Collecting Houses Tapa blanda - 2003

Información de la editorial

Collecting Houses is a story about houses-their cellars, attics, and everything in between. It's about houses the author has moved, dismantled, reclaimed, recorded. It's about houses Baker found hidden in the woods, houses she rescued from ignorance, greed or bureaucracy, and houses she discovered masquerading behind all sorts of disguises. It's about how a house feels to be, abandoned, condemned, moved, tinkered with, ripped apart, modernized, put on The National Registry or sent to Alaska. These are not just any houses, but very old ones, old for this country anyway. Not that Baker feels that our later houses aren't interesting, but what she loves the most is the freshness of the very beginning: the distinctive, intangible quality that surrounds 17th and early 18th century houses. And that's where she become rooted. Rooted in the adventure, the thrill of discovery and the tantalizing mysteries that reside behind the walls of our early American structures. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always instructive, Collecting Houses teaches the reader how to know an old house, how to hear its voice, how to understand its language, recognize its personalities and take care of its needs.