The big house : a century in the life of an American summer home / George Howe Colt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colt, George Howe.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historic buildings--Massachusetts--Cape Cod.

Vacation homes--Massachusetts--Cape Cod.

Vacation homes.

Historic buildings.

Cape Cod (Mass.)--Social life and customs.

Colt, George Howe.

Cape Cod (Mass.)--Biography.

Colt family.

Massachusetts--Cape Cod.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

viii, 327 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Scribner, [2003]

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Prologue: Winter 1

I Arriving 5

II The Family Tree 20

III 1963 30

IV The Discovery of Cape Cod 42

V Rooftree 60

VI Renovations 79

VII Fishing 89

VIII The North and South Faces 100

IX The Barn 117

X Plain Living 123

XI Money 131

XII Sailing 142

XIII Tennis 158

Midsummer 173

XIV Hidden House 181

XV The Big Cove 205

XVI Missing Cards 217

XVII Rain 228

XVIII The White Elephant 237

XIX Full House 257

XX Florida 272

XXI Leaving 284

Epilogue: Indian Summer 301.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [321]-324).

ISBN:

0684845172

OCLC:

50912883

Online:

Publisher description