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Summary: A work of love that you will love
Review: Bet you can't read just one. You cannot read just one page about one house and pore over the drawing of just that one house. I am not an architect, a builder, designer, or (anymore) even a houseowner, and I was grabbed by this book. And you will want to look at it again and again. This book is more than an work of love in which 103 kinds of American houses are described, it is-- unintentionally I suspect-- an anthropological study! And it is a study worthy of a doctoral dissertation in history. Our author moves easily from wigwams to Victorian houses to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses and on. Surely he has missed something-- perhaps my deceased old Granddad's "Molly Brown" house, which uses piles of rocks for its foundation (you can see an excellent example of the style at the entrance to the Smokey Mts Park from the Eastern side). You will be looking at houses with a keen eye as you drive down the street after reading this book. You will not be able to help it, nor will you want to, for it is enriching. In this sense the book will forever change you, and you will be enlightened in a minor way.
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Summary: American Shelter is now available in softcover.
Review: Dear Readers, my book, American Shelter, has just been republished in softcover. It has also been updated with current architectural house styles. Hope you enjoy it
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Summary: Mysteriously mesmerizing
Review: For reasons beyond my comprehension this book has a very strong gravitational pull. Even before I realized that this priceless compilation of architectural styles had a use I was attracted to it like a moth is attracted to a flickering light. Scientific studies show that moths fly into the light because of an intense parallax effect: moths find direction by the angle of the light, and the angle changes as the moth flies by, forcing it to veer off into the lamp in order to keep going "forward". Fortunately enough, contact with this book is not quite as damaging for you as it is for the above-mentioned moth, however alluring the prospect might be.Every beautiful page of American Shelter is devoted entirely to a specific architectural style, which is usually described in terms of a large, detailed line drawing from a 3/4 above view, followed by several sketches detailing the dimensions, followed with a simplified sketch explaining the style's basic shapes, all finally elucidated by a written passage. American Shelter is as useful to the architect as it is to the writer as it is to the researcher. Enjoy.
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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I got this book without knowing too much about it, other than the cover and the title. It turned out to be so much more that I expected. This is a gem of a book. The type that gets the best position on your bookshelf. The book covers every style of shelter and architectural style that the US has gone through. Each one is illustrated with the most wonderful drawings. It is totally facinating to look at and a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: American Shelter
Review: I own the poster American Shelter by the same author, and wanted to see the explanations behind the dates and titles. As an architectural historian, I've studied many of these styles, but there are some new variations of house styles that are not part of any other reference book. This book has fun graphics and easy to follow descriptions. For the trained historians, architects, etc., this book is an amusing addition to your collections. To the architectural housing enthusiasts, this could be a helpful resource.
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Summary: Excellent Reference for Planners and Designers
Review: I purchased this book while I was an undergraduate studying city planning. This book has been on my shelf since it was published and I still use it quite frequently today. This is a fantastic reference for anyone interested in housing, architecture and urban design. In fact, I highly recommend this book to any planning students with a housing or preservation focus. You will not regret having made the investment!
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Summary: Absorbing and beautifully rendered
Review: I write this message quite bleary eyed--I made the mistake of opening American Shelter around 11:30pm last night, just as I was drowsily stretching out beneath the covers in the full anticipation of quickly dozing off. It was well past two in the morning when my wife made me finally turn the light off. A delightful and captivating work, indeed.
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Summary: Excellent Reference for Planners and Designers
Review: If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.
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Summary: No historian should be without it
Review: If you ever have reason to write (fictionally or otherwise) about American architecture (chiefly domestic), you shouldn't miss a chance to add this volume to your shelves. (It's included in the file I always send to Old-West mavens wanting to know what they should read.) Chapters range from two to eight pages in length and cover everything from the earth lodge of the Southeastern Plains Indians to the projected space station now three years past due. Typically, each includes the time and region in which the original style was most abundant, a few paragraphs explaining its history and salient features, and a number of finely detailed pen-and-ink sketches portraying exterior details and often cutaways and floor plans. The book can also be used as a field guide to help you decide what kind of house you happen to be looking at. From log cabins to Frank Lloyd Wright, Mount Vernon to the humble Quonset hut, every major kind of American house is here. This is an item that cries to be brought back into print. Until it is, don't miss a chance to pick up a used copy if you're afforded one.
Rating:
Summary: American Shelter
Review: If your bookshelf only has room for one book on American architecture, this should be that book. Most of the books on architecture seem like a lot of style, but not much substance: many pages of pictures, often quite enticing, but leaving the reader with little knowledge of just what constitutes the various architecture styles so illustrated, or how styles relate to one another. Lester Walker spent hundreds of hours researching various American architectural styles, going to such sources as the 1900's editions of Ladies Home Journal, which published plans for "A Small House With Lots of Room in it" by a young upstart named Frank Lloyd Wright. Walker gives us the first-floor house plans, along with a birds-eye view of Wright's "Small House." In this illustration Walker uses captions and arrows to innumerate the salient features of "Wrightian" architecture. So it goes throughout American Shelter. Walker starts with the dwellings of American Indians and takes us through over 100 different styles that were popular at one time or another in our diverse history. A read through this book is a stroll through our history. The author not only points out the defining features of each style, but also tells why and how it came into vogue. Color photos are not the only "must have" features conspicuously absent. Missing is also judgmental, cavalier, snobbery. No architectural style is treated as inferior, common, or "tiresome." Quonset Hut, Converted Train Car, and Prefabricated are given just as much respect as Victorian, International, and Prairie. Examples of houses of various architects that typify or characterize each style are shown in line drawings with accompanying floor plans and often with illustrations on house building styles or techniques. For example, on page 71 a "method for making cedar clapboards" is illustrated. Balloon, Platform, and Post and Beam framing methods are explained with accompanying illustrations. The book is about individual dwelling units, not apartment houses, and not commercial or industrial buildings. For what it is, and does, it is the definitive work. I have had many hours of enjoyable reading and learning from this book. My only complaint is with the bookbinder, not the author. Some of the pages of my copy are upside down! Perhaps, like the famous upside-down airplane stamp, my copy is rare and valuable? Then again: perhaps not, but right side up, or upside down, it has been well worth the purchase price. One final piece of advise: buy the hardback copy, not the paperback. This book is a "keeper", one you will frequenly get down from the bookself to review, loan to friends (holding the friend's firstborn ransome for the book's return), and pass on in your will.
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