Gimme Shelter House

By R.Z. Sheppard

Thomas Jefferson, author of our blueprint for independence and designer of Monticello and the University of Virginia, said it confidently: "Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements." Heirs to the Palladian vision are more subdued. The modern couple who decide to build a house had better check their marital foundations first. For his part, the architect must patiently extract straight lines from his clients' tangled desires. He must also establish a working truce with his natural enemy, the builder. Then there is the money, probably the largest amount most people will ever spend in any one place. If it is any comfort, Jefferson was always over budget.

Yet house building, like love and war, exerts a powerful attraction. Jonathan and Judith Souweine (pronounced Suh-wayne) succumbed three years ago. They bought part of an old hayfield on the outskirts of Amherst, Mass. "Look north and you see a hillside orchard topped with two giant maples locally known as Castor and Pollux," writes Tracy Kidder. "Look a little east and your view extends out over a broad valley, all the way to the Pelham Hills." The Souweines fit the profile of young New England professionals. He is a lawyer; she has a doctorate in education. Both have liberal opinions and conservative habits.

Had Kidder simply told the story of Jonathan and Judith, House would be an update of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. But as he demonstrated in The Soul of a New Machine (1981), his Pulitzer-prizewinni ng book on the computer industry, the author is a virtuoso of lucid and compelling narrative. Here he gives equal time to client, architect and builders. The result is a three- dimensional view of an activity instinctive to the species, and a subtle examination of cultural and class differences. Architect Bill Rawn's resume, writes Kidder, suggests "the history of a Renaissance man in delirium": political science at Yale ('65); law degree from Harvard ('69); both assistant to the president and assistant chancellor for physical planning at the University of Massachusetts; graphic artist represented by galleries in New York City and Amsterdam; architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received the design prize for the graduating class of 1979.

The four carpenters who make up Apple Corps came of age in the '60s. Richard Gougeon served as a maintenance crewman on an admiral's plane during the Viet Nam War. Alex Ghiselin attended Dartmouth, worked for Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign and later as a reporter for the Boston Globe. Ned Krutsky is a strong, silent type who got his education at a small Quaker college and a house in Haight-Ashbury. Jim Locke, son of a lawyer and a college dropout, built his first house from a "hippy-dippy how-to-do-it book."

House's pleasing style owes much to Kidder's muted perceptions of how counterculture values adjust to the financial and emotional demands of running a business. Rawn is a "contextualist" who forsakes the intrusive shapes of modernism for structures that blend with a community's character and history. The Souweine house is Greek Revival accented with designer windows and a red roof. Kidder provides floor plans and a few sketches of detail, but no elevations that could show the reader the front, back and sides of the building. Yet the message is clear: the spacious, functional and comfortable place is the home of good, unpretentious citizens.

And tough. Jonathan, a former college basketball guard, is an aggressive negotiator. The Apple Corps is at a disadvantage dealing with a lawyer and a woman who has had advanced psychology courses. Before the last finishing nail is driven and countersunk, Judith has earned the admiration and respect of the crew by swinging her own hammer. That the firm does not make much money on the Souweine job suggests how hard it is to get rich in the construction business. Still, the Corps is a young outfit that needs the work. Jim, Ned, Alex and Richard are equal partners on an honor system that requires each to dock his pay if he does not think he has done his share. They allot themselves $14 an hour and split whatever profit is left over at the end of the project. In this case it amounts to only $3,000 out of a contracted price of $146,000. The Souweines seem to have got the better of the deal, but not without causing resentment. Part of the problem is that the contractors disdained dickering while their clients considered it natural. The interplay between confident professionals and self-conscious craftsmen conveys much about misunderstandings and bad feelings in a society stratified by education and status. But in the end, the Apple Corps shows its class by doing an excellent job, including extra touches thrown in at its own expense.

Kidder also provides bonuses: vest-pocket essays on architecture and the lumber business; insights into bidding, building techniques and the pleasures of physical labor. His builders are a proud bunch not given to "cob jobs," carpenters' jargon for sloppy work. Their praise is dispensed with the left hand, as in "perfect enough" or "good enough for Amherst." By this standard, Tracy Kidder's book is not too cobby.