Right, it's just to block them from having access to
22:46
Speaker 2: the water. We talked about this in a different country,
22:49
Speaker 2: different part of the world, but it's the exact same thing.
22:52
Speaker 2: And the war over Bird Poop episode one of the
22:57
Speaker 2: South American countries having this little stretch of land that
23:01
Speaker 2: blocks an entire other one from having any access to
23:03
Speaker 2: the water.
23:04
Speaker 1: So spide is not just for houses. But I had
23:08
Speaker 1: to bring up that slight discoursion because that reminds me
23:12
Speaker 1: of what's happening with Pie House, and you described it perfectly.
23:17
Speaker 1: Here's another local legend. Again, the sources on all this
23:20
Speaker 1: stuff aren't super great. So this neighbor goes to the
23:25
Speaker 1: owner of the land to purchase a plot of land
23:28
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty five, but offers a price so low
23:34
Speaker 1: that the owner is insulted, and they're so insulted that
23:40
Speaker 1: they build this house that's basically a slice of pie
23:46
Speaker 1: just to get back at the person. That's one story,
23:49
Speaker 1: but there's another story as well, right.
23:51
Speaker 3: That's right. The other account claims the house was built
23:54
Speaker 3: when the wife of the owner was given this tiny
24:00
Speaker 3: lot in a divorce settlement. Again like this sort of
24:03
Speaker 3: poultry kind of barely useful piece of land. And once
24:07
Speaker 3: again it's like a kind of fighting over a piece
24:10
Speaker 3: of land where someone gets the dregs. Well, her ex
24:14
Speaker 3: supposedly got the rest of the property, and someone who
24:17
Speaker 3: actually owned the property recently said that the profile of
24:22
Speaker 3: the house wasn't really that big a deal except when
24:25
Speaker 3: it came to cooking because of the just the logistics
24:29
Speaker 3: of the space where all the kitchen hookups were.
24:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she said she had to when she opened
24:35
Speaker 1: the oven door, she had to stand to one side
24:37
Speaker 1: so she didn't get pinned against the wall.
24:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, and seems unless you think, you know, this type
24:44
Speaker 3: of shape would maybe render a house like this less valuable.
24:50
Speaker 3: Not the case. It actually quite recently sold for four
24:53
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars.
24:55
Speaker 1: Holy smokes, what is this Atlanta?
24:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much.
24:59
Speaker 1: She walked down the street for that one.
25:00
Speaker 3: Oh we're there, we're there. But the eight hundred and
25:03
Speaker 3: sixty square foot home, you could liken it and curb
25:08
Speaker 3: Seattle does just that. You could liken it to the
25:11
Speaker 3: layout of like a houseboat, okay, because the houseboat has
25:15
Speaker 3: to taper a little bit, right, sure, I mean I
25:17
Speaker 3: guess it doesn't. I've seen you see square ones or
25:19
Speaker 3: rectangular ones, right, but sometimes you know there is a
25:23
Speaker 3: point that they will kind of taper.
25:24
Speaker 1: A little bit, and they're usually rectangular. They're they're long
25:29
Speaker 1: and narrow by design, so that makes sense. You get
25:34
Speaker 1: all the inconvenience of a houseboat with none of the
25:37
Speaker 1: appeal of living on the water.
25:39
Speaker 3: That's right, that's true. I would love to, at the
25:41
Speaker 3: very least airbnb a houseboat sometime. I think that air cool.
25:45
Speaker 3: They are so cool.
25:47
Speaker 1: We should absolutely, you know what, that's how we know
25:49
Speaker 1: when we made it. We should absolutely get houseboats.
25:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, or Airbnb one.
25:53
Speaker 1: But I'd be okay, okay, you're right, I'm yet again,
25:57
Speaker 1: I'm going I'm going all gas.
26:00
Speaker 3: No, who needs the breaks? Man, They're they're overrated, except
26:03
Speaker 3: if when I stop but that we're not done, and
26:07
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, we've got a good one. To close
26:10
Speaker 3: this episode out with the pretty innocuous and somewhat boringly
26:15
Speaker 3: named no Pie House. The Kavanaugh Building. This just sounds
26:25
Speaker 3: like a place where business is conducted.
26:27
Speaker 1: Yes, Once upon a time in the nineteen thirties, Koreina
26:32
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh was a rich, beautiful, and determined woman, her family
26:37
Speaker 1: was extremely wealthy, but old money they were not. I
26:43
Speaker 1: don't know why I I hostually went like Disney fable.
26:46
Speaker 3: Well, there's been some fable aspects to a lot of these,
26:50
Speaker 3: and then I think that was a great way to
26:51
Speaker 3: start this is Yeah, they weren't old money. So this
26:55
Speaker 3: is in I believe, Argentina. So there's you know, a
27:00
Speaker 3: very installed enshrenched aristocracy there, and folks who come into
27:05
Speaker 3: money later in life for some reason, are looked down upon.
27:09
Speaker 3: They're considered like the nouveau riche, you know, and that
27:13
Speaker 3: is a term of abuse, and they are not afforded
27:15
Speaker 3: the same kind of you know, privileges and respect that
27:20
Speaker 3: maybe landed gentry, you know, might be in terms of
27:24
Speaker 3: like legacy family money for whatever reason, that matters. And
27:29
Speaker 3: old money tends to be suspicious and a little bit
27:33
Speaker 3: guarded when it comes to folks that come into money
27:36
Speaker 3: later in life.
27:37
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, because money does not necessarily buy social status.
27:43
Speaker 1: And he nailed it with the description of the so
27:46
Speaker 1: called novou riche. So Koreina Capital, despite being very wealthy,
27:53
Speaker 1: is ostracized by other people at her income level, and
27:57
Speaker 1: she has a romantic liaison, a troubling affair with a
28:04
Speaker 1: young man who is born into a very very established
28:09
Speaker 1: old money family. He is the son of Mercedes Castianos
28:13
Speaker 1: de Ankorina and this old money family, you know, to them,
28:19
Speaker 1: it's like a Romeo and Juliet thing. They hate this relationship.
28:22
Speaker 1: You're dating new money. Have you lost all respect for
28:27
Speaker 1: your heritage? And they use their influence to end the relationship.
28:32
Speaker 1: So Karina Kavanaugh is humiliated, She's hurt. She dedicates herself
28:39
Speaker 1: to vengeance and being a lady of a noble bearing,
28:45
Speaker 1: she decides that she is not going to you know,
28:49
Speaker 1: show up at the estate with a knife, you know,
28:53
Speaker 1: run them over with horses or something. In nineteen thirties,
28:57
Speaker 1: maybe it would have been a car instead. She turns
29:01
Speaker 1: to architecture.
29:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, the old trustee, right, the Basilica of the Holy
29:07
Speaker 3: Sacrament is a gorgeous historical church that is now available,
29:13
Speaker 3: you know, for the public to tour to check out.
29:17
Speaker 3: But in its original days it was a private mausoleum
29:23
Speaker 3: of a very wealthy family, the Anchorinas, who lived in
29:29
Speaker 3: the San Martin Plaza, in a mansion that is now
29:34
Speaker 3: the site of the Argentine Foreign Ministry.
29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the deal is that is not close enough
29:44
Speaker 1: for the old Bunny and Garina family, especially the matriarch
29:50
Speaker 1: of the family, and she says, you know what, we
29:53
Speaker 1: need to be closer to the basilica. So I Am
29:56
Speaker 1: going to buy a vacant lot directly in front of
30:00
Speaker 1: the basilica, will build our new family mansion there will
30:04
Speaker 1: be It'll be so convenient for us to attend services
30:07
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And so Corina Kavanaugh picture her listening in
30:13
Speaker 1: the shadows, and she says, I'm going to foil their plans.
30:17
Speaker 1: I will take my revenge. So, just like a brother
30:21
Speaker 1: in the Civil War or something, she waits for the
30:24
Speaker 1: matriarch Mercedes to go on vacation, and then she goes
30:29
Speaker 1: to the person who owns the land. She doubles the
30:32
Speaker 1: offer of the real estate and snatches up that land.
30:36
Speaker 1: Boom boom boom. And then while the Ankara family is
30:40
Speaker 1: still on vacation, Karna contacts these very famous architects, Sanchez
30:45
Speaker 1: Lagos and de la Torre and says, I need you
30:51
Speaker 1: to build a huge building. And they say how huge
30:55
Speaker 1: and she says enormous and they say why and she says,
30:59
Speaker 1: in hirely to obstruct the view of the church from
31:04
Speaker 1: as many angles as possible.
31:07
Speaker 3: First of all, I would have said, it's none of
31:09
Speaker 3: your business, take by the money. Second of all, a
31:13
Speaker 3: lot of mischief going down while people are out of
31:15
Speaker 3: town in these stories, you know a lot of people
31:18
Speaker 3: swooping in and buying land out from under people and
31:22
Speaker 3: using it for nefarious purposes. And so the construction commences,
31:28
Speaker 3: and she really would be, you know, as John Hammond
31:33
Speaker 3: would say, spaed no expense, also as the Argentina Traveler
31:37
Speaker 3: would say, she did this at a great expense to
31:41
Speaker 3: herself and her own wealth. To see, this is where
31:43
Speaker 3: the spite becomes interesting, when it starts to like you're
31:47
Speaker 3: so pissed off. You're doing this thing just to inconvenient
31:51
Speaker 3: somebody else, and you're doing it like at cost to
31:54
Speaker 3: your like you're getting rid of your own assets. She
31:56
Speaker 3: had to sell three of her own properties and Vanada
32:01
Speaker 3: Tweto in order to finance the project. I believe the
32:03
Speaker 3: expression is cutting off your nose to spite your neighbor
32:07
Speaker 3: or your face.
32:07
Speaker 1: Yeah whatever, Yeah, no close enough.
32:10
Speaker 3: Stas is that just like Stancias? Is that like a
32:13
Speaker 3: type of villa a.
32:14
Speaker 1: Couple things, Yeah, it can be like a ranch. I
32:17
Speaker 1: think they're using it to mean ranch in this in
32:20
Speaker 1: this situation, but the direct translation is uh, instances, so
32:26
Speaker 1: it's definitely not instance.
32:27
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I think, yeah, I see the cattle ranch
32:30
Speaker 3: in Latin America, so it is a specific type of industry.
32:32
Speaker 3: So yeah, Like, seriously, she's selling off something that will
32:37
Speaker 3: make her money long term in order to finance this project,
32:43
Speaker 3: just to get back at somebody. That's why I think
32:46
Speaker 3: this is honestly the most kind of self destructive case
32:50
Speaker 3: of Spikee architecture that we've run into in this in
32:55
Speaker 3: this series. What do you think?
32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I intended to agree with you there. You know,
33:00
Speaker 1: she goes hard on the paint. It takes fourteen months
33:04
Speaker 1: to build the Kavanaugh Building. That's a record breaking construction period,
33:11
Speaker 1: super fast, and it broke. The building itself broke multiple records.
33:16
Speaker 1: It was the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the world,
33:22
Speaker 1: and for many many years after it was also the
33:25
Speaker 1: tallest building in all of Latin America. It also became
33:29
Speaker 1: the first building in the country of Argentina to have
33:32
Speaker 1: a central ac system, and it looked like it was
33:40
Speaker 1: of the time in the zeitgeist. It was echoing the
33:44
Speaker 1: rationalist style that was very popular during its construction.
33:48
Speaker 3: But.
33:50
Speaker 1: Mainly mainly it was doing that style so that the
33:54
Speaker 1: architects could get around building codes that otherwise would have
33:58
Speaker 1: limited its size. This is unhitged the story of this building,
34:04
Speaker 1: and if you look at it now, it's huge. It's
34:07
Speaker 1: a big, big piece of room. It's a big monument
34:11
Speaker 1: to revenge.
34:13
Speaker 3: It absolutely is, and I guess this wraps up the story.
34:18
Speaker 3: But speaking of revenge, and I'm pretty sure that you're
34:21
Speaker 3: a fan of this guy's work, I've been revisiting the
34:24
Speaker 3: films or visiting for the first time a handful the
34:27
Speaker 3: films of Park Chan Wook, the incretical Old Boy, Yeah,
34:31
Speaker 3: the incredible Korean director who has a revenge trilogy, of
34:35
Speaker 3: which Old Boy is the second one. I think the
34:38
Speaker 3: first one is Sympathy for Mister Vengeance, then Old Boy,
34:41
Speaker 3: which probably his most famous film, and then Sympathy for
34:44
Speaker 3: Lady Vengeance. But I recently watched his film called The Handmaiden,
34:49
Speaker 3: which is incredible, and also Thirst, which is like a
34:53
Speaker 3: vampire story that he did where vampirism is treated more
34:56
Speaker 3: like a disease that you can kind of catch from
34:58
Speaker 3: like a blood transfusion.
35:00
Speaker 1: I really liked that.
35:01
Speaker 3: We really liked it a lot too, and I had
35:02
Speaker 3: never seen it, And he's got a couple others that
35:03
Speaker 3: I've slept on. One that's like a kind of a
35:05
Speaker 3: romantic comedy called like I'm a Cyborg and that's okay,
35:08
Speaker 3: or I'm an Android and that's okay. But yeah, I mean,
35:11
Speaker 3: the Revenge trilogy definitely not architecture based. Pure gnarly asked
35:17
Speaker 3: the most elaborate type of revenge you can imagine based.
35:20
Speaker 3: But if you're into that kind of stuff or want
35:22
Speaker 3: to just to dip your toe in kind of Korean cinema,
35:25
Speaker 3: highly recommend his work.
35:26
Speaker 1: Old Boys been showing up in a lot of memes
35:29
Speaker 1: recently as not the best choice for a first state,
35:33
Speaker 1: which it isn't, but it does have a beautiful architecture plot.
35:40
Speaker 1: It is not for children. It is intensely disturbing, and
35:44
Speaker 1: you must, I try not to be an absolutist, fellow
35:47
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, but you must watch the original Korean version.
35:51
Speaker 3: Oh god, yes, I mean Big Love to Spike Lee.
35:54
Speaker 3: But that movie does not need to be remade.
35:56
Speaker 1: Right right, And you know, you get in situations maybe
36:00
Speaker 1: you had to make it. But the while they both
36:02
Speaker 1: I'm sure have their have their benefits to have their
36:06
Speaker 1: unique draws. The original film is the best. Oh man,
36:13
Speaker 1: have you seen? Speaking of creepy stuff, And this is
36:16
Speaker 1: a little more in the horror film era, but you
36:19
Speaker 1: saw a Tale of Two Sisters right absolutely.
36:21
Speaker 3: It's not streaming anywhere. And I realized I wanted to
36:24
Speaker 3: show it to my friend who was visiting, and I
36:26
Speaker 3: realized that I had a copy of it on DVD.
36:28
Speaker 3: Thankfully I found it. Yeah, that's a good one too.
36:31
Speaker 3: I really got into that whole cinematic universe in a big,
36:34
Speaker 3: big way. I think a lot of people did. But
36:36
Speaker 3: remember back when, you know, probably we both first discovered it,
36:38
Speaker 3: like you couldn't get them on DVD. You had to
36:41
Speaker 3: like get pirateed versions. And then sure, thank god for
36:44
Speaker 3: tartan Asia Extreme, you know, that was like a DVD
36:48
Speaker 3: imprint that all of a sudden realized that these were
36:50
Speaker 3: going to be huge in the in the DVD market
36:53
Speaker 3: and put them out. And as far as a podcast
36:56
Speaker 3: recommendation too for this kind of stuff, I think you'd
36:58
Speaker 3: dig these guys as well. Ben if you have already
37:00
Speaker 3: heard of it, it's called blank Check with Griffin and
37:03
Speaker 3: David's Griffin. Oh, I forget his last name, Griffin Newman.
37:07
Speaker 3: I think he's a he is he plays Arthur in
37:10
Speaker 3: the live action The Tic TV series. But it's him
37:13
Speaker 3: and his buddy who's a writer for like a like
37:15
Speaker 3: a film critic, and they talk about like the films
37:18
Speaker 3: of directors that were kind of like their blank check
37:20
Speaker 3: after having a successful run of films, and then the
37:23
Speaker 3: one that was just their batshit Pie in the Sky project.
37:26
Speaker 3: But they're in the midst of a full part Chin
37:28
Speaker 3: Wook retrospective and I think the most recent one is
37:32
Speaker 3: thirst actually so.
37:33
Speaker 1: Oh co host The Atlantic film critic David Sim's yep,
37:37
Speaker 1: good good pods and speaking of good pods, hopefully knock
37:42
Speaker 1: on wood. Thank you for tuning in here, too ridiculous history.
37:48
Speaker 1: We'll want to as always and with some thanks, big
37:51
Speaker 1: big thanks to mister Max Williams, our super producer, and
37:55
Speaker 1: of course big big thanks to Alex Williams, both for
37:59
Speaker 1: composed this amazing soundtrack you hear at the beginning and
38:02
Speaker 1: end of every show. And we're also not pulling the
38:06
Speaker 1: rug out from under Max when Max went to the
38:10
Speaker 1: Civil War.
38:11
Speaker 2: Oh and by the way, I was doing some research
38:13
Speaker 2: during the episode and turns out the plot of land
38:16
Speaker 2: that's equidistance between both the all's residents not that expensive.
38:19
Speaker 2: So I've already bought it and get ready for a giant,
38:23
Speaker 2: ugly thing to appear, which you will both neither of
38:25
Speaker 2: which we'll be able to see.
38:26
Speaker 3: But Max, you're failing to mention that Ben and I
38:29
Speaker 3: don't really live that close to each other, so this place,
38:32
Speaker 3: neither of us will probably ever.
38:34
Speaker 2: Encounter it right there at the end. But you know what,
38:37
Speaker 2: when you guys go between each other's places, you'll drive
38:39
Speaker 2: back and oh, yeah, that's that ridiculously large thing that Max.
38:43
Speaker 3: Find another route and I'll love it too.
38:45
Speaker 1: I love attention. Man's just going to.
38:47
Speaker 2: Be a giant me giving you a thumbs down.
38:50
Speaker 1: That's fine. I'm used to it. I'm glad you've immortalized it.
38:54
Speaker 1: I support you, can I like, do you have a Kickstarter?
38:56
Speaker 1: Because I am see.
38:57
Speaker 2: How I probably need one now. I basically had every
39:00
Speaker 2: time I have, and I'm the way there.
39:04
Speaker 1: Like we like we spent on that Grandfather clock that
39:07
Speaker 1: we barely ever use except when Jonathan Strickland aka the.
39:11
Speaker 2: Insurance that we pay on that thing as ridiculous.
39:14
Speaker 3: Who knew?
39:14
Speaker 1: Who? Knew clock insurance was so heinous.
39:17
Speaker 3: A lot of moving parts, you know, right right, But indeed,
39:22
Speaker 3: thank you to the whole team responsible for maintaining and
39:26
Speaker 3: ensuring that incredible piece of kit that we rely on
39:30
Speaker 3: about once a year.
39:32
Speaker 1: Thanks also to Christopher Hasiotis You're in spirit. Thanks to
39:35
Speaker 1: Gabe Lucier, Thanks to Eve's Jeffcoats, all of whom have
39:40
Speaker 1: their own projects afoot.
39:43
Speaker 3: Huge tanks, to John'strickland the quizzor. We got to get
39:45
Speaker 3: him to come back now that he knows where we are,
39:47
Speaker 3: you know, when we're in the office together, and make
39:49
Speaker 3: make use of that. Maybe we can get our use
39:51
Speaker 3: of the Grandfather clock up to you know, four or
39:54
Speaker 3: five times a year. It seemed like a worthwhile use
39:56
Speaker 3: of such an intense investment. Sure, just listen architecture exactly.
40:02
Speaker 3: Thanks again to you, Ben, These were great and thanks
40:04
Speaker 3: to you Noel. We'll see you next time. Folks. For
40:14
Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
40:18
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.