Farmhouse: Classic Homesteads of North America

Few images channel American nostalgia more effectively than that of the rural farmhouse, shaded by tall trees or open to fields and a big, blue sky. Mohr, a freelance writer and author of The Barn and The Log Home, seems especially attuned to this feeling of loss and pride, tracking it as a preservationist and living it daily as a resident of a converted barn. This collection of photographs taken in Amish country and on the Maine beachfront, shot in the Carolinas and Louisiana, features a multitude of well-preserved salt boxes and Victorian plantation houses, along with a few picturesquely dilapidated ruins as well. The photographs are straightforwardly documentary, occasionally touched with a beam of late afternoon sunshine, while the accompanying text details the farmhouses' historical and regional architectural differences. In simple, forthright prose spiced with first-person encounters with particularly appealing locations, Mohr guides the reader through a crucible of charm and wistfulness while maintaining a sense of self-awareness and genuine appreciation throughout. ""These houses offer welcome, warmth and a sense of all that came before,"" she writes. ""They each have a story to tell.""