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Mary Kay Andrews

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House Porn: Iconic Fictional Homes In Literature

Posted: 06/13/11 08:42 AM ET

I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been. As soon as I started reading I found myself drawn to fictional character's homes as much as I was to the characters themselves. In "The Fixer Upper," the title character in the book is a mouldering Victorian mansion called Birdsong. For my newest novel, "Summer Rental," I created a rambling, weather-beaten beach house called Ebbtide, on the shores of The Outer Banks, where three life-long friends gather for a month-long reunion. Old houses seem to harbor secrets that speak of past lives and troubles and joys. The accumulated patina of time is an irresistible lure for me--as both a writer and a reader.

Fires, floods, familial feuds, divorce and dispossession, these are the conflicts contained within the walls of these ten memorable houses--both fictional and not.

Oh, how I longed to live in a railway car just like "The Boxcar Children's."

I wanted a garret hideaway to write in like Jo March in "Little Women."

After devouring the Gothic novels of Victoria Holt, I dreamt of moving into a mist-shrouded manor house to become "The Mistress Of Mellyn."

On my first trip to New York in the 1980s, the first place I wanted to visit was the Plaza Hotel, home to Kay Thompson's Eloise. Years later, I named the protagonist of my novel "Savannah Blues" Eloise, called Weezie, as an homage to Thompson's tiny tyrant.

"Colony" by Anne Rivers Siddons
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Presiding matriarch of the clan of Southern lady-lit writers, Siddons does house-porn like nobody else. Here, Retreat, the Maine summer-house of protagonist Maude Gascoigne Chambliss's blue-blooded family-by-marriage provides the setting for seventy years of domestic disquiet.
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This Iconic House
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I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been. As soon as I started reading I found myself drawn to fictional character's homes as much as I was to the characters themselves. In "The Fixer Uppe...
I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been. As soon as I started reading I found myself drawn to fictional character's homes as much as I was to the characters themselves. In "The Fixer Uppe...
 
 
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Annieke
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
06:38 AM on 06/14/2011
The secret garden, although I must admit the idea of a secret garden was more appealing to me as a child than the many hallways hidden behind tapestries.
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McHale Ann Haiman
05:15 AM on 06/14/2011
I love The Boxcar Children as well, I always imagined that the surrounding area looked a lot like the wooded areas by my grandparents' home, so that would be lovely. Also, it may not be a classic, the glass house in Just Listen by Sarah Dessen always sounded beautiful, as did most of the homes in her novels, but that one really struck me. Something seemed magical about it, being inside but having the outdoors right there. Also, Dessen seems to put a lot in the kitchens of homes and restaurants in her books, and I love to cook, so there is always that :)
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trekbette
Bow Ties Are Cool!
01:15 AM on 06/14/2011
The mansion in the Garden District in Anne Rice's Witching Hour series (without the ghosts of course).
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Totto
Not "noises", One-Round, *music*!
09:41 PM on 06/13/2011
I read "The Boxcar Children" over and over, while in St. Angela's School in Chicago. I imagined how good the milk would taste if I hadn't any. I also used to read a book about a doll's house where the occupants were little dolls who found themselves in the oddest positions at night. Some sitting on the roof, others upside down in the sink. They never could figure out how it happened.
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ChrisRoberts
Chris Roberts, God of Short Stories.
08:05 PM on 06/13/2011
Tara is an entirely banal selection, as in who hasn't written about it. The physicality of a southern plantation has been reduced to a generic place device in many works (especially run down antebellum homes) and it is a shame that Tara wasn't torched during the Union's Scorched Earth Policy.
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Edward Standley
opinionated jerk
07:14 PM on 06/13/2011
I'm a primitive. Tree house- Swiss Family Robinson.
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Angry Dad
SMASH Citizens United!
01:06 AM on 06/14/2011
Totally!!! Saw the tree house at Disney World and I was actually jumping up and down with excitement. Live in the tree house, ride a zebra to work, now that's livin'.
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06:21 PM on 06/13/2011
Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
06:03 PM on 06/13/2011
Pemberly didn't make the list? That beautiful mansion (using the one from Masterpiece Theater's series) and grounds, that wonderful housekeeper, and, of course, Mr. Darcy!
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walkerke
Live each day and marvel in its absurdity...
12:54 PM on 06/14/2011
I was thinking the same thing!
whitebeach
Hey, buddy, can you spare a micro-bio?
05:39 PM on 06/13/2011
Too easy. The "Busted Flush," Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale.
05:31 PM on 06/13/2011
Actually I kinda thought 222B Baker St. would be cool!
Cantinflas
My micro-bio is not empty.
12:29 PM on 06/14/2011
Elementary.
05:30 PM on 06/13/2011
I wanted to live in a box car too!
Another one that sticks out is the "Gone-Away Lake" series by Elizabeth Enright with the abandoned Victorian homes.
Love your books Ms. Andrews!
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Happyexpat
My Latin micro-bio didn't meet guidelines. ?!?
05:27 PM on 06/13/2011
I'd split my time between Tara and the Plaza.
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enterlaughing
05:15 PM on 06/13/2011
221-1/2 Baker Street.....complete with Mrs Hudson as cook and housekeeper!
05:11 PM on 06/13/2011
I've read all of Peter Mayle's books. There were such enjoyable reads. I would definitely love to live in Provence.
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kevinbr38
Forward
05:08 PM on 06/13/2011
The Jetson's house, with a Rosie to clean it.