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Summer by the Seaside

The Architecture of New England Coastal Resort Hotels, 1820-1950

Bryant F. Tolles

Summer by the Seaside is a lavishly illustrated work on the origins, evolution, and gradual decline of the resort hotel phenomenon and its architecture along the New England coastline and on its offshore islands. In this indispensable, breakthrough volume, Bryant F. Tolles, Jr., the recognized expert in this popular field, examines the landmark hotels, extant and not, in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. Together these hospitality enterprises helped define the upscale tourist industry and key aspects of New England social, cultural, economic, and architectural history between 1820 and 1950. Exhaustively researched and beautifully assembled, this stunning and informative volume is the definitive work on the history of travel and tourism in coastal New England during this period.

Cloth: $29.95
ISBN-13: 9781584655763
Pages: 272 | Size: 8.5 in. x 11 in.
Date Published: June 30, 2008

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Reviews

  • The illustrations in Bryant F. Tolles Jr.'s Summer by the Seaside: The Architecture of New England Coastal Resort Hotels, 1820-1950 give a powerful sense of what has been lost. Vintage photographs, etchings, and architecturalplans whisk readers along the New England coast, past one elegant structure after another, some of them veritable Versailles, only in Queen Anne or Second Empire style, with verandas, shingled towers, and rows of top-floor dormers. It's enough to make a preservationist weep, particularly one familiar with what's replaced them.

    Down East
  • A profusely illustrated work, including floor plans and photographs from the glory years, Summer by the Seaside is replete with text that examines the origins, evolution, and gradual decline of the resort hotel phenomenon and itsarchitecture on the New England coastline, along with its social, cultural, and economic history.

    Antiques Journal
  • The illustrations in Bryant F. Tolles Jr.'s Summer by the Seaside: The Architecture of New England Coastal Resort Hotels, 1820-1950 give a powerful sense of what has been lost. Vintage photographs, etchings, and architecturalplans whisk readers along the New England coast, past one elegant structure after another, some of them veritable Versailles, only in Queen Anne or Second Empire style, with verandas, shingled towers, and rows of top-floor dormers. It's enough to make a preservationist weep, particularly one familiar with what's replaced them.

    Down East
  • I imagine most readers will buy the book on the basis of its very tangible beauty. It is a lovely picture book, but it is also a solid, readable and first-rate piece of scholarship that will be a standard reference for years . . . the book is big and beautiful, and well done on all levels.

    Maine Sunday Telegram

About the Author

Bryant F. Tolles, Jr.

Bryant F. Tolles, Jr., is professor emeritus of history at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Resort Hotels of the Adirondacks: The Architecture of a Summer Paradise, 1850–1950, Summer Cottages in the White Mountains: The Architecture of Leisure and Recreation, 1870 to 1930, The Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains: A Vanishing Architectural Legacy, and New Hampshire Architecture: An Illustrated Guide.

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