So there’s a new book out and it’s super-cool. It’s called Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design, by Richard Olson, and it’s about the emerging trend of – you guessed it – handmade houses. (Wanna copy? Don’t buy it from Amazon please; call us and order one over the phone: 831-667-2574.)
Magnus’ cabin is in it. So is Jersey Chris’s landlord’s house. And Bobby’s house.
A lot of Big Sur houses are in it!
That said, the “handmade house” has only recently become a novelty. For many thousands of years, all houses were handmade. Then with the large-scale urbanization of the Industrial Revolution and the postwar tract housing, individual designer-builder-owner homes became quaintly old fashioned. Here’s a nice synopsis from the New York Journal of Books:
The period from1960s and ’70s, which occupies much of Mr. Olsen’s book, has a special resonance today because once again the earth is calling us back. Seemingly out-of-control technology and ineffective government regulation is endangering our fragile ecology and the construction industry bears a great deal of responsibility. Today’s “green revolution” in housing really began in the handmade houses of 50 years ago.
