Waterhouses: The Romantic Alternative

Tight, square spine. Clean, unmarked interior. Gilt to spine remains bright. Jacket has some light edge-wear. Hungarian boat-builder Máté, who wrote the classic sailboat construction manual, From a Bare Hull, documents an international array of houseboats here, from Amsterdam canals to the San Francisco Bay, about which he writes, 'The romance is in a masterpiece of design that juts from the water like an angry grey rock and has inside a greenhouse and oak floors with round brass plugs instead of nails, and a desk suspended by brass rods with brass turnbuckles for adjustment, and light pouring in everywhere from decks and skylights and water-level windows.' Máté would later ride the millennial wave of Tuscaniana by writing three philosophically minded books, starting with the 1999 bestseller, The Hills of Tuscany, about his experience establishing and maintaining a vineyard with his wife, painter Candace Máté, who also designed this book.