Worth Reading – The Big House.
I only buy books that I’ve already read and loved… I will linger months and months on the library’s waiting list because it irritates me to buy something and be disappointed.
Except at the library booksale—where for a dollar, you might discover something wonderful: The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home.
If you have an interest in American architecture, Gilded Age history, or memoirs, you should read The Big House. I loved it.
(Although it left me deeply irritated that my great-grandfather didn’t have the foresight to build a summer mansion in Cape Cod.)
The Big House – Via Woods Hole Inn
This is the only photo I could find, and it reflects the changes made by the current owner… they chopped off half the house and added skylights—not a good look from the exterior, but you can imagine it was dark in there with the tiny dormers and uninterrupted roof line.
The New Yorker describes the book:
In 1903, the author’s great-grandfather, a Boston Brahmin named Edward W. Atkinson, built his family a house on Cape Cod, at Wings Neck, the last undeveloped peninsula overlooking Buzzards Bay. The Big House, as this multi-storied conglomeration of gables, dormers, and bays came to be called, included “eleven bedrooms, seven fireplaces, and a warren of closets, cupboards, and crannies.” It was also an expensive firetrap with sixty-seven windows in need of attention, leaking roofs, wildlife procreating in its walls, and no indoor shower. A family memoir, a brief history of the Cape, an investigation of nostalgia, a catalogue of local fauna, a study of class, and a meditation on the privileges and burdens of the past.
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You May Also Like: Philadelphia Architecture, Society Hill Trinity Houses.
Linn @ The Home Project
June 25, 2012 @ 3:56 pm
This book sounds like pure perfection! I’m going to have to look for this one!
Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
June 25, 2012 @ 4:45 pm
Hi Linn,
If you’re into “old house” stories, another of my favorites is “All The Way Home.” By David Giffels. A memoir of renovating a destroyed old house… he experiences pretty much every crazy thing you can imagine. From raccoon infestation to finding a small fortune in cash hidden in the walls. Plus, he’s a great writer… very funny.
And a friend just recommended “If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home” by Lucy Worsley. Do you have any favorites?
Thanks for the visit!
Linn @ The Home Project
June 25, 2012 @ 10:20 pm
Hi Victoria! Well, I recently came upon your blog, and it’s lovely! I’m looking forward to reading more over time. Thanks so much for the tips. Sadly, I don’t have any “house specific” books to recommend. I did however recently finish “The Life of an Ordinary Woman” by Anne Ellis. This book is an autobiography about Anne’s life (primarily domestic) in the mining camps in Colorado in the 1880s and 90s. It was fascinating to read about her making a home, what the houses were like, the cooking etc… That’s the closest that comes to mind right now, and if you’re interested in the old west and the life of the women at that time, as well as their houses and their cooking, then I can highly recommend it, as it was such a good read. But, I think from your list, I’m going to start looking for “The Big House.” Maybe I can find it one of the old dusty bookshops we have in town (aren’t those the best!), or maybe the library?
Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
June 26, 2012 @ 6:31 am
I love any book recommendation that’s to do with women’s history, so I will definitely add that to my list! And yes, dusty old bookshops are the best thing ever… although, it’s hard to beat ordering a used book from Amazon for a few dollars and having it delivered to your doorstep!!
Thanks for the blog complement; it means the world to me.
Pam
July 20, 2013 @ 10:15 am
I can highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Nella-Lasts-War-Diaries-Housewife/dp/184668000X
(Very belatedly, while I catch up on every. single. post on your wonderful blog….)
Sarah
April 3, 2014 @ 11:06 pm
OMG! I am the same way! I REFUSE to buy books because it is a waste of money when I could check it out at the library. I don’t want books in my collection that I don’t love. Finally, someone else gets it!