Product Description

Stone Houses: Traditional Homes of Pennsylvania’s Bucks County and Brandywine Valley is a unique presentation of beloved building traditions in one of the most charming and historically significant regions in the nation. Houses, barns, and outbuildings dating from the colonial and Federal periods, built with local stone predominantly in an English Cotswold vernacular style, represent a form that has become popular across the nation. Geoffrey Gross’s stunning photographs document a remarkable collection of early buildings, including the John Chad House (circa 1720), Peter Wentz Farmstead (circa 1758), and Buckingham Friends Meeting House (1768), as well as more recent designs, in part inspired by such traditional homes, by architects R. Brognard Okie, G. Edwin Brumbaugh, and John D. Milner. Part of the original Pennsylvania Colony founded in March of 1681 by William Penn, the region encompassing Bucks County and the Brandywine Valley is important not only for its history as an early English settlement in the New World, but also for its role as a crucial site in the struggle for American independence. The evidence for this is obvious in the story of its houses. Some notable examples include the Thompson-Neely House at Washington Crossing, in which, it is said, Washington’s officers were billeted during the famous night of his crossing of the Delaware, and Pennsbury Manor, the reconstructed home of William Penn. With its authoritative text and exquisite full-color photography, Stone Houses is a beautiful record of a historically rich regional building tradition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212820 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-03
• Released on: 2005-05-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780847826872
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Margaret Bye Richie is an architectural historian who has specialized in the buildings of Bucks County. She is the author of Victorian Sketchbook.
Gregory D. Huber is an architectural historian and authority on old houses. He is the co-author of New World Dutch Barn: The Evolution, Forms, and Structure of a Disappearing Icon.
John D. Milner is an architect who has specialized in the restoration of early houses in the Delaware Valley for the past 30 years.
Geoffrey Gross is the photographer of Dutch Colonial Homes in America.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful book, great pictures
This book contains a wonderful pictorial view of stone houses, better than I've ever seen. It includes all forms of construction and gives very informative descriptions of each style. The history related here is invaluable to the reader, as it takes you back in time. The pictures are full color and very articulately done. I found the colors presented in the homes helpful to me in restoring our stone house, built in the 1830's. This book is more than a "coffee table" book, it's a history lesson.

BEAUTIFUL STONE
I have always thought the stone used on houses in the Philadelphia area was beautiful; it's warm and elegant. This book has crisp images and well researched, interesting text on these wonderful homes. If you have any interest in this subject then I highly recommend this book, you won't be disappointed.

Pretty But Somewhat Superficial
This is a very pretty book and very well photographed. The choice of houses, however, left something to be desired and the writeups on the houses themselves were thin and more akin to a puffy decorator magazine than any kind of detailed study. The book also had utterly no floorplan sketches for any of the homes, which is really almost mandatory for an architecture book. Some of the houses selected were not of any particular merit nor were they even old. Most of the write-ups on the various houses had almost nothing to say about the architectural detail and history nor any kind of regional or sub-regional analysis. Some photos were selected obviously because they were "pretty" but had utterly nothing to do with Pennsylvania -- the New England chest on the back cover is a good example. It's a nice book to flip through but don't expect great depth.