Here is a Victorian house built in the 1890s that retains its original woodwork, though it could use a lick of paint. There are many things about this house that might elicit questions from the younger generation, and if you are in the habit of taking children on walks in the city, you should be prepared to answer them.

Q. Why does the house have a pointy cone with a spike on the corner?

A. To discourage rubber-suited monsters from stepping on it. If a Japanese rubber-suited monster comes stomping through your neighborhood, it will see the spike on your house and flatten your neighbor’s house instead.

Q. Why are there so many different patterns in the woodwork?

A. Because the last thing you want at a construction site is a bored carpenter.

Q. Our house only has two floors. This one has three. What’s the third floor for?

A. In Victorian times, it was fashionable for better families to have mad great-aunts, who were installed in their own rooms on the third floor to keep them away from the matches in the kitchen.

Q. What’s that weird metal tree growing out of the chimney?

A. This is the hardest question to answer in a way that you young people can understand. Let us say that it was a primitive receiver for streaming media.