Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles

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Summary: This book has been very helpful.
Review: I'm an architect and I refer to this book often. The book gives good examples of various types of traditional American architecture. Each example is of a famous house and the author gives a history and a breakdown of the details for each home.
At the end of each chapter the author goes into further discussion of the details with hand sketches pointing out the important aspects of these details.

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Summary: Beautiful photos and excellent information
Review: My wife and I love this book. It explains architectural styles by profiling oustanding examples found throughout the United States. The McAlesters not only explain the architectural elements that make a house extraordinary, they also give the fascinating history of the homes and their owners, which include Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison. In each profile, they also include simple line drawings that clearly identify the features of the style. Since buying this book, we have visited eight of the 25 houses and plan on seeing them all. This book will not gather dust on your coffee table.

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Summary: A beautiful Architectual and Interior Design Book
Review: The book has beautiful pictures of historical homes through out the United States. It also includes details about the architecture designs and a listing about how you can visit these house museums.

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Summary: It's hard to put down
Review: The houses are unbelievable and some of our best treasures. For example; Falaise a house built by the Harry Guggenheim, is absolutely beautiful. It is not untastefully large, just right, a dream house. As an architect I am going to try to use some of this house's style in some future designs. By the way, the book failed to mention the house was used for the interior shots for the movie magnate's house in the "Godfather". Try to guess which room was used for the horse's head scene.

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Summary: Well done all around.
Review: You could think of this as a coffee-table version of the McAlester's Field Guide to American Houses (which I also recommend.) In this case each house is an historical landmark as well as an exemplar of an architectural style, and the photos are suitably sumptuous. I like coffee-table books that also give you solid information as well as pretty pictures, and this one succeeds admirably on both counts. It may not have every artist's or magnate's house you can think of, but it has a lot of them. A modern classic.

Rating:
Summary: Well done all around.
Review: You could think of this as a coffee-table version of the McAlester's Field Guide to American Houses (which I also recommend.) In this case each house is an historical landmark as well as an exemplar of an architectural style, and the photos are suitably sumptuous. I like coffee-table books that also give you solid information as well as pretty pictures, and this one succeeds admirably on both counts. It may not have every artist's or magnate's house you can think of, but it has a lot of them. A modern classic.