Better Homes From a Simpler Time

As a lifestyle real estate company affiliated with the Better Homes and Gardens brand, we understand and relish in the fact that we are about much more than buying and selling homes. Our association with something so ingrained and influential in the American culture as Better Homes and Gardens is always on our collective minds, but sometimes even we have to be reminded of just how connected and synergistic our relationship to it is. The latest example of this happened when one of our Plaza/Kansas City office agents, Jessica Thomas, showing homes to her client.

One of those homes, on East 79th Street in KCMO had quite a unique history that made for an interesting and interwoven connection to our company and our brand. Jessica recalls that as she was showing the home, she noticed, “The seller was in the process of an estate sale and she had 2 or 3 old BHG magazines. I asked if I could buy one and she was nice enough to give me a copy.”

The issue Jessica was given was dated May 1950 and it just so happened to feature the very house that she was currently showing. “That house was featured in the magazine because it had undergone some massive porch renovations,” Jessica recalled.

When Jessica came into our company’s main office to share the little gem that she had, along with the story about showing the home in the magazine, she stumbled across another coincidence. We have decorative reproductions of BHG magazine covers from over the years hung throughout our office. Right outside our CFO’s office was none other than a reproduction of the cover of the same issue that Jessica found at an estate sale in the house that was featured in the issue.

So, if you’re keeping score, you have a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate agent showing a home to her client that was once featured in the very same May 1950 issue of Better Homes and Gardens Magazine which was part of an estate sale at the home. As a bonus, a poster of the cover for that issue is hanging in the corporate office of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Kansas City Homes. It’s so inter-connected and self-referential it’s practically meta!

Beyond the brand coincidences and connections, that old issue of BHG served as a sort of time capsule for what was on-trend and in demand at that time in America through its articles, columns and even advertisements. Jessica had a fun time looking over all the anachronisms found throughout the magazine and she was a good enough sport to let us video her while doing it.