The Albert E. Warrens Center — home to Tanya Perez and her husband, Steve Perez, president of Chico State — is seen Friday, July 19, 2024 at 341 Mansion Avenue in Chico, California. (Michael Weber/Enterprise-Record)

The number one question people ask when they meet me is, “How do you like Chico?” It’s polite, and it’s asked politely.

This is almost always followed by, “What’s it like living in the house?” This question is asked with intense curiosity, the words “the house” being given a magical quality.

And I can totally relate. I would absolutely want to know what it’s like to live in a 100-year-old historical landmark designed by renowned California architect Julia Morgan. In a future column, I want to tell you about Morgan and her legacy. For now, I’ll focus on living in a university-owned house on the CSU Chico campus with dorm-dwellers for neighbors.

The awesome parts about it are exactly what you would imagine — living in a beautiful home with a park-like backyard, steps away from Big Chico Creek. Steve and I take full advantage of its proximity to downtown, walking to get most of our meals, hardware supplies and things Made in Chico.

We also have been impressed by the warm welcome from Mansion Park neighbors. Understandably, they might have enjoyed the vacant house and absence-of-hubbub over the past three decades — the last Chico State president to live here was Robin Wilson, who moved out in 1993. Yet many neighbors have introduced themselves, telling us how happy they are to have us living here. We’re even on the “Have you seen my cat?” email list.

So, how is it weird? Also exactly how you would expect. I mean, we didn’t go blindly into some of the challenges. We knew that the downstairs of the house, the Albert E. Warrens Center, is completely decked out with event-friendly furniture and a full catering kitchen (more on that in a minute). Our living space would primarily be the three bedrooms and small office upstairs.

Plus, when we first considered it, we were warned by many, “But it’s so noisy!” Residence halls Lassen and Shasta are literally a baseball throw away; to be honest, it’s not NOT noisy.

As well, we were advised that it’s “a fishbowl,” which is somewhat trickier to navigate than the noise. Julia Morgan is all about windows and sunrooms, thus privacy, furniture arrangement and temperature management are challenging. Side note: She wasn’t much about closets, meaning there’s not even one tiny cupboard in the primary bedroom.

The fishbowl-ness is even more pronounced by having Holt Hall share a wall with the house. More precisely, classrooms and offices share windows with the home’s backyard.

This is super fun for our dogs, Pauley and Sandy, who run right up to the classroom windows, with no regard for the teaching and learning taking place. And because the classroom is slightly sunken, the students have to stand up to see our pups. Which of course they do, because dogs! Our sincere apologies to all the classes they’ve disrupted.

Being tenants in a university property is also tricky in that calling the landlord is not a straightforward task. The house, like all other university buildings, is under the purview of Chico State’s Facilities Management and Services. So, for example, when Steve and I bought and had delivered a washing machine, dryer and dishwasher from Best Buy, Facilities staff rather than appliance installers from Best Buy needed to do the job.

It’s weird to call people from work and ask them to please come to your house and get your washer up and running. ON THE WEEKEND! But we can’t just tackle a do-it-yourself plumbing project in the university’s historical landmark. We also would never install our own ceiling fans, or dog doors, or any other projects here that we’ve done lots of times in our own houses. It’s an interesting dilemma — even though the Facilities staff is incredibly gracious and genuinely wants it to be homey for us, we feel both feeble and demanding. Yuck.