I grew up in a Florida home built around 1900, and we had no central air-conditioning until I was in my teens. The house was all windows, with 12 ft ceilings, a

I grew up in a Florida home built around 1900, and we had no central air-conditioning until I was in my teens. The house was all windows, with 12 ft ceilings, and had even been fitted with an attic-fan, which is a kind of central fan circulation system that draws air in all the windows and pumps it out through a dormer window in the attic. Privacy had nothing to do with our desire for air-conditioning. In fact, most of the doors in our house were removed because the house was used as a day-care for children prior to my parents ownership, who never bothered to put the doors back on. We grew up with very little concept of privacy. We loathed the Florida summers. I can remember plenty of sleepless nights, lying awake in bed, sweating through my sheets. We wanted relief. That's all we wanted.