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The Big House: 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.
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.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 20, 2003
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About the author
George Howe Colt
5 books47 followersGeorge Howe Colt is the bestselling author of November of the Soul The Enigma of Suicide and The Big House, which was a National Book Award finalist and a New York Times notable book. He is married to the American author Anne Fadiman and lives with his family in Western Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 635 reviews
August 29, 2007
This book really hit home for me. As my Dad said after reading this book, EVERYONE has a 'Big House' whether it is an actual house, people, a place, or just a time of your life that is ephemeral. This chronicles the story of a house that has been a part of the New England Colt family for several generations and how once their family fortune was squandered after many many years, it became impossible to keep this house in which so many memories were born. It is at times hysterical, tragic, heartwarming, and always familiar. The authors father is one of my grandfather's best friends so I must say this book struck a real chord with me. Loved it!
August 5, 2008
I was unpacking books today and found this great books in the bottom of a box. It is written by a man whose family has owned a home on cape Cod for 100 years and now, because of the cost of upkeep and the number of family members, it is being sold. He begins the book with his last visit to the house he has been going to all his life and then goes back to the memories of all the years it has been in the family. It is a poignant book about family, legacies, memories, and how to say good-bye to a place that has meant so much to the author and his whole family. It is a tear-jerker! I read this on an airplane and had to hide my face next to the window so my seat mate wouldn't know I was crying when he wrote about remembering his grandparents waving good-bye to them at the end of their summer visits! It is so worth reading.
January 31, 2016
The Big House has been part of the Colt family history since it was built by the author's great grandfather, Ned Atkinson in the very early years of the 18th century. Build on Bluff overlooking Cape Cod, it is the epitome of a bygone era, during which time all the old Boston families were building summer homes as an escape from the city. And though large and rambling, one time staffed by a host of maids and boasting a separate cottage to house the chauffeur, like other summer homes of it's era it was built to showcase the Puritan spirit that infused Boston at that time - humble, almost shabby, and certainly not a showcase for the family's immense wealth. Over time, the Atkinson family, later the Colts, lost their money and their name ceased to hold the sway it once had, though it was still loved and recognized by those with similarly prestigious pedigrees. The house, like the family, began to fall into disprepair, but despite that the family returned here every summer to fill it with laughter and memories. And that is what this book is, the memories and history of not only the house and family, but the Cape itself, as the George Colt brings his own young family here to spend one last summer before it's sold.
I didn't go into this book expecting much. I mean, how interesting could a book about the history of a summer house be? But it was a loving tribute to a man's life, to his family, and to the place he loved more than any other. It is a nostalgic and bittersweet, and utterly captivating tale of a particular American experience. And though I didn't grow up on the Cape, or even anywhere near the ocean, it made me homesick for days past. It also filled me with a desire to find a way to give my family these kind of memories. We aren't vacationers, and we certainly don't return to the same place year after year, but this book makes me wish we were. I absolutely treasure every word this author wrote and I'm deeply thankful that he wrote down his memories of that last summer, shared his family story - warts and all.
I didn't go into this book expecting much. I mean, how interesting could a book about the history of a summer house be? But it was a loving tribute to a man's life, to his family, and to the place he loved more than any other. It is a nostalgic and bittersweet, and utterly captivating tale of a particular American experience. And though I didn't grow up on the Cape, or even anywhere near the ocean, it made me homesick for days past. It also filled me with a desire to find a way to give my family these kind of memories. We aren't vacationers, and we certainly don't return to the same place year after year, but this book makes me wish we were. I absolutely treasure every word this author wrote and I'm deeply thankful that he wrote down his memories of that last summer, shared his family story - warts and all.
October 8, 2008
Reading G.H. Colt's The Big House you may find yourself shutting the book at page 150, and thinking to yourself, "Wait, why do I feel sorry for this dude -- in the original sense of the word -- who summers every August in Wings Neck? Because he's losing his summer home? Errr ..."
Yet, you can't help but be intrigued by Colt's well-written book. He has tale after tale to tell about his time spent at his summer home, built many generations ago by his great-great-great ... great grandfather, Ned Atkinson -- the original Bostonian Brahmin.
I did raise my eyebrow more than once as I read through certain sections. Like, the table of contents, which contains chapters titled, "Sailing" and "Tennis" which is fine, except for the fact that they sit directly under a chapter called "Plain Living." And it's quite plain, from the sum of his stories, that he embraces this type of irony.
This book does read a bit like a collection of 20 college admission essays, each answering the prompt, "What makes you tick? And, how does it impact the way you look at the world around you?" Which is to say, you might get bored at bits here and there, but if you actually stick it out, you may find more than you might immediately expect.
Yet, you can't help but be intrigued by Colt's well-written book. He has tale after tale to tell about his time spent at his summer home, built many generations ago by his great-great-great ... great grandfather, Ned Atkinson -- the original Bostonian Brahmin.
I did raise my eyebrow more than once as I read through certain sections. Like, the table of contents, which contains chapters titled, "Sailing" and "Tennis" which is fine, except for the fact that they sit directly under a chapter called "Plain Living." And it's quite plain, from the sum of his stories, that he embraces this type of irony.
This book does read a bit like a collection of 20 college admission essays, each answering the prompt, "What makes you tick? And, how does it impact the way you look at the world around you?" Which is to say, you might get bored at bits here and there, but if you actually stick it out, you may find more than you might immediately expect.
September 3, 2018
Best of all, there were books. Although it didn't take rain to get us reading in the Big House (in fact, reading inside on a sunny day gave us a deliciously guilty feeling), on an overcast afternoon people would be curled up with a book in almost every bedroom, with three or four of us draped over the sofas in the living room, physically proximate yet in separate worlds.
This book was just so incredibly charming and tragic. It made me nostalgic for something I have never had nor never will... a summer home on a rocky beach. It also made me think of my grandma. There's a lot of talk about older generations and people getting older. It definitely had me tearing up a lot. I fell deeply in love with this book, but I know that it is definitely not for everyone. If you have ever described a book as boring then this probably wouldn't be to your liking. For me personally, no books are boring. The simply stories of the Colt family and local history was just lovely and transported me to Wings Neck. I find myself feeling really sad that I will never get to see this house, explore its hidden passageways, or spend a day reading in George Howe Colt's favorite reading room in the house known as Mariah's room. This has become a new favorite book (added to the list of many).
This book was just so incredibly charming and tragic. It made me nostalgic for something I have never had nor never will... a summer home on a rocky beach. It also made me think of my grandma. There's a lot of talk about older generations and people getting older. It definitely had me tearing up a lot. I fell deeply in love with this book, but I know that it is definitely not for everyone. If you have ever described a book as boring then this probably wouldn't be to your liking. For me personally, no books are boring. The simply stories of the Colt family and local history was just lovely and transported me to Wings Neck. I find myself feeling really sad that I will never get to see this house, explore its hidden passageways, or spend a day reading in George Howe Colt's favorite reading room in the house known as Mariah's room. This has become a new favorite book (added to the list of many).
June 12, 2011
I need a map! And a geneology chart!! And what the heck is a Brahmin?? How have I not heard that term before? Granted, I am no Bostonian, but I did spend most of my life in the northeast... I'm so glad I'm past the architectural history and into the family's stories. I'm now able to keep my eyes open for more than 2 pages at a time! :)
6/11/11:
Okay - finished reading it this morning. (Obviously we are finished in the playoffs, or I never would have had that kind of time...) It did get a little bit better. But how is it that there is not one single picture of this Big House in the book??!! All you get is an illustration of 1/4 of a house on the cover, and who knows if that's what it really looks like... While the author went into plenty of detail about the house's structure, some of us who aren't so architecturally gifted have a hard time imagining a house that fits this description...
6/11/11:
Okay - finished reading it this morning. (Obviously we are finished in the playoffs, or I never would have had that kind of time...) It did get a little bit better. But how is it that there is not one single picture of this Big House in the book??!! All you get is an illustration of 1/4 of a house on the cover, and who knows if that's what it really looks like... While the author went into plenty of detail about the house's structure, some of us who aren't so architecturally gifted have a hard time imagining a house that fits this description...
September 30, 2020
I'm wavering between a 3 and a 4 on this. Mostly, as I was reading it, I was loving it, because it's well-written, and because nostalgia over old beloved houses is a subject that resonates with me. I liked that it was not only a bittersweet elegy to a lost time and a soon to be lost place, but also an ethnography of a certain type of Boston family. I was interested to realize that the author is married to Anne Fadiman. However, the ending felt really flat to me.
August 24, 2012
I have read few books so desperately in need of editing as George Howe Colt's The Big House. Colt tells the story of the grand old summer house on Cape Cod that has been in his family for over a century. If he had stuck to the story of that house, this would have been a very fine book. But the endless meditations on the peculiarities of Boston society are profoundly wearying. I can't even imagine a proper Bostonian putting up with page after page after page of his blather.
That said, there are some fine passages in life in an old summer house on the sea:
"...through our stay, the Big House has a well-settled look. The doors and windows are wide open. The front porch is littered with baseball mitts, snorkels, buckets, flip-flops, strands of dried and slightly odoriferous seaweed, scallop shells, and a rubber ball painted green and blue to resemble the earth. Wiffle balls, bats, Frisbees, badminton rackets, and a bicycle are scattered across the lawn. The clothesline is draped with colorful beach towels, fluttering like the pennants on the New York Yacht Club boats that used to anchor in the harbor each Fourth of July. Inside, a modest natural history collection accumulates on a bedroom sill: several jingle shells, a whelk’s egg case, a moon snail’s operculum, a beige horseshoe-crab cast the size of a silver dollar. No matter how much we sweep, small shoals of sand linger here and there, making a soft shuffling sound under our feet."
One of the big themes of the book is the tremendous resistance to change that typifies old-guard Boston society.
"Like Plimoth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg, the Big House is to be preserved intact, uncontaminated either by throwing anything out or by willingly introducing anything new. Any change is likely the result of serendipity: a book left on a bedside table, a shell on a mantelpiece, a toy car on the kitchen floor. If no one removes them immediately, they will likely be granted tenure. Several years ago, an iron bedstead in the Little Nursery lost a caster. For two summers the resulting tilt was ignored. This summer we arrived to find that a copy of Tess of the d’Urbervilles had been placed under the shortened leg. We haven’t touched it. Recently, sweeping up after a weekend of houseguests, I came across a guitar pick. For the time being, I put it in the wooden dish on the front hall shelf where the key to the Chelsea clock is kept. I know that if the house were not being sold, that guitar pick would remain there for decades, as immovable as a barnacle. My grandchildren would assume that Ned Atkinson played the guitar, and would venerate the pick as a holy relic."
Charming. If only the author had stuck to the This Old House theme. Really, a nice magazine article, perhaps for The Atlantic, would have been more than enough.
That said, there are some fine passages in life in an old summer house on the sea:
"...through our stay, the Big House has a well-settled look. The doors and windows are wide open. The front porch is littered with baseball mitts, snorkels, buckets, flip-flops, strands of dried and slightly odoriferous seaweed, scallop shells, and a rubber ball painted green and blue to resemble the earth. Wiffle balls, bats, Frisbees, badminton rackets, and a bicycle are scattered across the lawn. The clothesline is draped with colorful beach towels, fluttering like the pennants on the New York Yacht Club boats that used to anchor in the harbor each Fourth of July. Inside, a modest natural history collection accumulates on a bedroom sill: several jingle shells, a whelk’s egg case, a moon snail’s operculum, a beige horseshoe-crab cast the size of a silver dollar. No matter how much we sweep, small shoals of sand linger here and there, making a soft shuffling sound under our feet."
One of the big themes of the book is the tremendous resistance to change that typifies old-guard Boston society.
"Like Plimoth Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg, the Big House is to be preserved intact, uncontaminated either by throwing anything out or by willingly introducing anything new. Any change is likely the result of serendipity: a book left on a bedside table, a shell on a mantelpiece, a toy car on the kitchen floor. If no one removes them immediately, they will likely be granted tenure. Several years ago, an iron bedstead in the Little Nursery lost a caster. For two summers the resulting tilt was ignored. This summer we arrived to find that a copy of Tess of the d’Urbervilles had been placed under the shortened leg. We haven’t touched it. Recently, sweeping up after a weekend of houseguests, I came across a guitar pick. For the time being, I put it in the wooden dish on the front hall shelf where the key to the Chelsea clock is kept. I know that if the house were not being sold, that guitar pick would remain there for decades, as immovable as a barnacle. My grandchildren would assume that Ned Atkinson played the guitar, and would venerate the pick as a holy relic."
Charming. If only the author had stuck to the This Old House theme. Really, a nice magazine article, perhaps for The Atlantic, would have been more than enough.
September 22, 2018
While I love the idea of a family summer home, especially one in Cape Cod, the first half of this book was so dull that I almost gave up on it. It's another memoir where the author seems to think a general public reader will be totally fascinated by his or her family for some reason or another. Thus, no detail is left out about anything or anyone. The second half of the book fortunately was more interesting, but there still were problems with too many details, as well as invasion of privacy matters.
Really, does anyone want their mental and physical deterioration in old age described in detail in a memoir by a family member? I seriously doubt it. Yet dying individuals and dead individuals apparently have no privacy rights where memoirs are concerned. Moreover, why in the world do some memoirists think readers want to read such descriptions? Yes, it's reality, but that doesn't make it either interesting or tasteful. Or marital problems. In some memoirs there are reasons such problems need to be brought up, but not in this one.
The strength of this memoir is found in the thoughts and feelings of the beginning and end of summer, and in the thoughts and feelings of possibly having to give up a family summer home that's been in the family forever. Mr. Colt excels there, but, once again, he repeatedly marred the good parts of the story with way too many details. It's like he doesn't know when to shut up and let readers soak in what he wrote. He must throw in more and more details, as well as more and more descriptions of what everyone in the family was thinking and doing. Honestly, the Big House and the Colt family were not that intriguing.
Really, does anyone want their mental and physical deterioration in old age described in detail in a memoir by a family member? I seriously doubt it. Yet dying individuals and dead individuals apparently have no privacy rights where memoirs are concerned. Moreover, why in the world do some memoirists think readers want to read such descriptions? Yes, it's reality, but that doesn't make it either interesting or tasteful. Or marital problems. In some memoirs there are reasons such problems need to be brought up, but not in this one.
The strength of this memoir is found in the thoughts and feelings of the beginning and end of summer, and in the thoughts and feelings of possibly having to give up a family summer home that's been in the family forever. Mr. Colt excels there, but, once again, he repeatedly marred the good parts of the story with way too many details. It's like he doesn't know when to shut up and let readers soak in what he wrote. He must throw in more and more details, as well as more and more descriptions of what everyone in the family was thinking and doing. Honestly, the Big House and the Colt family were not that intriguing.
February 20, 2010
I loved this book for three reasons:
1. His wife, Anne Fadiman, is one of my most favorite authors, so it was fun to see her from another perspective.
2. We had a summer house up until 2003 that I loved loved loved. (We called it "camp"). Sadly, unlike The Big House, it did not get sold to a member of my family, and I miss it terribly. I do not think there will ever be another place as good. The Big House made me miss it all over again (and feel better about being so emotional over a house).
3. He has a chapter called "Money." I thought it was just my family, but it turns out there are other families who keep the thermostat at sixty, wear their great-grandmother's raincoat because "it's still good" and have dragged their great uncle's moth eaten wool blankets to boarding school and college (still with Uncle Fred's name label on it...why bother replacing it?), rather than buying a new one (I was actually at my aunt's over Christmas break, and mentioned my blanket had holes in it, and she pulled out scraps of its twin from her rag bag and gave it to me so I could patch it...). Apparently there's a whole book on this subject by Nelson Aldrich, which I can't wait to read, because it's like an ethnography of my family.
1. His wife, Anne Fadiman, is one of my most favorite authors, so it was fun to see her from another perspective.
2. We had a summer house up until 2003 that I loved loved loved. (We called it "camp"). Sadly, unlike The Big House, it did not get sold to a member of my family, and I miss it terribly. I do not think there will ever be another place as good. The Big House made me miss it all over again (and feel better about being so emotional over a house).
3. He has a chapter called "Money." I thought it was just my family, but it turns out there are other families who keep the thermostat at sixty, wear their great-grandmother's raincoat because "it's still good" and have dragged their great uncle's moth eaten wool blankets to boarding school and college (still with Uncle Fred's name label on it...why bother replacing it?), rather than buying a new one (I was actually at my aunt's over Christmas break, and mentioned my blanket had holes in it, and she pulled out scraps of its twin from her rag bag and gave it to me so I could patch it...). Apparently there's a whole book on this subject by Nelson Aldrich, which I can't wait to read, because it's like an ethnography of my family.
April 11, 2021
What a thorough and valuable memoir with bits of history and genealogy thrown in. I could only dream of one day finding a book like this written about my house, and especially, of my ancestors. But, I don’t feel like the younger folks who have not yet experienced all they can from their lives with family and friends, creating memories with the passage of time, will be able to fully appreciate this memoir. The first thing I would do is Duck Duck Go maps and find out exactly where Wings Neck peninsula, overlooking Buzzards Bay, is in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, so you get the visual of where George Colt’s story takes place.
This is about the author’s memories of summer’s spent at this summer home, known in the family as “The Big House”, that has been in the author’s family for a 100 years. As well, he has put together a great historical account of his ancestor’s summer gatherings at The Big House from the very beginning by interviewing family members and elders who were still summering on Wings Necks, and by reading and researching through many books. At the end of this book, in Notes, he has recorded all the books used in writing up the historical parts of the book. It’s worth a browse.
The author's Big House, originally 6,000 square feet and later remodeled to 8,000 square feet, was built by his great grandfather, Ned Atkinson and designed by Ned's brother, William. Ned married into the Forbes family...Ellen Forbes. They had two sons and one daughter. Their only daughter, Mary Atkinson, married outside the fray of what was normal for Bostonians to a penniless, upstate New Yorker, the author's grandfather, Henry Colt. This is one branch of the Forbes family to whom the Trust Fund of descendants of Ellen Forbes Atkinson would peter out. With taxes and maintenance up to $25,000 a year by 1990’s, it had become unaffordable to keep and decisions between his father and siblings had to be made. Even though they did manage to keep the house in the family, it was no longer the gathering place for just whoever wanted to spend the summers there. It now belonged to someone. His parents eventually purchased a small one-acre cottage in Maine, where George and his siblings now meet for family functions. This would now become their "Big House".
---------------
MY LIFE AND MY "BIG HOUSE":
I could fully relate to his sentimental reminiscing, and you will too. I think we all have a “Big House”. I grew up on Cow Bayou when it was alive back in the 70’s and 80’s. But, unlike the author, we didn’t have money. My parents bought a rundown 2 bedroom camp on Cow Bayou that had been vacant for 30 years. They did a lot of work to it over many years to get it in good living condition. Me and my two sisters shared a large room over the bayou throughout all our growing years, up until we moved out of the house. We survived by putting the "don’t cross the line" tape down the middle of the room between each bed. Mom mostly stayed home and kept house and cooked beans and rice. Dad worked a miserable job in the warehouse at the plant. But, once when Mom did go to work for just a short time, we were in high school, and wouldn’t you know, we started sneaking boys over, and we’d open our windows and, running through the house dripping wet, jump through them into the bayou, then we started jumping from the roof of the house, then we would swim the quarter mile to the little bridge on the highway and jump from there...until….someone drove by and saw us jumping from the bridge and told mom. She quit her job.
Other memories of the bayou were of the good-looking doctor’s sons and their friends next door at their “true” camp on weekends, and all their loud fun. Us swimming and learning to ski, seeing the occasional gator down our cut (once I was even chased out of the bayou by a gator), splashing the water all around when we’d see a black snake (water, moccasin, or cotton-mouth...we never knew the difference) to scare it off, fishing for gar at midnight off our little dock, and camping nights on the little marshy island just across from us. We did crazy things. It really is amazing we survived at all.
Much like the author's Big House, our house was always an open house. The grill was always going on weekends with loads of sausage and chicken and beans cooking on the stove because someone would ALWAYS stop by in a boat or bring their families for a day of swimming on the bayou. My parents fed them and shared a cold one or two.
But, today, Cow Bayou is dead. You don’t see kids swimming. You don’t see boaters and skiers...people having fun anymore. The bayou looks dead, scary and creepy. My parents are 75 and 90 years old now. Their yard is not as kept. Their doors are closed. We girls are taking care of our parents as Mom goes through her lung cancer treatments, and as Dad needs his doctors for skin cancer treatments. He on oxygen and she needing treatments and will also soon be on oxygen. Life changes, and like the author, whether you want it to or not, you have to find a way to someday let go because you can’t go back. It changes because it never really was about “The Big House”, it was really about the people who made The Big House so great. So any place can be “The Big House”. It’s our little Cow Bayou house. It’s my great-grandparent’s poor little house in Vidor, Texas, where we gathered every Christmas Eve for many years until they could no longer hold it. Then, it was the little house on 6th street in Port Neches, at my grandparent’s home where we gathered for another many years. The Big House is where your family gathers and memories are made.
P. 189: They had a tradition of waving goodbye to guests and family members while standing on the porch waving a hanky or shirt or whatever until their visitors rode out of site. Down here in Southeast Texas, we walk them outside saying our goodbyes, then, feel it’s rude if we don’t walk them to their car...still saying our goodbyes. We don’t dare turn and walk back into the house until they are in their car driving and out of site. Meanwhile, we are still waving goodbye and they honk their way away. Too funny!
P. 304: George's father chose to keep the Trollope set because his mother LOVED them, but they were to remain in the house with the new owners, his father's nephew and wife. This started a discussion of the merits of Trollope, especially "Barchester Towers" and "The Warden", and its readability between the siblings. Hmmm...yesterday I just bought “The Eustace Diamonds” at a used bookstore for $1.00. I’m curious now what his grandmother loved so much about Trollope’s writing. I loved that their Big House was filled with books in every room. The family seemed to always be big on reading. His grandfather always read a bedtime story to the kids during the summer at Wings Neck, and this trickled down to creating readers of those kids...something to remember.
This is about the author’s memories of summer’s spent at this summer home, known in the family as “The Big House”, that has been in the author’s family for a 100 years. As well, he has put together a great historical account of his ancestor’s summer gatherings at The Big House from the very beginning by interviewing family members and elders who were still summering on Wings Necks, and by reading and researching through many books. At the end of this book, in Notes, he has recorded all the books used in writing up the historical parts of the book. It’s worth a browse.
The author's Big House, originally 6,000 square feet and later remodeled to 8,000 square feet, was built by his great grandfather, Ned Atkinson and designed by Ned's brother, William. Ned married into the Forbes family...Ellen Forbes. They had two sons and one daughter. Their only daughter, Mary Atkinson, married outside the fray of what was normal for Bostonians to a penniless, upstate New Yorker, the author's grandfather, Henry Colt. This is one branch of the Forbes family to whom the Trust Fund of descendants of Ellen Forbes Atkinson would peter out. With taxes and maintenance up to $25,000 a year by 1990’s, it had become unaffordable to keep and decisions between his father and siblings had to be made. Even though they did manage to keep the house in the family, it was no longer the gathering place for just whoever wanted to spend the summers there. It now belonged to someone. His parents eventually purchased a small one-acre cottage in Maine, where George and his siblings now meet for family functions. This would now become their "Big House".
---------------
MY LIFE AND MY "BIG HOUSE":
I could fully relate to his sentimental reminiscing, and you will too. I think we all have a “Big House”. I grew up on Cow Bayou when it was alive back in the 70’s and 80’s. But, unlike the author, we didn’t have money. My parents bought a rundown 2 bedroom camp on Cow Bayou that had been vacant for 30 years. They did a lot of work to it over many years to get it in good living condition. Me and my two sisters shared a large room over the bayou throughout all our growing years, up until we moved out of the house. We survived by putting the "don’t cross the line" tape down the middle of the room between each bed. Mom mostly stayed home and kept house and cooked beans and rice. Dad worked a miserable job in the warehouse at the plant. But, once when Mom did go to work for just a short time, we were in high school, and wouldn’t you know, we started sneaking boys over, and we’d open our windows and, running through the house dripping wet, jump through them into the bayou, then we started jumping from the roof of the house, then we would swim the quarter mile to the little bridge on the highway and jump from there...until….someone drove by and saw us jumping from the bridge and told mom. She quit her job.
Other memories of the bayou were of the good-looking doctor’s sons and their friends next door at their “true” camp on weekends, and all their loud fun. Us swimming and learning to ski, seeing the occasional gator down our cut (once I was even chased out of the bayou by a gator), splashing the water all around when we’d see a black snake (water, moccasin, or cotton-mouth...we never knew the difference) to scare it off, fishing for gar at midnight off our little dock, and camping nights on the little marshy island just across from us. We did crazy things. It really is amazing we survived at all.
Much like the author's Big House, our house was always an open house. The grill was always going on weekends with loads of sausage and chicken and beans cooking on the stove because someone would ALWAYS stop by in a boat or bring their families for a day of swimming on the bayou. My parents fed them and shared a cold one or two.
But, today, Cow Bayou is dead. You don’t see kids swimming. You don’t see boaters and skiers...people having fun anymore. The bayou looks dead, scary and creepy. My parents are 75 and 90 years old now. Their yard is not as kept. Their doors are closed. We girls are taking care of our parents as Mom goes through her lung cancer treatments, and as Dad needs his doctors for skin cancer treatments. He on oxygen and she needing treatments and will also soon be on oxygen. Life changes, and like the author, whether you want it to or not, you have to find a way to someday let go because you can’t go back. It changes because it never really was about “The Big House”, it was really about the people who made The Big House so great. So any place can be “The Big House”. It’s our little Cow Bayou house. It’s my great-grandparent’s poor little house in Vidor, Texas, where we gathered every Christmas Eve for many years until they could no longer hold it. Then, it was the little house on 6th street in Port Neches, at my grandparent’s home where we gathered for another many years. The Big House is where your family gathers and memories are made.
P. 189: They had a tradition of waving goodbye to guests and family members while standing on the porch waving a hanky or shirt or whatever until their visitors rode out of site. Down here in Southeast Texas, we walk them outside saying our goodbyes, then, feel it’s rude if we don’t walk them to their car...still saying our goodbyes. We don’t dare turn and walk back into the house until they are in their car driving and out of site. Meanwhile, we are still waving goodbye and they honk their way away. Too funny!
P. 304: George's father chose to keep the Trollope set because his mother LOVED them, but they were to remain in the house with the new owners, his father's nephew and wife. This started a discussion of the merits of Trollope, especially "Barchester Towers" and "The Warden", and its readability between the siblings. Hmmm...yesterday I just bought “The Eustace Diamonds” at a used bookstore for $1.00. I’m curious now what his grandmother loved so much about Trollope’s writing. I loved that their Big House was filled with books in every room. The family seemed to always be big on reading. His grandfather always read a bedtime story to the kids during the summer at Wings Neck, and this trickled down to creating readers of those kids...something to remember.
November 3, 2017
This book came to my attention through it being on the list of National Book Finalists. I thought the premise of writing the history of a house sounded intriguing so I got it from the library. From the first page, Colt's prose resonated with me so I did the most reasonable thing - I returned the library book and ordered a copy of my own. I placed sticky notes on pages where I found beautifully written sentences, paragraphs, and profound ideas. My entire book has sticky notes coming out of it! The history and context of the New England coast provide a nice backdrop to the story of the Colt family and the Big House. I feel like I've been there.
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August 7, 2011I was disappointed with this book. It was mainly the author's incessant whining about all the wonderful events in their "summer lives," on Cape Cod as opposed to their winter lives in Boston and of course dispersed around the world in wonderful places: London, New York, Greenwich, Montreal. It reminded me of a certain columnist in the York Sunday News who wrote about his kids college experiences as though they were the only two teenagers to ever go away to college. The author writes as though he and his extended family where the only ones in history to have gotten up before dawn and rowed a boat into the bay to fish, or play croquet, or sit on a porch and husk corn, or read a book sitting on the porch when it was raining, or collect seashells, or have a camp fire and sing songs, or talk about crazy ancestors, or swim, or play tennis etc etc etc ad nauseam . Get a life! So maybe this is the purpose of memoirs, somewhat cathartic, but it was not worth the time I spent when there are so many other good things to read. Glad I only paid 50 cents at for it at the Salisbury Free Public Library. Oh there I am bragging about my wonderful summer and that no one else is having one!!!!!
October 2, 2021
This was a pleasant amble along a country road. I think it suffered somewhat from the pace I forced on it--it seems like a book meant to be enjoyed in small sips for as long as it takes to finish, not on a two week deadline because your book has to go back to interlibrary loan. Despite that, I enjoyed the author's openness about the process of losing his ancestral home and the evocative quality of his writing about place. Unexpectedly, I also lucked into some insight about WASP culture that was very eye-opening about my own family. We have never been wealthy and we were from the furthest thing from Boston, but the culture must be very similar. I guess you can be a poor, midwestern, Catholic WASP. I also spent a great deal of time reflecting on the system and practices of inheritance, which I had never given much thought before but now consider grossly unfair. I was most touched by the short section on his Aunt Sandy and the evolution of the relationship between his grandparents. I may seek out the memoir, written by his uncle, about his aunt's illness.
May 13, 2020
Such a good book! Loving non-fiction the way I do, this was a perfect combination of history & biography, tied together in a story about a beloved, 100 year old family home. Mr. Colt’s is a fascinating, imperfect family & I enjoyed his insight into the Brahmin class of Boston from which his ancestors sprang. Learning about the history & development of Cape Cod over the years was equally as interesting, although I did find myself shaking my head, thinking “what a shame”, several times as the author wrote about the old ways & places falling to the new over time. Mr. Colt has an amazing eye for detail and a way of writing about the feelings involved with leaving a precious place that resonated in my heart. So happy with the way the book ended as well!
July 23, 2008
I think this will be one of those quiet books whose impact doesn't really hit you until after you've finished. It's a slow mover, lots of history and details (some of which I bypassed or skimmed, especially the sailing parts, but I looked forward to reading it every day and I'll probably thinking about it quite a bit now that I'm done. The family tree stuff gets confusing and by the end I couldn't remember who was who, but the family history is interesting. I wish the author had included pictures - I'd love to see what the house looked like inside and out. But maybe my imagination is better.
March 25, 2016
I found this memoir interesting as the author took us through the life of a huge summer house shared by several generations of his very large family. House history and family histories made this part memoir and part biography a bittersweet story, slowly moving to the story's close.
September 4, 2020
2.5 stars ✨ I wish it was in a more story like format.
November 5, 2018
Loved this book. While not nearly as grand, our family's summer house created the same family bonds. Many things resonated with me while reading this book, such as the rediscovery at the start of each summer. Was everything still as it was? Were there new wonders to explore?
A dear cousin (who shared the house for half the summer, while his uncle's family stayed there the other half), gave this book to me because he identified so deeply with the idea of the house as a family gathering place, and a place of adventure and he knew I did as well. If you were lucky enough to have such a house (and we were very lucky), you will enjoy this book.
A dear cousin (who shared the house for half the summer, while his uncle's family stayed there the other half), gave this book to me because he identified so deeply with the idea of the house as a family gathering place, and a place of adventure and he knew I did as well. If you were lucky enough to have such a house (and we were very lucky), you will enjoy this book.
September 18, 2020
A lovely story that I enjoyed more and more as I got further into it.
August 21, 2025
Well written. In turn nostalgic and exciting. Very personal.
August 24, 2013
I started reading this book in much the same way the author's family used The Big House - as a vacation get-away - though in their case it was an extended summer stay. I read what I could on weekends. But I became so eager to learn what became of the house that I could no longer relegate my reading to weekends.
George Colt writes a history of the house that his great-grandfather built on Cape Cod in 1903 and that the family has enjoyed as a summer retreat for four generations. He skillfully weaves in the history of Boston and Cape Cod and the ethos of the Boston Brahmins with his personal memories of summers at the house with extended family. The house symbolizes a family that values its traditions, while it hides its personal difficulties. The nooks and crannies of the house that offered such wonderful places for Colt and his brothers and cousins to use for their childhood games of Sardines are a metaphor for the broken relationships and physical and mental ailments that family members hid from one another.
As the great house falls into disrepair, so do family relationships and the Brahmin-WASPish way of life. Facing fiscal (mounting maintenance costs) and cultural reality (family members widely dispersed and lacking time and interest to spend an entire summer at the house)the family agrees to put the house on the market. While the house languishes on the market for several years, Colt mourns its loss even as members of his grandparents' and parents' generation pass on.
Colt's account is a loving memoir to a place that has held a family together for generations--despite both the home's and the family's idiosyncrasies.
George Colt writes a history of the house that his great-grandfather built on Cape Cod in 1903 and that the family has enjoyed as a summer retreat for four generations. He skillfully weaves in the history of Boston and Cape Cod and the ethos of the Boston Brahmins with his personal memories of summers at the house with extended family. The house symbolizes a family that values its traditions, while it hides its personal difficulties. The nooks and crannies of the house that offered such wonderful places for Colt and his brothers and cousins to use for their childhood games of Sardines are a metaphor for the broken relationships and physical and mental ailments that family members hid from one another.
As the great house falls into disrepair, so do family relationships and the Brahmin-WASPish way of life. Facing fiscal (mounting maintenance costs) and cultural reality (family members widely dispersed and lacking time and interest to spend an entire summer at the house)the family agrees to put the house on the market. While the house languishes on the market for several years, Colt mourns its loss even as members of his grandparents' and parents' generation pass on.
Colt's account is a loving memoir to a place that has held a family together for generations--despite both the home's and the family's idiosyncrasies.
February 4, 2021
This is a memoir of a house. If you’re looking for a thrilling page turner with plot twists, or even a solid plot, this isn’t it. And this writer’s style is significantly more verbose than what I prefer. Had I been an editor, the book would have probably lost 100 pages, but the style is actually important to the content. An outsider could write a concise yet descriptive history of the house and its family. But this is the author’s world and that how those from that world communicate. So it fits.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised I finished it and that’s due to the isolation of covid and the fact that I’ve read every other book in the house. But, that said, I did leave it feeling like I had “met” this house and it’s family that is so very different from my own. And there’s value in that. I know very few people who own a second, vacation home and certainly none come near the grandeur and old money described here. I also don’t know anyone from Boston, so reading about the eccentricities of that old Boston world was enlightening. Served as a valuable reminder that every home, every family, and every individual has history, memories, and problems. Looks can be deceiving and sometimes not even by design. While I wouldn’t say I had “sympathy” for this privileged family struggling with the decision to sell their ancestral family summer home, it did remind me how my own significantly less privileged life would look to some and remind me to choose satisfaction and empathy over longing and envy.
Not a bad result from a book and a nice break from the plot driven books that sometimes leave me a little stressed about things happening in a fictional world.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised I finished it and that’s due to the isolation of covid and the fact that I’ve read every other book in the house. But, that said, I did leave it feeling like I had “met” this house and it’s family that is so very different from my own. And there’s value in that. I know very few people who own a second, vacation home and certainly none come near the grandeur and old money described here. I also don’t know anyone from Boston, so reading about the eccentricities of that old Boston world was enlightening. Served as a valuable reminder that every home, every family, and every individual has history, memories, and problems. Looks can be deceiving and sometimes not even by design. While I wouldn’t say I had “sympathy” for this privileged family struggling with the decision to sell their ancestral family summer home, it did remind me how my own significantly less privileged life would look to some and remind me to choose satisfaction and empathy over longing and envy.
Not a bad result from a book and a nice break from the plot driven books that sometimes leave me a little stressed about things happening in a fictional world.
July 17, 2021
First the positives. I had fun exploring the nooks and crannies of this 1903 Cape Cod family manse with the author. Love old houses and the stories they contain. I also enjoyed many of the stories about the generations who called the house home for three months in the summer. I also learned quite a bit about the Boston Brahmins which, as I understand it, are the "old money" people who had money at one time and for a long time because they were tighter than Dick's hatband, as my grandfather would say. There's a good deal of American social history here and the author is obviously qualified to write about it. However, this is another book that could have been stronger if someone had had the temerity to cut 50-100 pages. Colt veers into stories and stumbles back out to the main narrative, his own story about spending "the last summer" in the house before it's (hopefully) sold. There are too many stories here. I could have done without the chapter on the tennis tournament or the boat race. I didn't need to know the details of his grandmother's mental illness or the fact that his brother was a gambling addict. All of these diversions took their toll on the main narrative. Good book, too long. P.S. Including pictures of the house and family would have broken up the narrative and made the book more interesting.
June 10, 2009
This is not a bad book if you are interested in some of the history of the population patterns of Cape Cod, MA. I was much more interested in the people who owned the Big House, their family interactions, et al. The house itself is big (11 bedrooms, many bathrooms, a separate quest house, etc.). I really couldn't identify with that family or their property and so I got bored quickly. After page 78, I skimmed a few chapters and then just read the last chapter even though I knew the ending. All is all, this book wasn't for me. I gave it two stars because the writing style was good.
This is on the cover: "Brings engagingly and memorably to life the house and the people who inhabited it and pays quiet tribute to the bygone WASP upper class and the values it held dear."--The Washington Post.
IF I HAD READ THE POST'S COMMENT EARLIER, I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE BOUGHT THIS BOOK.
This is on the cover: "Brings engagingly and memorably to life the house and the people who inhabited it and pays quiet tribute to the bygone WASP upper class and the values it held dear."--The Washington Post.
IF I HAD READ THE POST'S COMMENT EARLIER, I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE BOUGHT THIS BOOK.
October 22, 2009
This was a really nice story, but took me a long time to get into it. I really wanted to like it, but I kept feeling side-tracked by the very personal details that the author went into about his family. I also found the writing style and vocabulary a little pretentious, although there were some very beautiful passages describing the house and the Cape. I kept reading because every once in a while there was a passage particularly relevant to me about summer living or Boston history (where I currently live). Finally, the last couple of chapters began to pick up as the conflict (would the family be able to keep the house) finally came to a resolution.
Anyone with a family beach house that has been an important part of their life will probably enjoy this book. For everyone else, however, this book will have little interest or relevance.
Anyone with a family beach house that has been an important part of their life will probably enjoy this book. For everyone else, however, this book will have little interest or relevance.
August 27, 2017
Worthwhile memoir of Cape Code that I enjoyed very much; however, a map of Cape Cod plus an exploded view of the area would have been helpful. Providing a family tree would also have been beneficial to increase my understanding since the time frame of the novel encompassed several generations with a plethora of duplicate names. Even if George Colt wanted to preserve his immediate family's privacy, he should have included some pictures especially since he mentioned so many boxes of old black and white photos. A really good book that could have been much better. I don't know why his editor didn't suggest such enhancements.
August 6, 2012
I am really enjoying this book written about a place I am not at all familiar with. The history is so interesting and I love picturing the house with all it's additions and nooks and crannies. But the edition I have really needs a map and a picture of the house (from the ocean side). I used Google map to find out where Wing's neck is and try to identify the house but it is still not satisfying.
Now that I finished it, I find it's one of those books where you
miss the people and the place. I would like to go back and start all over again and discover the big house.
Now that I finished it, I find it's one of those books where you
miss the people and the place. I would like to go back and start all over again and discover the big house.
March 27, 2009
Although it took me all summer to read - I thoroughly enjoyed the vivid pictures that were created through word. I can relate to Colt's attachment to a Big House.
February 22, 2019
What an elitist pile of over privileged WASPy sentimentality. The most infantile tedious book I’ve read in a very long time. If you like to use the word summer as a verb, by all means read on.
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