These are the houses I have been dying to see! I love the jellybean houses! We were told several reasons as to why the houses were painted in such fun colors and I read one reason. I don’t know which reason is true, I just know I enjoy looking at the houses and all the fun colors. Something that is hard to show in the photos is exactly how steep the streets were. I liken them to the famous street in San Francisco, CA. Zoom Zoom was thankful for my automatic transmission in Jethro!
One of the reasons for painting their house so bright would be because the captain of the ship might have just painted his boat and he had paint leftover, so why not paint your home to match? Another was because the winters were so tough and dreary they wanted something to cheer them up – their house made sense since they were so big. And yet even another reason was because the downtown area was struggling in the 70’s and this was a way to get the tourist to come down and visit-this was the one I read. If you look in my blog on the bus tour of the town you will see that the businesses are quite colorful too! The reason we heard most often and the one that makes the most sense was that the boat captains used the colorful houses as navigational tools in foggy and dreary weather. Whichever one you believe it doesn’t matter, the houses are so cute and colorful they make anyone smile just to look at them.
Oh my goodness! If you think of St. John’s you probably think of their Jellybean houses. These are some of my most favorite houses EVER! The streets, with their extremely steep hills, are similar to those in San Francisco,CA. We were told a few different reasons why they paint them such fun colors. One was that it started out the captain of the ship used the same colors as their boats they sailed on. If they had just painted their boat and had leftover paint-they just used it on their home. Another reason was to help guide sailors in foggy and dreary inclement weather. These homes are like beacons for them to guide their boats by. One other reason was since the winters were so dreary they needed something cheery and that would be their houses. I also read that in the 70’s the downtown was in need of a revitalization so on came the colors! I’m not so sure I believe this one as much. Although, a lot of downtown stores have super cute and creative colors too! Regardless of the reason- I love them all!
I love the coral colored one. 
Look at the red one. I like the windows and casings. 
I love the colors of this first home. It’s so classy. 
Brave choice of color. 
Orange is a popular choice for a ‘pop’ of color. 
New builds – all the same – just different colors. 
That one added a garage. 
I like black and gray. 
Wonky intersections in St. John’s with steep streets! 
LOTS of colors! 
Beautiful! 
Hmm… 
There’s that orange again! 
You know I love yellow! 
Fancy entrance. 
For sale 
For sale 
Cute street 
Lovely flowers 
Malachi’s house from “Republic of Doyle.” 
Gray with a yellow door – CLASSY 
LOVE…LOVE…LOVE 
I like these colors. 
Most places were neat as a pin – oops! 
Orange – LOVE 
And again – orange! 
Cute door 
I like the transom. 
The yellow stands out. 🙂 
Lime green and light pink – excellent! 
Isn’t this pretty? 
Two good choices! 
I know some folks that will LOVE this. 
This place is huge! It must cost $10,000 or more to paint. 
Pop of color – orange 
Steep-steep street 
Up we go. I think I can. I think I can. 
Another wonky street corner. 
Isn’t the red house skinny? 
The concrete foundation is painted too.
See the green thing with the lid? That’s a trash bin.
New build
I hope you can tell why I like these houses so much. They each have their own personality. Go back and look again. Look at the doors. Look at the windows. Look at the corbels and the roof lines. There is so much thought that went into each person’s home than what you just glanced at.