I was driving down North 7th Street the other day, heading home after picking up some feed for the chickens – just a normal Tuesday afternoon. What used to be Mr. Henderson’s place, with that nice big yard where his golden retrievers would always bark, is now a towering gray building. They call them “luxury condos” these days.

And I’m just looking at them, thinking, where do these folks put their stuff? Not just their cars, mind you, but their fishing rods, their ski gear, maybe an old workbench. These buildings have what looks like underground parking, which is certainly efficient. But it’s not really a garage, is it?

A garage, to me, has always been more than just a place to park. It’s where you store the holiday decorations. It’s where you fix that leaky faucet on a Saturday morning. You might keep a freezer out there, or some extra canned goods. Maybe even a little dusty dartboard. It’s a space with purpose, a buffer between your home and the world.

My house, which I bought back in 2006 for what I considered a normal amount of money at the time, has a two-car garage. It’s not fancy, just solid. You can pull your truck in, and there’s still room to walk around, maybe stack some firewood. My son, Cody, uses about half of it for working on his dirt bike. It’s a real part of our home.

These new places, they seem to be designed for people who don’t have much to store. Or maybe they store it all indoors? Ms. Perkins, who lives across the street, says developers are maximizing square footage for living space, not storage. She moved here about seven years ago and she calls it “efficient urban design.” I just call it confusing.

I saw a young fella trying to wrestle a kayak out of the tiny storage locker on a balcony the other day. It looked like quite the struggle. If he had a proper garage, he could just hang that kayak right up on the wall, no problem. It would be ready to go whenever he felt like heading out to Hyalite.

It makes me wonder if Bozeman is changing into a place where people don’t need as much “stuff” anymore. Or maybe it’s a place where they expect someone else to store it for them. I just know that for myself and my neighbors, a good functional garage is as much a part of living here as the mountains themselves. It’s a place for work, for projects, for just keeping things safe. It’s a little piece of independence.

I’m not saying these new buildings are bad; they just seem to forget about an important part of life here. A good garage is more than just parking. It’s practically another room.

Howard Benchpress owns a home he bought in 2006 for what he describes as ‘a normal amount of money.’ He brings this up frequently.