title: The New Cottage Home: A Tour of Unique American Dwellings
author: James L. Tolpin
description: It takes only a drive through any typical American subdivision to confirm that in recent decades the average house has grown in size, narrowed in style, and shrunk in vision. Jim Tolpin's <i>The New Cottage Home</i> represents a return to a previous school of thought about living space: that it should be no larger than is needed, conservative of resources, rich in detail-- in short, that it should pay homage to honest architecture and fine craftsmanship, not to conspicuous consumption. The 30 cottage homes pictured, all recently built, have the slightly unfair advantage of almost magically beautiful locations, but each has a unique character and many cottage-style nooks and crannies: the converted island pump house with sod roof, the 600-square-foot woodland temple, the salvage-built house on the Kansas prairie, the off-the-grid shingled hilltop house built to take advantage of natural light. Tolpin does an excellent job of pulling together the elements of each that make it a cottage and make it appealing. In his own words, "These houses seem to call as much to the heart as to the head, enriching us more with the highs of nature than with the highs of technology. These are the new American cottages that embody the ancient storybook dream, and the kind of homes that many of us have always dreamed of living in."
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![cover](resources/_cover_.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  # Our New Neighbors At Ponkapog
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Thomas Bailey Aldrich
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
      
  
  Produced by David Widger
  
  
  
  
  
  OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG
  
  
  By Thomas Bailey Aldrich
  
  
  Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company
  
  
  Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901
  
  
  When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my
  
  
  own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The
  
  
  modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as
  
  
  if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish
  
  
  equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like
  
  
  to see the passing, in town or country; but each has his own
  
  
  unaccountable taste. The proprietor, who seemed to be also the
  
  
  architect of the new house, superintended the various details of the
  
  
  work with an assiduity that gave me a high opinion of his intelligence
  