CAN WE GO back home again? An oft-quoted aphorism says we can’t. But we all yearn to click our figurative ruby slippers and try.

In March, I learned that the home my grandparents built 97 years ago on Walnut Avenue in West Seattle was up for sale. At its open house, I languished for two hours.

I imagined my young mom and her three older sisters running up and down its stairs and singing by an upright Ludwig piano in the first-floor sunroom. I pictured their pranks, one mischievously flushing a toilet when another talked with a boy on the phone. I envisioned my parents’ wedding in front of the golden-brown tiled living-room fireplace, where in 2000 I posed them for a matching “Now” photo on their 50th anniversary.

Preschool-age recollections also surfaced as I sat on front-porch benches that opened into ostensibly secret storage pods. And I lingered in the remodeled kitchen where, in its former breakfast nook, I learned to sip from a straw.

In one sense, this house isn’t distinctive. Just a two-story, four-bedroom Craftsman.

Yet its context, a stone’s throw from Seattle’s first indoor-outdoor community center at Hiawatha Park, has, for nearly a century, conveyed unspoiled neighborhood warmth. Seemingly everything one could want — schools, stores, a ravine, a wading pool and even a movie theater — was mere steps away.

Mainly, however, I marvel at a dwelling that has been owned by only three families, each one stewarding it with loving care.

The soon-to-be fourth family, Brandon and Alisa Allgood, hails from California’s Silicon Valley. Brandon, 47, is an artificial-intelligence executive, and Alisa, 53, is an architectural and interior designer.

Because Brandon grew up in Marysville and on Capitol Hill, and he has family near Arlington and Darrington, the two long have eyed a move to Seattle. They got serious in February, gravitating to the Walnut house because of its streetside stature, open floor plan, plentiful light, proximity to Alki Beach and what today is called walkability. “We didn’t want run-of-the-mill,” Brandon says. “We like aesthetics and uniqueness.”

The pair anticipates electrical and plumbing upgrades, but they will retain the house’s integrity. “We realize,” Alisa says, “we have a responsibility to keep it up.”

In Seattle’s dizzying real estate spiral, preservation comes with a price — in this case, a purchase in excess of $1.4 million. As the cliché goes, for many, the so-called American dream remains just that: a dream.

But I also know that my early time at the Walnut house eventually led me to claim West Seattle as my own Emerald City base. May similar homes survive everywhere to inspire us all.

Longtime Seattle historian Paul Dorpat, founder of the “Now & Then” column, will receive the 2022 Board Legacy Award of the Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO).

The honor will be presented during AKCHO’s annual awards event, online, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 24. To view the event, visit akcho.org.

The award to Dorpat honors his recent donation of a vast collection of historical photos, videos and printed materials to the Seattle Public Library so that they eventually can be accessed by anyone free of charge. The donation reflects his “legendary loyalty to identifying and celebrating Seattle history,” says Pat Filer, award chair.

Dorpat, the author of many local history books, originated “Now & Then” in the Sunday magazine of The Seattle Times in January 1982. He prepared more than 1,800 columns over 37 years before retiring in 2019.