This house was built in 1903, when everyone in Orange was certain of several key wisdoms: 1. The world was round, 2. Home is where the heart is, and 3. Cigarettes make for a solid cure for the cold, toughening the weak tissues in the lungs and heart. It was built by a man named John James Patrick, a local collector of curse words. He traveled far and wide in his eccentric hunt for all manner of cussing, cursing, swearing, and blaspheming. He wrote these cuss words on whatever was handy, and brought that handy whatever home to Orange to join his collection. Legend has it that his entire attic was filled with handkerchiefs, planks of wood, linen, and even several bar stools, all inscribed with whatever new naughty phrase Mr. Patrick captured on his travels.

In the beginning, before this house was built, Mr. Patrick was a relatively successful salesman of Spiegelman's True-Aim Nails, which were a famous brand of nails, unique in their ability to magnetize the heads of hammers, thus correcting the handyman's aim and avoiding all crushed fingers. It was a goldmine of a region for Patrick, spanning well over 100 miles surrounding Orange, CA. However, Patrick had a secret: Sometimes, he would muddle the magnetism of the nails so that he might gather more vocabulary for his collection, which was saved in an abandoned wine cellar in City Hall at the time, collected in countless barrels where once joyous cursing had been stored as a liquid. The muddling of magnetism was a great stone of guilt in Patrick's kidney, but muddle he did, muddle he continued to do.

Eventually, Spiegelman Enterprises discovered his charade and as a cruel and unusual sentence, Patrick was fired and forced to keep his stock of nails, which was a mixed-up grab-bag of muddle and un-muddled True-Aim Nails, thousands, thousands of nails and he could not sell one, for his name was all over the papers and not a one man would hire him and he had no family, no land to his name save for the old, worthless distant parcel in Orange that had fallen to him from his mother and father before their passing as missionaries.

So, naturally, he built a house, each time fearing for his fingers, fearing that his fingers would bear the brunt of his brutal obsession.