The big house [eBook - NC Digital Library] : A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home

Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent forty-two summers, George Howe Colt recounts returning for one last stay with his wife and children in this stunning memoir that was a National Book Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This poignant tribute to the eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, and dormers that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt's final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers. Run-down yet romantic, The Big House stands not only as a cherished reminder of summer's ephemeral pleasures but also as a powerful symbol of a vanishing way of life. 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

Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent forty-two summers, George Howe Colt returned for one last stay with his wife and children. This poignant tribute to the eleven-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, and dormers that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt's final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers. Run-down yet romantic, the Big House stands not only as a cherished reminder of summer's ephemeral pleasures but also as a powerful symbol of a vanishing way of life.

The New Yorker

In 1903, the author's great-grandfather, a Boston Brahmin named Edward W. Atkinson, built his family a house on Cape Cod, at Wings Neck, the last undeveloped peninsula overlooking Buzzards Bay. The Big House, as this multi-storied conglomeration of gables, dormers, and bays came to be called, included eleven bedrooms, seven fireplaces, and a warren of closets, cupboards, and crannies that four generations of Wings Neck children have used for games of Sardines. It was also an expensive firetrap with sixty-seven windows in need of attention, leaking roofs, wildlife procreating in its walls, and no indoor shower. In 1992, after agonized debate, the family decided to put it on the market. Colt's account, like the house that lies at its center, is full of surprises and contains more than seems humanly possible: a family memoir, a brief history of the Cape, an investigation of nostalgia, a catalogue of local fauna, a study of class, and a meditation on the privileges and burdens of the past.

The Big House was built in 1903 by the author's great-great-grandfather, Ned Atkinson. It is now a century later and George Colt, with his wife, and young daughter and infant son have come to spend what may be their last summer in the family retreat on Wings Neck, Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts. The rambling eleven bedroom house is up for sale. Over the course of their stay George reminiscences about not only his experiences there growing up, but also the lives of his ancestors and how their experiences all entwined to contribute to the essence of "the big house" and the role it played in their lives. It is a thoughtful, historically informative, honest portrayal of several generations of "Boston Brahmin" culture. Anyone who grew up on the New England coast will probably find it especially good reading. George Howe Colt Recounts The Experiences He Had While Staying At His Family's Summer Home In Cape Cod And Profiles The People Who Lived There Over The Course Of Five Generations. 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. George Howe Colt. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [321]-324). "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 elegaic 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"--Front flap A dual history of the Colt family and their summer house on Cape Cod recounts the house's construction one hundred years earlier, including five generations of family events and the family's last month in the house. In this intimate and poignant history of a sprawling century-old summer house on Cape Cod, Colt explores not just one family's fascinating story but a vanishing way of life