2510 Mahala Lane, Chattanooga, TN 37421

A 1965 split-level on a rise in the Tyner side of Chattanooga, brick below and siding above, sitting back from a quiet street behind a sloping front lawn and old shade trees. The kind of house that was built when houses were built to be lived in for thirty years, and has been.

The screened porch is where you will end up. Windows on three sides, the yard falling away below it, and enough room for chairs and a table and whatever else you drag out there in May and forget to bring in until October. Inside there is real wood paneling in the bedrooms, the warm kind, not the cheap kind.

Downstairs the garage runs under the house with room for two cars and then some, and there is a carport beside it for a third. Between the two you can stop apologizing for where you park. Just over a third of an acre, Hamilton County, and a driveway that could hold everybody who turns up at Thanksgiving.