The gentleman has a way with words! The long, interesting story of a family history and the house it was lived in. This is NOT a story about what might have happened in a house - this IS the story of the house and it's obvious that the author is deeply in love with the house and his family history. Presented beautifully.

Who would like this book: 1) people who have had a summer place like in the movie of the same name; 2) readers who dig tales of Eastern Elite families ; 3) readers into end of an era stories of WASPs living shabby genteel in romantic decline; 4) Cape Cod residents and tourists; 5) adults that remember childhood fondly; 6) readers who like narratives that weave history and personal family history.

This is a wonderfully written book. Colt wanders through several generations talking about his family's experiences at their Cape Cod summer home. It is a book that can be picked up and put down without concern for losing the plot. Each chapter stands alone and is interesting on its own.

I first read this from the library. Then I went out and bought a copy of my own. This is a wonderful book. And a great one for summer reading. This American summer home is very upper class and my roots are very middle class, and yet it brought back all kinds of memories of our summers spent in a small rented cottage. The themes of family and growing up and attachment to place are universal. It is a book I want to read again and again. It is touching and real and well-written.

Very good. Loved the family history. Hard to put down.

Faced with the sale of the century-olf amily summer house on Cape Cod he had spent fourty-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, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt's final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers.

A wonderful, wonderful book, with a heartwarming but poignant ending. If you need something to make you feel good, something you can read for relaxation, this is it. Of course, it helps that I was brought up in Massachusetts and the house in question is down on the Cape (Cape Cod)!

I loved this book. Made me remember a MUCH smaller bungalow we owned when I was a girl. Made me think of those day.

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Very interesting and well written book. I'd highly recommend it!

At first, I found this book somewhat slow. But less than midway through I was facinated with the characters, the house, and the amazingly long family history. By the end of the book, I found myself missing the old family houses of my childhood.

George Colts family owned an 11 bedroom summer house they built in 1902 on Necks Wing on Cape Cod. The author shares his summer memories, stories of grandparents, all the way to great-great-great grandparents. It is an emotional rollercoaster trying to keep large summer home estates in the family once the family grows to a certain size and it is passed down so many generations. Not to mention that life styles have changed so much, where families do not have the luxury of spending an entire summer or even more than a week or weekend on family escapes. So to mantain a mansion year round (espeically one that is a century old) can be quite and expense and burden on today's families. The book not only covers memories & history but also struggles and heartbreaks. Really touching.

This was an interesting story of five generations and how they lived in and enjoyed an enormous and wonderful summer home on Cape Cod. The book is filled with local history from Native American days to present. Feelings of the generations of cousins, aunts and uncles. Weddings and parties and how in the end, the eleven bedroom gabled wonder of a house was no longer affordable and must be sold. The author tells of his forty third and last summer there with his small family.

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