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The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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About this ebook
In this intimate and poignant history of a sprawling century-old summer house on Cape Cod, George Howe Colt reveals not just one family's fascinating story but a vanishing way of life. Faced with the sale of the treasured house where he had spent forty-two summers, Colt returned for one last August with his wife and young children. The Big House, the author's loving tribute to his one-of-a-kind family home, interweaves glimpses of that elegiac final visit with memories of earlier summers spent at the house and of the equally idiosyncratic people who lived there over the course of five generations.
Built by Colt's great-grandfather one hundred years ago on a deserted Cape Cod peninsula, the house is a local landmark (neighboring children know it as the Ghost House): a four-story, eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, sloped roofs, and dormers. The emotional home of the Colt family, the Big House has watched over five weddings, four divorces, and three deaths, along with countless anniversaries, birthday parties, nervous breakdowns, and love affairs. Beaten by wind and rain, insulated by seaweed, it is both romantic and run-down, a symbol of the faded glory of the Boston Brahmin aristocracy.
With a mixture of amusement and affection, Colt traces the rise and fall of this tragicomic social class while memorably capturing the essence of summer's ephemeral pleasures: sailing, tennis, fishing, rainy-day reading. Time seems to stand still in a summer house, and for the Colts the Big House always seemed an unchanging place in a changing world. But summer draws to a close, and the family must eventually say good-bye.
Elegant and evocative, The Big House is both magical and sad, a gift to anyone who holds cherished memories of summer.
Built by Colt's great-grandfather one hundred years ago on a deserted Cape Cod peninsula, the house is a local landmark (neighboring children know it as the Ghost House): a four-story, eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, sloped roofs, and dormers. The emotional home of the Colt family, the Big House has watched over five weddings, four divorces, and three deaths, along with countless anniversaries, birthday parties, nervous breakdowns, and love affairs. Beaten by wind and rain, insulated by seaweed, it is both romantic and run-down, a symbol of the faded glory of the Boston Brahmin aristocracy.
With a mixture of amusement and affection, Colt traces the rise and fall of this tragicomic social class while memorably capturing the essence of summer's ephemeral pleasures: sailing, tennis, fishing, rainy-day reading. Time seems to stand still in a summer house, and for the Colts the Big House always seemed an unchanging place in a changing world. But summer draws to a close, and the family must eventually say good-bye.
Elegant and evocative, The Big House is both magical and sad, a gift to anyone who holds cherished memories of summer.
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Author
George Howe Colt
George Howe Colt is the bestselling author of The Big House, which was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Brothers; November of the Soul; and The Game. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Anne Fadiman.
Read more from George Howe Colt
The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Game: Harvard, Yale, and America in 1968 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brothers: On His Brothers and Brothers in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Big House
Rating: 3.8960001600000003 out of 5 stars
4/5
125 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although I loved Colt's descriptions of his very own reactions to the house and his family members, I had a hard time feeling as absorbed as perhaps I should have been with so much history. I was much more interested in the more recent happenings to the house. So much more time has passed since Colt wrote this book that it would be fun to see an update on his own children, now young adults, and their reactions to the Big House.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's very good if you enjoy the history of families, houses, etc. It isn't the best bio/memoir I've ever read, but it was something different from what I normally read. No complaints :)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I've always wanted to go to Cape Cod, and this gave me a little WASP-y taste of it. There's quite a bit of history, and a good deal of "the times they are a-changin'" Also lots of family-style sentimentality.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Colt's memoir of his family's summer home on Cape Cod is intermingled with a family history of the families that lived and loved within its walls. Unlike many books of similar vein, Colt manages to tell his tale without the acidity of his peers.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Colt's descriptions of The House fill the senses so much so that his house feels like my house. The history of Cape Cod - it's evolution from a natural setting to an exclusive enclave for New England's Old Money was interesting. That said, his need to estabish himself via family members and their peers reveals a way of thinking and living that I found shallow in the extreme. An interesting read giving a personal glimpse into one of America's social classes and their environment.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intriguing idea, well written. The history of the summer house and the history of the family -- a Brahmin family from Boston -- is well-integrated. Half of the time you're jealous you weren't a part of it, half of the time relieved. But the passion for the house -- really for heritage is there and makes this an easy read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book! Colt's family is faced with the sale of a beach house where the family and extended family spent many summers. The house is very large, and very expensive to repair and maintain. He has included a history of Cape Cod. His descriptions were so good that I imagined I could smell the salt air, or the dusty close atmosphere of a house that is ready to be opened for the season. I could see in my mind, the hide and seek games the children played with all the nooks and crannies that provided wonderful hiding places. I would recommend this to anyone who spent summers at the beach -- and to those who didn't.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Having spent many summers in my in-laws run-down cottage in Northern Michigan, I grew to love it more than any place in the world. I enjoyed weeks of summer fun with my kids up there as they learned to swim and play tennis, we walked in the rain, picked and jammed raspberries and spent hours playing board games. We had lots of summers in Michigan but it was always the cottage that made me feel like I was home and had found my soul. When I say it was run-down, I really mean it. It was neglected for years due to a stalemate between my mother and father-in-law. It languished during the winters, and each summer there would be a new problem with the structure. As we slept at night, mice would run through and take up residence in the fireplace wood, in the rafters or a corner that hadn't been noticed in awhile. The smell of the place was so distinct that I could smell the musty order in my clothes long after we returned to suburbia and the hectic pace of our everyday lives. When storms would come rolling in off Lake Michigan, we would sit on the porch and watch as the trees would blow, the thunder would deafen us, and pools of water would gather at the end of the road. The sound of rain pounding on the roof was extraordinary because there was no ceiling of insulation to mute the sound. It was wonderful to lay in bed at night and listen to nature come down around us. And every couple of years a hoot owl would take up residence in a nearby 100 foot tree and call out in the dark of the night, "Who, Whoo, Who-Who." I hope my children have fond memories of their summer life in the family cottage. Certainly their memories of when we were up there as an intact family have to be more pleasant than when we would leave for weeks while my ex-husband stayed at home by himself. My kids are 5th generation in the cottage that had been named Tynneycoed by their great grandparents. Their grandmother grew up in it, and always maintained she hated the place, which was something we couldn't fathom. My ex-husband had only spent sporadic time in the cottage while he grew up, so my kids were very fortunate to be able to spend so much time having care-free fun summers. It was the love and kindness of my in-laws that gave us that gift each summer -- a sacrifice that was not lost on us. As the years have gone on, and the cottage was falling in around itself, my then-husband and I used to dream of fixing it up, enlarging it and creating a summer home where the whole family could come together to enjoy each other's company. He has four siblings, so the dreams were grandeous, but that was our dream, not necessarily the rest of the family's. Of course the question of what to do with a cottage that has been in the family for 5 generations when it's time to pass it is a sticky issue. As George Howe Colt so eloquently writes, it's a very complex issue because there is so much emotion and family history involved. What one member of the family wants, some other family member doesn't. Where one person has a terrible memory of the place, someone else has wonderful memories. So what to do with a family cottage when the current generation doesn't want it or can't afford to keep it? What to do when the family dynamics change, marriages end and children grow up? The family cottage I spent 19 years raising my children in, has become off limits to me because I divorced my husband. As a result, my kids haven't been to their family cottage in two years, and might not ever be back. How sad for them. My friends in Michigan tell me the cottage looks sad and forlorn because we are not it. Where the lights in the cottage at night brought the cottage to life, now it sits dark and empty most of the summer. When I read this book it was the summer of 2005; I was sitting on the screened-in porch of the cottage and I instinctively knew that I would never spend another summer there. In fact, I unexpectedly separated from my husband 6 days after returning to our home in suburban Chicago. I felt the same heaviness in my heart that Colt felt in his heart when he decided to sell his summer home. It truly is like mourning a family member, and you're left with the feeling that you will miss her immensely, but you're grateful for every moment you spent together. The memories of the LaMay family cottage will live on in my heart, even though I will never see it again.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A memoir that covers not only the house, but the family in it, and the times. An interesting history of how Cape Cod was settled, and how the house was designed, built, and changed. The story about the family went on too long and got confusing trying to keep all the names and relations straight.The writing was good, and he was able to evoke childhood memories, even though I didn't have the same type of childhood, or even spend time in a house on the coast. The theme running through the book is that in the current day the family has to sell the house. They have less money and less ability to pay for the upkeep and taxes on the place. So there is a sadness and a melancholy to the memories. The ending of the book is about how some of the family-members start working together to save the house. It was interesting, and I enjoyed it.The middle part of the book was where it got a bit boring, and probably could have been cut down.