American Shelter : An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Homes

Each short chapter--beginning with Native American earth lodges and ending with speculative space station housing--covers a specific type of home architecture in the United States. Walkers straightforward prose is accompanied by cutaway drawings, detailed floor plans, and superbly rendered drawings of home exteriors.

It would be impossible in a short review to name all of the various styles covered by Walker. He covers everything from such well-known styles as the A-frame and Greek Revival to styles that may be less familiar to some: the baled hay and sod homes of 1890s Nebraska, the silo and yurt homes which gained popularity in the 1970s, and more. Another fascinating part of the book is the presence of many famous homes: Thomas Jeffersons Monticello, Frank Lloyd Wrights Falling Water, and more.

Along the way, the reader will encounter many wonderful surprises--check out, for example, the "Elephant House" designed by James Lafferty! "American Shelter" is a book that you can pick up and start reading anywhere. But if you read this from cover to cover, you will have taken a truly epic journey with a master artist-historian.

Lester Walker spent hundreds of hours researching various American architectural styles, going to such sources as the 1900s editions of Ladies Home Journal, which published plans for "A Small House With Lots of Room in it" by a young upstart named Frank Lloyd Wright. Walker gives us the first-floor house plans, along with a birds-eye view of Wrights "Small House." In this illustration Walker uses captions and arrows to innumerate the salient features of "Wrightian" architecture.

So it goes throughout American Shelter. Walker starts with the dwellings of American Indians and takes us through over 100 different styles that were popular at one time or another in our diverse history. A read through this book is a stroll through our history. The author not only points out the defining features of each style, but also tells why and how it came into vogue.

Color photos are not the only "must have" features conspicuously absent. Missing is also judgmental, cavalier, snobbery. No architectural style is treated as inferior, common, or "tiresome." Quonset Hut, Converted Train Car, and Prefabricated are given just as much respect as Victorian, International, and Prairie.

Examples of houses of various architects that typify or characterize each style are shown in line drawings with accompanying floor plans and often with illustrations on house building styles or techniques. For example, on page 71 a "method for making cedar clapboards" is illustrated. Balloon, Platform, and Post and Beam framing methods are explained with accompanying illustrations.

The book is about individual dwelling units, not apartment houses, and not commercial or industrial buildings. For what it is, and does, it is the definitive work. I have had many hours of enjoyable reading and learning from this book. My only complaint is with the bookbinder, not the author. Some of the pages of my copy are upside down! Perhaps, like the famous upside-down airplane stamp, my copy is rare and valuable? Then again: perhaps not, but right side up, or upside down, it has been well worth the purchase price.

One final piece of advise: buy the hardback copy, not the paperback. This book is a "keeper", one you will frequenly get down from the bookself to review, loan to friends (holding the friends firstborn ransome for the books return), and pass on in your will.