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	Photo: Bill Myers

    Dee Dee Appleton (then Dee Dee Dumesnil) was 13 years old when she moved to Alameda’s Fernside District. “I just loved it here from the beginning,” she recalls of her young adult experience living with her sister, Suzanne, and parents, Ruth and Gene Dumesnil, in their comfortable Mediterranean-style home. “Inside, we were constantly entertaining friends and family. It has always been such a happy home.”
    In fact, the happiness she felt toward her parents’ house made Appleton want to return to the city after graduating from San Jose State University. It was at SJSU that she met fellow coed Brinley Appleton. They married shortly after graduation and bought their first home just around the block from her parents’ abode, which was built circa 1930.
    The Dumesnils and the Appletons relished the combined families’ propinquity. Before long, the Appletons had two sons and immediately appreciated having a pair of babysitting grandparents just a stone’s throw away.
    As the boys grew older, they especially enjoyed the limitless opportunities of hanging out at their grandparents’ house, forging special memories with them. After the Dumesnils passed away, the Appleton sons—by then college students—urged their parents to consider moving into their grandparents’ house because they loved it there so much and couldn’t imagine it being someone else’s home.
    “We had just remodeled our existing house and had no intention of leaving, but the boys kept pressing us. By pure happenstance a prospective house buyer in the area asked us if we’d consider selling our house to them. It was such odd timing that we felt like it was some kind of sign, so we decided it was meant to be,” explains Dee Dee Appleton.
    In 1988 they made the move into the well-kept three-bedroom house. In the 20 years since the Appletons moved in, and in the nearly 80 years since it was erected, very little has changed about the house.  Aside from a few minor changes to the landscaping, which occurred during the tenure of the three owners who occupied the property before the Dumesnils, the façade of the house is almost identical to its earliest incarnation. This can be confirmed through a picture that was delivered to them in a most unexpected fashion.
    “I was at home when an elderly gentleman rang my door,” Dee Dee Appleton chuckles. “He was late for an appointment, but he just had to come by at that moment, after all these years, to give me this old photo of the house when he lived here in the 1940s. It was he who had the barbecue custom-built in the backyard, but he said it was much larger than he had envisioned. He said it looked like an incinerator, so that’s what we jokingly call it today.”
    Inside, the Appletons have gone to great lengths to preserve the character of the house and its memories. While they modernized the kitchen and added an enviable oversized wine refrigerator—both of which strengthen the home’s mark as a great place for family and friends to gather—the rest of the house honors the Dumesnil-Appleton family history. Both the living and dining rooms feature antique furniture, some dating back to the early 1900s and passed down from both sides of the family, interspersed with the Appletons’ decidedly Asian flair. The result creates a style all its own.
    Despite being so exposed to the street because of a lack of fencing or concealing foliage, the house’s interior spaces are surprising private, thanks to the plantation blinds on the inside and the original spindles decorating some of the windows’ exteriors. Even with these visual barriers hiding them from the outside world, the house is remarkably bright and airy throughout because of its abundance of doors and windows.
    One room that especially lends itself to this cheery feel is the master bedroom. A particularly cherished room to the couple, it features a spacious balcony that mixes the perfect balance of light and shelter, making it accessible in all types of weather. “We love to sit out here, especially on hot nights,” notes Dee Dee Appleton. “When the wind is blowing in just the right direction, we can hear the concerts playing at the coliseum.”
    The guest room, which shares access to the balcony, is also a treasured family room. In addition to doubling as a toy chest for the Appletons’ four grandchildren, the room features yet another cherished family heirloom—a painting done by her great grandfather from Denmark.
    With all of its many layers of familial importance, this beloved house seems much more than the sum of its parts. This one has become this family’s jewel.