Little pink, and azure, and chartreuse houses for you and me

Even under the relatively muted February sun, a white Bermuda house looks sad, especially when compared with its brightly painted neighbours. For a staid, New England girl, this observation was totally unexpected. I'd heard about the colorful houses and dismissed them as garish, needlessly showie, certainly not something that 'fit' within the landscape of even a semi-tropical location such as Bermuda. But driving through the streets of St. George, I had to admit, it was the bright chartreuse house, or maybe that deep azure one that looked most at home.

House sizes and configurations varied from one story 'shotgun” style to multi-story, rambling mansions. Some homes are situated on suburban-type lawns, some right on the street (and by on, I mean no front yard, no shoulder, the house wall-less-than-three-inches-from-bus-mirror on the street). Others are built into, or out of the limestone clifts.

And while the houses vary in both shape and color the roofs are all of white, stepped blocks, channelled so as to collect rain water into holding tanks. All the homes have shutters, sun, hurricane or both, and are built of stone, cement block or stucco and painted pretty much any color except white. And all have porches or patios - living space outside being as important as living space inside.

Bright outside and in, sounds like home to me!