Cottage: Americas Favorite Home Inside and Out celebrates the romance and simplicity that give cottage homes their endless appeal. With inspiring locations, colorful gardens, cozy interiors, and intriguing nooks and crannies, the 24 cottages featured in this unique collection are sure to delight with equal measures of charm and diversity. Illustrated with spectacular photographs and watercolor drawings, the cottages span the country from Florida to the Pacific Northwest, with stops along the way at a converted schoolhouse in Missouri, a prefab cottage in Wisconsin, a straw-bale cottage in California, and a cottage community in Washington state.

Whether new or remodeled, permanent home or weekend getaway, each of the cottages is intimately scaled, seamlessly linked to the landscape, and brimming with personal detailall good reasons why the cottage remains Americas favorite home, inside and out.

Introduction: The Cottage Connection

At Home
Fabulous Prefab
Deciphering the Past
Victorian Gothic
At the Crossroads
Active Season
Family Tradition
One Plus One Equals One
To Your Health
History Lessons
A Family Affair
The Upside-Down Cottage
Basking in the Sun
All Grown Up
Up, Up, and Away
Simply Grand
Hiding in Plain Sight
Family Connections
Cooling Sea Breezes
Living Lightly on the Land
Kids Only
Light and Breezy
A Warm Welcome
Stepping Back in Time
A Cherished American Tradition

The Cottage Connection
Cottages are all about connectionsconnections between the natural and built environment, between indoor and outdoor living, and between tradition and innovation in construction. In a time when it is common for family members to live in different parts of the country, if not in different parts of the world, a cottage can also be the family connection, everyones favorite home. Cottages are homes where memories are as strong a foundation as bricks and mortar. They often are built as legacies, connections with future generations.

Cottage experiences are highly individual. When Louis was growing up in Wisconsin, the word cottage was synonymous with vacations Up North. Many summers, his family and a group of friends rented neighboring cottages. They fished during the day and played cards at night. Over the years all the summers have melded together into one delightful, seamless memory. For a time, Caren and her family of six lived in a stone cottage with a thatched roof and a pink Dutch door in the thick pinewoods of Carmel, California. The cottage was so tiny that her brother slept in a closet. But for a small girl, living in the little cottage was like living in a fairytale.

For many people, cottage living is a dream come true. And, as the cottages in our book show, every dream is different. Cottage owners typically ignore the commonly accepted real estate maxims, such as building for resale, maximizing square footage, including a bathroom for every bedroom, and tacking on a three-car garage. Instead they think outside the box and create intimate homes that express their personalities and how they enjoy living their lives. The cottages in this book, and the dreams of their owners, have cast a spell over us. We invite you to read their stories and imagine yourself enjoying the hospitality each cottage graciously offers.