The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home

Karrie Jacobs

Viking, 2006 - Architecture - 291 pages

An architecture and design critic’s search for an ideal American home—that’s both beautiful and affordable

Most would be hard pressed to find an American not interested in real estate. From birth, we’re conditioned to consider owning our own homes as the fulfillment of the American Dream. But consumers today are more likely than not to find themselves either priced out of the market or forced to settle for cookie-cutter conformity. Where housing is concerned, cheap and well crafted rarely exist together. Or do they?

Founding Editor in Chief of Dwellmagazine and noted critic Karrie Jacobs believes that they do. The Perfect $100,000 Housechronicles her coast-to-coast search for just that: a well-built, intelligently designed, reasonably priced, decent-size house with at least a little curb appeal. Throughout her journey, Jacobs meets architects and builders who are revolutionizing the way Americans think about homes, about construction techniques, and about community. From a Teletubbiesesque subdivision outside Taos, New Mexico, to nuevo-retro shotgun houses in Houston, the options available to prospective home buyers are as diverse as the terrain along Jacobs’s fourteen-thousand-mile trek. And no matter where her search ends, she’ll at long last be home.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Housebuilding Camp: 17
• The Road to Nowhere: 39

About the author

Karrie Jacobs was the founding Editor in Chief of Dwell, a San Francisco-based nationally distributed magazine about modern residential architecture and design. Prior to that, she served as architecture critic of New Yorkmagazine, and her work has appeared in The New York Times. She is now a regular columnist at Metropolis. Gary Panter, a Texas-born illustrator, painter, designer, and part-time musician, is arguably one of the most influential graphic artists of his generation. He is a three-time Emmy award–winner for his work with Pee Wee’s Playhouse, as well as the recipient of a Chrysler Design award in 2000.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home
• Author: Karrie Jacobs
• Edition: illustrated, annotated
• Publisher: Viking, 2006
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Dec 19, 2007
• ISBN: 0670037613, 9780670037612
• Length: 291 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Buildings / Residential; Architecture / History / General; Architecture / Interior Design / General