Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles

This book is a must have for those who are interested in historic houses. We plan to visit every house over the next 10 years.

This is wonderful book on a most deserving subject. American is blessed with amazing houses, built mostly during the Gilded Age by business barons. This book does a great job illustrating the different styles and discussing the houses that best embody these styles. The color photos are vivid and crisp and the houses chosen are spectacular. The text is highly informative and very interesting. It is so refreshing that so many of these mansions have survived for so long and thankfully these examples have been well cared for. It must have been difficult for the author to choose just one house to illustrate a style, but it's hard to argue with the ones she ultimatly chose. Nice read.

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.

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.

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.