In a routine that defined 2017, T spent a bright, warm May morning at a chemotherapy treatment at the Lewis Cancer and Research Pavilion, then came home to recuperate on the couch next to her living room windows. Outside, a woman was bouncing around on the sidewalk in front of the colorful trio of homes. Laughing and shouting art direction to her photographer across the street, she was an arm’s length from T’s seafoam green shutters and thin window glass. When we came by for dinner that evening, T told us about the photoshoot, the commotion, and how, eventually, she’d pulled herself up and peered out the front door to give this girl and her friend “a look,” which seemed to scare them off. The three of us giggled over it.
A couple weeks later, a family friend sent us an Instagram post. Travel blogger Michelle Halpern—a 30-something “matcha-obsessed Libra” with nearly 60,000 Instagram followers at the time—was caught mid-skip just outside T’s living room on Rainbow Row, mugging to the camera. The caption on her May 15, 2017, post read:
A little story behind the Insta: This was about 3 seconds before the little old lady living in the green house came out and scowled at me for taking pictures in front of her home (which mind you is famous in Savannah and mentioned on all of the trolley tours). If it were me, I would have taken advantage of the tourist attention and started a mimosa stand or something!...What’s your opinion on regulations around locals’ homes that are popular in the area? I totally understand the desire for privacy but at the same time if your home is as pretty as this, you can’t expect people to ignore it, can you?Over a hundred comments flooded in: “I think if a house is pretty, people should expect others to admire it!” “Especially if it’s famous enough to be mentioned in a tour, they’ve gotta let it go!” “Yeah really they shouldn’t live in such a pretty house.” “If it’s this beautiful, always take the pic!” was the clear consensus. And people were wild about the mimosa stand concept.
About six responses of 104 mused tepidly over questions of privacy and nuisance. The comments that received the warmest reception from Halpern, though, were more like @amanda.sulek’s: “I think the lady should have been outside enjoying the beautiful weather instead of inside yelling at people having fun,” to which Halpern responded, “Totally agree Amanda! Hoping I don’t turn into a curmudgeon someday.”T, the “little old lady” in question, was a physician, a daughter and granddaughter of physicians. She was a graduate of University of North Carolina Medical School at Chapel Hill, a loyal member of Savannah’s Christ Church congregation, chair of its Flower Guild, and an avid gardener devoted to native flora and pollinators. She was an active participant in the effort to preserve and advocate for Savannah’s history, which allows us to enjoy it today. For many years, she volunteered at Hospice of Savannah.
Hospice of Savannah is where T was—and where we were with her—when her battle with a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma ended in early 2018.
Of course, no one who chimed in, Halpern included, could have known how beloved T was, what kind of day she was having, how far she was at that moment from opening a sidewalk mimosa stand. Still, the caption and comments felt insensitive, entitled, and like the crossing of some undrawn ethical line. Why not let a confrontation like this dissolve in quietude? Why share the photograph? Why, after being so rattled by a scold, use the image of the house in a very public commercial partnership with One Kings Lane, and insist on roasting the homeowner in the comments? When I reached out to Halpern for this piece, she declined to comment.
Halpern’s brand, Live Like It’s the Weekend, asks the question: “Wouldn’t it be freaking awesome if people [...] felt free to follow their passions every day, not just on the weekends?” Her curated target audience is the “creative female traveler,” her feed a litany of styled jet-setting and starry-eyed wonder. Sometimes she breaks to reflect on the personal, disclosing a struggle in a caption, reminding us that we shouldn’t assume a person is as they appear—that they may not be the look they’re giving you. For Halpern, discussing the personal details of her life—including the difficult ones—is right on brand. She shares her thoughts openly with her followers, right alongside a post plugging a jumpsuit she loves or a spa she just visited. And her followers seem to love it.
They liked the post of T’s house too (1,581 times, last I checked), but to identify a private home and evaluate the behavior of its owner to an audience of 60,000 isn’t the same as evaluating a resort stay or an outfit, things given to her or that she paid for. The act ate at me, and at T’s family. What right did she have?
by Alexandra Marvar, Curbed | Read more:
Image: Bethany Robertson
