Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House in 100+ Books in 2025

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Aug 20, 2009 Dolly rated it liked it

Shelves: england-english, nonfiction, other-usa, new-england, ocean-seashore, 2011

I remember that I was in Seoul, Korea about two years ago, at the base library, when one of my fellow exercise participants (I forget who, sorry!) recommended this book to me. I suppose that's typical for me. I remembered the book, but not the person. ...sigh...

In any case, the simple title of the book stuck with me and I added it to my to-read list. It's a sad fact that even though I diligently put books from my to-read list into my on-hold list at the library, the to-read list seems to just gr I remember that I was in Seoul, Korea about two years ago, at the base library, when one of my fellow exercise participants (I forget who, sorry!) recommended this book to me. I suppose that's typical for me. I remembered the book, but not the person. ...sigh...

In any case, the simple title of the book stuck with me and I added it to my to-read list. It's a sad fact that even though I diligently put books from my to-read list into my on-hold list at the library, the to-read list seems to just grow and grow and grow. I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'll never be able to whittle it down to nothing, but I still try. There are just so many interesting books out there I want to read someday!

So anyway...back to the book. This is a very interesting account of both the long and detailed history of a house in Massachusetts and of the families who lived in it. While it is a work of non-fiction, it is a melange of history, anedotes, personal recollections and somewhat of a journal of the process of compiling all of this information together. The memories may be flawed, but the feelings are laid bare for all to see. As a Massachusetts native myself, I was fascinated by the historical references and the descriptions of the area. Also, the references to the children's books written by Richard Warren Hatch intrigue me. I would love to read a copy of "The Curious Lobster" and/or "The Curious Lobster's Island."

My sister-in-law once lived in "the second oldest house" in her town and I was always interested to see the old architectural details that melded with the new and how the house evolved over time. It wasn't always pretty, but the house truly had a character all of its own. I can imagine that the "Red House" is much the same.

interesting quote:
"Don't let any restorer lead you to forget that the object is not to recreate a mid-17th century house - a museum," he wrote early on. "A house grows and changes. Restorers are too often obsessed with what they conceive to be the 'original' - but no family continued living in an 'original' unless they were bankrupt - which the Hatch land-owners and mill-owners certainly were not." (p. 36)

new words: gundalow, sumptuary, treacle, glisters, sublunary, dory, peregrination, peripatetic ...more

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Mar 30, 2008 Elle rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, house-home-architecture

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Jan 22, 2015 Inna marked it as to-read

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