The New Shingled House

The architectural style of the classic American summer, the shingled house can suggest the beach, the countryside, the mountains, and even the city. AD100 architects Ike Kligerman Barkley, one of the most successful firms practicing in a traditional style today, presents 14 houses that celebrate the simple wood shingle’s infinite flexibility—ranging from richly historic to sculptural and experimental. The New Shingled House includes examples throughout the fabled seaside resorts of New England—Martha’s Vineyard, Block Island, and the Hamptons—as well as houses in California’s Bay Area and Point Loma, on a pristine mountain lake in South Carolina, and a Scandinavian influenced family residence in Connecticut. All are characterized by a sense of graciousness and generosity that makes them unique spaces for the owners and enviable spaces for readers. The versatility of the shingle style allows the designers to explore formal ideas and to respond to client preferences and taste. The houses thus achieve the architects’ fundamental goal: when their clients enter their new house for the first time, they should feel as though they have always lived there. This stunning visual presentation features new photography by noted interiors photographer William Waldron, who has captured the graciousness and generosity of the elegant interiors and welcoming porches and terraces that make these houses so inviting and timeless.

An exploration of the most important shingle style houses built in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Marin County in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Consider the lowly shingle. Rarely has a single building material had such a metamorphosis in its architectural influence. Shingle Style presents 165 modern designs from 20 of todays finest home designers and architects. These professionals make the most of modern interior floorplanning: built-ins, storage areas and efficient traffic flow from room to room. Their exteriors, however, maintain the classic look and influences from the turn of the 19th Century.

A monograph on the work on an American architecture firm, famous for capturing the essence of 'The American Summer'.

Shingle Style flourished in the Gilded Age environs of Newport, Rhode Island, during the 1880s. The setting for the film "High Society," and the location of John F. Kennedy's wedding, it continues to enchant residents and visitors alike with an unparalleled concentration of carefully preserved architecture. With asymmetrical wood frames and shingled stories set dramatically on stone foundations, these romantic homes were intended to blend in with the surrounding landscape, creating a unified look, while at the same time incorporating fantastical elements such as gables, brick and stone chimneys, bands of small-paned windows, turrets, columns, and pediments. Recently, American vernacular architecture has witnessed a renaissance, as impressive new Shingle Style homes are built alongside those that have presided along the rugged Rhode Island coastline for more than a century. This collection of 15 homes, showcased with full-color photos and evocative text, represents the best of Newport Shingle Style — now and then.

Cool breezes, miles of pristine beaches, and vast, open farmland have long attracted visitors to Long Island's South Fork, known worldwide as "The Hamptons." Residents in picturesque seaside communities from Southampton to Montauk are calling upon world-class designers to fine-tune their visions, giving rise to a fresh design vernacular: homes that are testaments to what can be achieved when inspired by the natural beauty of a unique locale--and when imagination is one's only limitation. Out East captures the enduring appeal of shingled houses, modernist oceanfront designs, artists' compounds, and Montauk surf shacks. Jennifer Ash Rudick, a long-time Southampton resident, leads an insider's tour of more than 25 houses, cottages, and pool houses. Tria Giovan, a Sag Harbor-based photographer, captures extraordinary gardens, verandas, lakeside pavilions, farmhouses, and converted barns.

Each year the pristine beaches, lush pine forests, and picturesque New England towns of Martha’s Vineyard draw tens of thousands of admirers to this beautiful island. Some of these visitors have become part-time residents, building contemporary homes alongside the traditional Victorian cottages, sea captains’ mansions, and colonial farmhouses that comprise the island’s cultural and architectural heritage. Rarely does one find such a concentration of outstanding contemporary design. Authors Keith Moskow and Robert Linn expand their 2005 survey of Vineyard residential design to present twenty-five new houses that extend the traditional Vineyard vernacular of shingled houses and cottages. Each of the architects has described the goals for the project and the source of the design. Some reference nautical themes, others environmental concerns, and still others appropriateness of materials and scale. A significant number rely on a plan strategy based on a series of pavilions to minimize intrusion in the landscape while still taking advantage of views and prevailing breezes. What links the houses is that they are all built to stand the test of time in the sometimes extreme marine environment and they respectfully break with tradition.

Acclaimed architect Gil Schafer illustrates how he blends classical architecture, interior decoration, and landscape to create homes with a feeling of history. As a traditional architect, Gil Schafer specializes in building new "old" houses as well as renovating historic homes. His work takes the best of American historic and classical architecture—its detailed moldings and harmonious proportions—and updates it, retaining its character and detail while simultaneously reworking it to be more in tune with the way we live now—comfortable, practical, family-oriented. In his first book, Schafer covers the three essential cornerstones of creating a great traditional house: architecture, landscape, and decoration. He discusses the important interplay between the interior architecture and the fabrics, furniture, and wall treatments. In-depth profiles build on these essays, including Schafer’s own new "old" house in the Hudson Valley; the renovation of a historic home in Nashville designed by Charles Platt in 1915; and the restoration of a magnificent 1843 Greek Revival mansion in Charleston. Filled with hundreds of interior and detail shots, The Great American House is an invaluable resource for anyone who loves old houses and traditional design.