By Henry Petroski
An architectural whodunit that unlocks the secrets and techniques of a hand-built home.
whilst Henry Petroski and his spouse Catherine acquired a captivating yet modest six-decades-old island retreat in coastal Maine, Petroski couldn’t aid yet recognize its strange building. An eminent specialist on engineering, historical past, and layout, he all started thinking about concerning the place’s origins and evolution: Who outfitted it, and the way? What wishes, fabrics, applied sciences, historic advancements, and legislation formed it? How had it fared over the years with its numerous population?
Sleuthing round dimly lit closets, knotty-pine wall panels, or even a mystery passage―but by no means elimination quite a bit as a nail―Petroski zooms in at the information but additionally steps again to ascertain the constitution within the context of its time and place.
Catherine Petroski’s attractive images seize the clues and the ambience. a colourful solid of friends and earlier residents―most particularly the house’s masterful writer, an engineer-turned-“folk architect”―become key characters within the story.
As the secret unfolds, revealing a unprecedented condo and its environs, this ode to loving layout will depart readers enchanted and inspired.
eighty pictures
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Additional resources for The House with Sixteen Handmade Doors: A Tale of Architectural Choice and Craftsmanship
Sample text
Milly describes its floor being supported by beams that retain the character of tree trunks, in that they were given a flat surface only on the side on which the floor rests; on other sides the roundness of the log is still visible and covered with bark. The house was once occupied by the mill operator and is thought to be one of the oldest extant on the entire island. The Stafford house George and Milly were long-standing and outstanding citizens of Arrowsic and its environs. At one time or another he served as Arrowsic’s constable, fire chief, civil defense director, town meeting moderator, election clerk, and member of the planning board.
There were the usual details to be worked out between the lawyer in Maine representing us and the one in Pennsylvania for the sellers, but everything appeared to be on track for a closing in late September—until our attorney called to announce a snag. It seemed that the driveway from the public road to the point property was under dispute between abutting neighbors. To put in the drive, some trees had been cut down, which violated the restrictive covenant that a buffer of trees alongside the road was to be preserved.
This house certainly has plenty of doors, especially to closets, and the structures within are very revealing. I have spent much spare time exploring the house’s design and construction, coaxing clues out of its fabric. Difficult as it might have been to walk the precise boundaries of our riverfront property, even aided by walking sticks but unencumbered with surveying instruments, it is easy to circumambulate this rectangular house and grasp its rectilinear layout. But the deceptively simple geometry would prove to have concealed behind its rigid planes of knotty pine the ghosts of its construction.