Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dreamy and light, these hideaway domiciles across the country photographed with stunning serenity by Ken Gutmaker share an uncluttered effortlessness. Vassallo defines a barefoot home as enjoying informality, openness to nature, abundance of light ("helps blur the distinction between inside and outside"), and the use of straightforward, touchable textures-peeled cedar columns, exposed cabinets and framing. Vassallo's model here is clearly the Usonian house by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as an open Japanese living room parceled into flexible spaces using screens. Many of the houses selected are located in California and the Pacific Northwest, such as a cozy bungalow in a busy neighborhood in Seattle with high transom windows and a courtyard. Other arresting structures include a summer house on Lake Martin, Ala., featuring flip-up windows rather than air conditioning; a modernly refurbished colonial in Bethesda, Md., with a fairly unconventional, detached screen porch that doubles as a clubhouse for the kids. By far the wildest structure here is a revamped Native American longhouse smack in the middle of the Kansas prairie: no curtains necessary. Vassallo, like Henry David Thoreau, whom he quotes, eschews the stuffiness and formality of the typical home. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
A barefoot home, as described by Vassallo (coauthor of Inside the Not So Big House), is an "open house" suited to casual living. Over 20 homes are shown here that in some way exemplify the type, providing an informality, openness, use of light and texture, and indoor/outdoor connection suited to a 21st-century lifestyle. The residences are depicted in color photographs and are either newly constructed or remodeled. For each home, the architect's and owner's approach to design is discussed, a floor plan provided, and a sidebar used to explain what gives the place its "barefootedness." For its look at homes that best exemplify a modern sensibility, this book is recommended for large interior design collections. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
