Carl Carlson and Joanne Weber have a story about the purchase of their Marathon home. “I bought the garage, Joanne bought the view, and the house came with it,” said Carl, laughing.
And, oh, what a garage.
It’s 3,500 square feet and air-conditioned — big enough to handle both their hobbies. Carl has five classic cars stored in the space. Joanne has an enormous, raised platform for her train habit. It has six tracks, bridges, buildings, a waterfall feature and electronic controls.
Those are just the big toys. The garage has three car lifts — two four-post models and a scissor lift. The industrial size sand blaster (it uses beads, actually) is used to smooth the tracks, keeping her trains running easily. He has a tig welder, a gas welder, jumper cables, battery charger and all sorts of other goodies.
The two married in 2016 and have managed to blend and embrace their interests. For example, Carlson built the train table for the cars Joanne and her late husband, Dr. Charles Weber, collected.
Did Carl woo Joanne by building the train table?
“No …,” she said, thinking. “I think I wooed him by having the trains.”
The garage features a wall of red tool chests topped by cabinets, and a separate space devoted just to fishing gear — lures to rods.
The last corner of the garage is walled off to create a cozy entertaining area facing the ocean with a wall of tall windows. There’s a full size kitchen with bar seating, two high tops, comfy couches and a purple pool table. Yes, purple. The walls are covered in photos depicting their mutual interests and interesting lives.
