Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age

by Brent Hull

Overview

The author of Traditional American Rooms examines the evolution of home construction, making a case against mass-produced homes.

HISTORY®’s Lone Star Restoration star, Brent Hull is a master craftsman, and hands-on preservationist. Hull—a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Finalist for architectural non-fiction—challenges us to consider the impact our decisions will have when building a house. What do our homes say about us? What stories are they telling? Are they declarations of integrity, beauty, and heritage? Or do they suggest we have lost our sense of value, craft, and harmony?

Nationally recognized as an authority on historic design, architecturally correct moldings, and millwork, Hull is uniquely qualified to speak to the craft of building and art of design. In an age of “instant”‘ homes, how do we build something timeless that weaves a tale of character, values, history, and heart? The decisions we make for our homes are not inconsequential. What we build defines us. In fact, the contrast between the way we build today and how structures used to be built has become only more vivid. What happened to craft? What happened to the art of building? Our values and what we believe about life have changed as well. We have come to see houses as a tradable commodity. We live in a time that is obsessed with “what’s next?” We need to be careful of fooling ourselves into thinking that a bottom-line mentality is the best way to approach building a home. Now is the time to examine ourselves, our motives, and our hearts.

Praise for Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age

“Part call to action, part exploration of technique, the result is a persuasive and enjoyable reminder that our homes are reflections of ourselves . . . . A pleasing, educational look at traditional home construction.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612542034
Publisher:	Brown Books Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/08/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	161
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Brent Hull, owner and president of Hull Historical, is a nationally recognized authority on historic design, architecturally correct moldings, and millwork. Trained in the art of museum quality preservation at the prestigious North Bennett Street School in Boston, Brent is the exclusive licensee for the architectural interiors of the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Wilmington, Delaware. He has designed two lines of award-winning moldings and is a popular speaker and presenter. Brent is also the author of two books, Traditional American Rooms celebrating style, craftsmanship, and historic woodwork with a foreword by Barbra Streisand and Historic Millwork, a guide to restoring and recreating doors, windows, and moldings from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. He is the recipient of four John Staub Awards for classical architecture in craftsmanship and historic restoration.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prologue xi

1 Headless Lions: Stories and Sleuths 1

2 A Legacy of Giants: The Classical Tradition 13

3 A Careful Balance: Homebuilding and Technology 29

4 A Growing Divide: Architects and Residential Design 47

5 Little Boxes on the Hillside: Levittown and Production Building 65

6 Craft and the Secret to Ornament 79

7 The Client: Building a House with Values 93

8 From Mission Statement to Practice: Illustrations and Applications 113

Sources and Further Reading 133

What People are Saying About This

Publisher, THISisCarpentry.com - Gary Katz

"Each of Brent Hull's books has been a treat for me to read, and Building a Timeless House is no exception. A seasoned contractor, a master of moldings and architectural styles, and passionate about craftsmanship, Brent shares his own personal job-site stories and, along the way, teaches us lessons that might otherwise be lost. We need voices like Brent Hull's to remind us who we are, where we came from, and how to get to where we need to go."

Author, A Field Guide to American Houses - Virginia Savage McAlester

"With this book, Brent Hull adds skilled story teller to his background as an expert on molding, trained hands-on preservationist, and builder of new houses. Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age is an engrossing history of house design and construction that prepares you to create your own home. It will sharpen your skills as an architectural time sleuth—and make your travel, house watching, and home building far more interesting."

Director, Contemporary Traditional Architecture Initiatives, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorad - Christine G. H. Franck

"In Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age, master builder Brent Hull brings to life the complex story of the rise and fall of craft and posits a better future grounded in timeless ways of building. As one who has been at the forefront of restoring building crafts to their rightfully central position in today's building processes, Brent is uniquely qualified to tell this fascinating story."

Editorial Reviews

2015-03-24
Hull (Traditional American Rooms, 2003) celebrates the lost art of thoughtful home construction.We don't build houses like we used to. The craftsmanship central to generations of construction is largely absent in modern homebuilding, which has become more concerned with creating a mass-produced product at a predetermined price. Hull takes readers through the evolution of our views on home construction: what was once valued, what is valued now, and what things most people don't ever think about. The book includes explanations of the shifting architectural trends in residences, from Enlightenment-era builders finding inspiration in antiquity to European-style houses in America to Levittown and the rise of production building. He also explains the processes of home design, from fire-safety concerns and framing to theories of ornamentation. He concludes with an "Illustrations and Applications" chapter to guide those who wish to implement what they've learned. Yet this book won't actually tell readers how to build a house; rather, it looks at the way homebuilding was approached (aesthetically, philosophically, commercially) in Europe and America in the last few centuries and how we have arrived at our current homebuilding culture. His argument isn't based on bleary-eyed nostalgia: it appears that houses really were objectively better in earlier eras, and if people demand as much, they can be better again. This seems like a book for the times: as people become ever more interested in "artisanal" everything, Hull reminds us that the ultimate embodiment of craftsmanship and rustic know-how is a well-built house. A construction veteran of the world of historic restoration, Hull is also a gifted writer of (better than) workmanlike prose. His narrative voice is clean and accessible; a more inspired, lyrical language sometimes arises when he broaches a topic (such as the Derby Summerhouse) that truly excites him. Part call to action, part exploration of technique, the result is a persuasive and enjoyable reminder that our homes are reflections of ourselves. As Hull says, "We need to wonder if building cheap homes doesn't cause us to become a cheap culture."A pleasing, educational look at traditional home construction.

Kirkus Reviews