D J. and Gabrielle: keeping
the dream alive
%
We wanted to be able to do something where we could bring
people together in a happy state, a space of grace, as it were
BY
ANNDEE
HOCHMAN
7
*his is the house that Gabrielle gutted.
This is the house that D J . dreamed. This
is the house these two women stripped and
made over again with, mostly, their own four
hands.
Debra Jane Novgrod had coached
basketball fo r years. Gabrielle Duvall was a
model and a computer executive. They met at
a M etropolitan Community Church service in
Hinsdale, Illinois. They wanted a change.
They wanted to do something together.
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So they moved to Waldport, bought a
house cliffhanging the ocean and measured
everything in sight. They jacked up the
foundation and pulled down the ceilings. They
laid copper pipe, insulated the floors, nailed
pine boards up all over the house and cedar
wainscoting in the bathrooms, stuffed blue
grout between the imported M exican tiles,
uncoiled 363fee t o f ankle-thick rope and
looped it over posts around the yard. They
hung 42 windows, built a deck and balconies,
lined the closets with cedar particle board.
When they ran out o f money, they bartered
with neighbors. In exchange fo r help with
carpentry and plumbing, they baled hay and
delivered calves. D J . did some substitute
teaching.
Now the bed and breakfast house speaks in
both their voices. Like G abrielle’s effusive
personality, the rooms overflow — with flow er
arrangements and blue glass vases, with
photographs and books. Gabrielle does not
cook breakfast but rather perform s it, using
cookie-cutters to make star-shaped chunks o f
watermelon, sprinkling toasted sesame seeds
on the fru it salad. D J . calls the hot tub repair
person and makes sure everyone's cup is fu ll
o f cinnamon-laced coffee.
After breakfast, the two w ill pick up a load
o f wood fo r the winter and stack it in the shed
they built. Then they will jo in their guests fo r
a game o f croquet on the green, green lawn
suspended over the ocean.
This is the house that D J . dared. This is
the house that Gabrielle dreamed.
D J . : “We were just ready to do
something different. I was coaching basketball
at Elmhurst College [in Illinois] and it was
getting stressful. I coached at the college level
for about eight years. We came out here, and
we were ready to live a little bit more humbly.
“This is a people business. A lot of the
skills that we both had were transferable. A
lot of times people don't think that their skills
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are transferable. They get these blinders on.
Gabrielle definitely taught me how to dream
big. It’s one thing to dream, another to dream
big. You know, to quit your profession and
move out here and do something you totally
did not know how to do.”
Gabrielle: “I wasn’t scared. Debra was
terrified. But once we were in it over our
heads, there was only one way to go. To keep
going. We bought the house as is. It was a
triplex. The apartments had never been
vacated in 17 years. It was a matter of seeing
it and saying, ‘If we were to do it, how could
we utilize its best potential in seeing the most
of the coast that you can possibly see, and
share it?
“I grew up having to have permission —
permission to speak, permission to enter the
room. Everything was kept under lock and
key. To me, the joy of life is to share it and to
share it freely, not with such strictures.”
D J .: “Before we even started to do
anything on the house, we were dreaming and
thinking. But some things changed as we went
along. We were flexible that way.
“We had a very good friend help us. He
used to be a contractor. He would tell us the
size beams that we needed for the amount of
weight that it was supporting. He would lend
us some of his tools. He’d come over after
work and cross out the studs we could take
out and the ones we should leave so the roof
didn’t fall in. Little things like that.
“We would get up at six in the morning
and work till midnight.”
Gabrielle: “W e’d say, ‘It’s going to rain
tonight; we’ve got to get the windows in!’ ”
D J .: “We would hire people by the hour
and work with them. And then when we knew
what we were doing, we would move them off
to something we didn’t know. Or we would
tell them not to come back for two weeks until
\
we had finished whatever we could do. We
were trying to do it on a limited budget. We
have all our little eggs in one basket in this
house, which is something we’d never done
before.”
Gabrielle: “I was a model, a large-size
model. Probably the number one large-size
model out of Chicago. I did the wholesale
market, magazines, newspapers, fashion
shows, you name it. And then I went to work
for Wang Laboratories, which is a computer
industry, and became district administrative
manager for five branches. I began to find that
it was a real kamikaze pace that I was racing
through. I would get up at four o ’clock in the
morning and go to bed at one. I was working
most o f the hours of the day.
“Corporate life has a whole different ethic.
In fact, it has few ethics. And that was
something I just couldn’t live with.
“I wanted to be able to do something
where we could bring people together in a
happy state, a space of grace, as it were.”
D J .: “It’s a homey atmosphere. And
people want to come home. They want a sense
of home. Because it doesn’t exist anymore. I
think people are looking for that.
“In a sense, we have our own ministry
here. Because there are a lot of little birds
with broken wings. They’re hurt, or they just
need loving, a kind word, an ear, sometimes.
“We really complement each other. She’s
the theater, dramatic type, and I ’m the down-
to-earth coach. I tell people what to do. I’m
the methodical, the goal-oriented one. I make
my lists and cross things off.”
Gabrielle: “We had a wonderful,
wonderful couple come recently who had
made a commitment to each other. They came
with a footman and chauffeur. It was
positively marvelous. They had the time of
their lives. They stayed in the bridal suite. The
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footman and chauffeur took the redwood
room.
“We do our very best to make people
realize the importance of each other.”
D J . : “We have brought people together.
We do not cater exclusively to one
community or the other. But people sit around
at a breakfast table, and everyone feels really
comfortable. It’s very enlightening for straight
people. Everyone blends well, and everyone
seems to have a really good time.
“We have had quite a few people with
AIDS who have stayed with us. It’s been a
learning experience for me. It’s opened my
eyes and really taught me a lot.
“What we try to do is make the most of
everybody’s stay, treat them all like royalty.
Because nobody gets pampered at home.”
Gabrielle: “At home you don’t have time
to think about it. W e’re all in so much of a
rush. Sometimes one person is the pamperer
in a relationship, and the other person really
needs it terribly. And when they come here,
they find, ‘Oh, I ’m special, too.’ ”
D J . : “We enjoy what w e’re doing. That
was one thing I liked about teaching. I played
for a living, and they paid me. I always said
that when I didn’t enjoy it anymore, it was
time to do something else. And this is very
enjoyable. It’s tiresome, it is demanding.
W e’re the first ones up in the morning, the last
ones to go to bed, it’s a 24-hour-a-day job.
But it’s our home. Eventually w e’ll probably
only be open seasonally. That was one o f the
reasons we moved here, to slow down and
have time to read and time to be together.”
Gabrielle: “Many things happen in a
relationship. A person becomes a certain way
because he or she’s never been allowed to
develop in another area.
" I’ve learned to love more, to just keep on
loving more. There’s a lot of brokenness out
there, broken hearts. We try hard to give them
enough space for themselves.
“I just don’t think there’s enough romance
in this whole world. I love candles, I love
creating the atmosphere, I love drawing the
bath for everyone in the bridal suite. Teaching
people to let go.”
D J . : “Doing this project has taught me
that you can do anything you want to do, if
you put your mind to it. Anything. We didn’t
know anything about plumbing or building or
architecture. If you can read and you have an
open mind and you’re willing to listen to
people, you can do anything.
"We really had to prove ourselves out
here. But proving myself is something I’ve
been doing all my life, because I was female
and I was into athletics, and then with my
sexuality. Then doing something that was a
man’s world. Building this building.”
Gabrielle: “When we would lose
inspiration, we would look up and look out to
the ocean. It was awe-inspiring. To think of
how different every wave is, when we were
confronted with so many different
circumstances we didn’t know the answer to.
And yet every one has its place. Every nail
has its place. Every board has & right place.
We did break away and come out here, that
took our individual courage. But anybody can
do it if they want to. It’s keeping the magic
alive.”
▼
Look for an autographing and
w orkshop with Sonia Joh n son .
D ate not yet set.
Join us O ct. 28 at the
Echo T heatre for the
First Annual W om an’s P lace
H alloween D ance! T ickets
available at the store!
just out V 15V October 1989