E. Ashley Rooney

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Boathouses - architecture at the waters edge

260 beautiful color photographs capture the beauty and charm of historic and recently designed boathouses at private residences, rowing clubs, preparatory schools, and colleges. Together they provide an historical appreciation and architectural inspiration of this classic building form. In the United States, boathouses belonged with straw hats, parasols, and lovely picnic lunches as part of the Gilded Age, when some people had the wherewithal to build housing for their boats and time to enjoy the rivers and lakes. Many of the boathouses shown are unique, using local resources and materials in their construction. For vacationers in rural New England or upstate New York, boathouses were a part of their summer vacation. Today, many old ones are disappearing through weather, neglect, fire, and vandalism. However, increasingly, schools are building and restoring boathouses on their campuses. Jeff Peterson, a rower and an award-winning architect, wrote the foreword. His Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm has designed boathouses and rowing tanks from Florida to Washington state, and in several foreign countries.