The Gentleman's House in the British Atlantic World 1680-1780

The eighteenth-century Georgian mansion holds a fascination in both Britain and America. Between the late seventeenth century and 1780, compact classical houses developed as a distinct architectural type. From small country estates to provincial towns and their outskirts, 'gentlemen's houses' proliferated in Britain and its American colonies. The Gentleman's House analyses the evolution of these houses and their owners to tell a story about incremental social change in the British Atlantic world. It challenges accounts of the newly wealthy buying large estates and overspending on houses and material goods. Instead, gentlemen's houses offer a new interpretation of social mobility characterized by measured growth and demonstrate that colonial Americans and provincial Britons made similar house building and furnishing choices to confirm their status in British society. This book is essential reading for social, cultural, and architectural historians, curators, and historic house-enthusiasts--