Controversy over colors? Probably not

I had to drive by the new Carson City Senior Center this week to see the color.

A letter to the editor said it might be a little too depressing for the older folks in town. "Maudlin," she wrote.

Actually, it's purple.

OK, so it's a dark shade of purple. I don't know designer colors, so it might be plum but I don't think it's prune. And it has a nice, white contrast around it, so I think it's going to be just fine.

It's pretty rare, as I think back, to have much controversy over the color of prominent buildings around here.

I remember there was a hue and cry about the Minden Medical Center a half-dozen years ago. Cranberry, light blue and gray. It caught the more color-sensitive residents of Douglas County by surprise. I think they got over it, although some may still be holding a grudge.

I also remember asking somebody about the Legislative Building in downtown Carson City when it was being renovated in 1996.

"So, what color is it going to be when it's done?" I asked.

"That is the color," they said.

"Oh," I said.

So much for my expertise in architectural design. I guess I had grown used to the old look of the Legislative Building, which was often described as resembling a giant aquarium. I figured they were going to paint this one aqua or something.

Remember how bad that building looked? Sheesh.

There was the controversy over the painting of the Odeon Hall in Dayton, but that had nothing to do with color. It was whether the owners should be able to paint over an old sign.

Most of the controversy in Carson City over the color of buildings is reserved for residential neighborhoods. In other words, the neighbors are scared to death what color you're going to paint your house.

My wife, Jenny, recently undertook the daunting task of repainting our house. (My role can be best described as steady encouragement.)

It's a nice cream color, which pleased Jenny very much until somebody unwittingly described it as "yellow."

It's not yellow. She would never paint the house yellow. She stood back and looked at it a half-dozen times from the driveway and asked me, "Does it look yellow to you?"

"No. It's not yellow."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

I'm really good at my role of steady encouragement.

Now, there are a few yellow houses in the neighborhood. That's fine. Yellow is not a bad color for a house. It can be done tastefully.

Other colors, well, they present more of a challenge.

"That's a nice color," Jenny said as we passed a bright turquoise residence the other day, "but not for a house."

There are pink houses and there are blue houses, but clearly the riskiest color is purple.

There's even a children's book called "Mr. Pine's Purple House" about a man who wants to set his home apart from all the other plain-looking, all-conforming houses in the neighborhood. He tries a number of ideas to make his home unique, but his neighbors follow suit and the houses still look the same.

Eventually, Mr. Pine paints his house purple. No one else on the block is willing to live in a purple house. Finally, Mr. Pine has established his individuality.

Actually, there's a long history of people getting riled over purple houses. A widely distributed story came from Lauderhill, Fla., which passed a law last year regulating the colors of houses after a man painted his purple and gold to match his fraternity colors.

Another man, also in Florida, painted his house purple with giant yellow frowny faces (a smiley face with the smile turned upside down) just to get back at his neighbors, with whom he had been feuding for years.

In a small town in Georgia, a man was battling with the town's Historic Preservation Commission over whether he could change the look of the front stoop on his house. His request was denied.

So the next day he hired two painters to change the color of the house from white to lime green - with purple polka dots.

I don't think anybody in Carson City living in a purple house - and there are a few, make no mistake about it - is doing it in protest. They want to be like Mr. Pine and live in a house that's different from the rest of the neighborhood. It makes it so much easier to give directions. "Yeah, it's the purple house. You can't miss it."

As for the Senior Center, maybe people will start saying, "It's the big purple building across from the cemetery."

I doubt it's necessary, though.

Barry Smith is editor of the Nevada Appeal. Contact him at 881-1221 or editor@nevadaappeal.com.