Mobile Mansions (Intl) : Taking Home Sweet Home on the Road [Paperback]

Douglas Keister (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2006

What do Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Mae West, Howard Hughes, John Madden, the Partridge Family, Ken Kesey, The Who, and Barbie have in common? Each had a home on wheels-be it an old converted school bus, a massive RV cruiser, or elegant house car. These celebrity motorhomes are only the frosting on the cake in Douglas Keister's entertaining and informative new book Mobile Mansions.
From the eclectic to the exquisite, the luxurious to the rare, Keister's incredible photography showcases the history and diversity of some of the most historic and lovingly restored RVs on the road today. Keister documents an amazing range of vehicles, including small camp cars from the 1920s, house cars from the 1930s, campers from the 1950s and finally modern-day motorhomes that first emerged in the 1960s. Well-known brands like Winnebago, GMC, and Travco are featured as well as one-of-a-kind vehicles like the Lamsteed Kampcar, built by Anheuser Busch, the Zeppelin House Car, and Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car.
Step inside a wide variety of motorhomes, from diminutive camp cars to diesel-belching, lumbering leviathans complete with saunas, balconies, and gourmet kitchens. Mobile Mansions details this fascinating chapter of America's history with lively text, luscious full color photographs, rare vintage photographs and offers a concise history of the recreational vehicle.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Mobile Mansions takes you on a captivating exploration of homes on wheels-everything from early diminutive camp cars to modern-day diesel-belching, lumbering leviathans complete with saunas, balconies, and gourmet kitchens. From the eclectic to the exquisite, the luxurious to the rare, this detailed RV guide showcases the diversity of some of the most lovingly restored RVs on the road today.
In this reference for pop culture connoisseurs as well as RV-loving enthusiasts, Keister documents an amazing range of vehicles, including small camp cars from the 1920s, house cars from the 1930s, campers from the 1950s, and finally modern-day motorhomes that first appeared in the 1960s. Well-known brands like Winnebago, GMC, and Travco are featured as well as one-of-a-kind vehicles like the Lamsteed Kampcar, built by Anheuser Busch, the Zeppelin House Car, and Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car.
Also included in this ultimate guide to RV nostalgia are descriptions, as well as a sampling of photos, of the RVs of cultural icons: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Mae West, Howard Hughes, John Madden, the Partridge Family, Ken Kesey, The Who, and Barbie. Each had a home on wheels-be it an old converted school bus, massive RV cruiser, or elegant house car.
Entertaining and informative, Keister offers a fun-to-read, informative history of the recreational vehicle illustrated with luscious full-color images, rare vintage photographs, and a sampling of period advertisements. Step inside a wide variety of mobile mansions and feel yourself swept up in a wave of wistfulness, rediscovered adventuresome, and a longing to hit the road.
Douglas Keister has photographed more than twenty-five critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters, and greeting cards worldwide. Some of his books include Classic Cottages, Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, Ready to Roll, Red Tile Style, Silver Palaces, Victorian Glory, and Courtyards. Keister lives in Chico, California.

About the Author

Chico, California-based photographer Douglas Keister has photographed twenty-two award-winning, critically acclaimed books. His seventeen books on architecture include four books on Victorian homes (Daughter's of Painted Ladies, Painted Ladies Revisited, America's Painted Ladies and Victorian Glory); three books on bungalow homes (The Bungalow, Inside the Bungalow and Outside the Bungalow), a book on 1920s whimsical homes (Storybook Style) a book about cemetery art and architecture (Going Out in Style), a book on Spanish architecture, (Red Tile Style), six books on bungalow details and Classic Cottages, that will be published by Gibbs Smith Publisher in the Spring of 2004. Keister photographed and wrote an award winning children's book (Fernando's Gift), has two monographs of his personal work (Black Rock and Driftwood Whimsy), a book on classic travel trailers, (Ready to Roll) and a book on cemetery symbolism, Stories in Stone: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Cemetery Symbolism, that will be published by Gibbs Smith Publisher in the Spring of 2004. His wealth of books on architecture has earned him the title, "America's most noted photographer of historic architecture."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith, Publisher; 1 edition (March 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586857738
• ISBN-13: 978-1586857738
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 10 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Professional & Technical > Automotive > Pictorial

More About the Author

Photographer-writer Douglas Keister, has authored and co-authored thirty-six critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters and greeting cards worldwide. His twenty-five books on architecture include five books on Victorian homes (Daughter's of Painted Ladies, Painted Ladies Revisited, America's Painted Ladies, Victorian Glory and 500 Victorians); twelve books on bungalow homes (The Bungalow, Inside the Bungalow, Outside the Bungalow, 500 Bungalows and eight small format books on bungalow details), a book on 1920's whimsical homes (Storybook Style) a book about cemetery art and architecture (Going Out in Style), a book on Spanish architecture, (Red Tile Style), four books on cottage (Classic Cottages, Inside Classic Cottages, Cottages and 500 Cottages a book on cemetery architecture (Going Out in Style) and a book on Courtyards. Keister photographed and wrote an award winning children's book (Fernando's Gift), has two monographs of his personal work (Black Rock and Driftwood Whimsy), and four books on classic recreational vehicles, Ready to Roll, Silver Palaces, Mobile Mansions and Teardrops and Tiny Trailers. His wealth of books on architecture has earned him the title, "America's most noted photographer of historic architecture". His book on cemetery symbolism, Stories in the Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography, has garnered a number of glowing reviews. Sunset magazine said, "Keister has done for cemetery exploration what Audubon did for birding."
He recently photographed and wrote two bilingual children's books in China, To Grandmother's House: A Visit to Old-Town Beijing (January 2008), and Tao Tao's Green Gift (future release). Three other books came out in 2008: Forever Dixie (a book on southern cemeteries), Teardrops and Tiny Trailers and a book featuring his collection of glass negatives. Lincoln in Black and White 1910-1925.
His thirty-seventh book, "Forever LA" which will feature cemeteries in the Los Angeles Area, will come out in the fall of 2009
Doug frequently gives presentations in conjunction with his books and speaks at related events. In the past few years he has lectured in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Spokane, Kansas City, Boston, Milwaukee, Vermont, Winnemucca and Carson City, Nevada, Lincoln, Nebraska, The Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and the Cooper-Union in New York.
He lives with his wife, Sandra Mclean, in Chico, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Celebration of Classic and Vintage Conveyances, May 18, 2006

By 

D. L. Barnett (Paradise, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mobile Mansions (Intl) : Taking Home Sweet Home on the Road (Paperback)

"RVers are some of the friendliest people on earth," writes Doug Keister in his new pop culture history, "Mobile Mansions: Taking 'Home Sweet Home' On the Road" ($24.95 in large size paperback from Gibbs Smith, Publisher). "Unlike the rest of us who are permanently or temporarily moored in our bolted-down communities, they take the bumps in the road of life a little more serenely." And none are friendlier than those who own vintage and classic RVs, the mobile conveyances celebrated in Keister's book.

Replete with 200 color photographs, most taken by Keister himself on location, the book explores not only the history of the recreational vehicle but allows the reader to see inside courtesy of the author's crisp, clear interior shots. From Camp Dearborn, Mich., to Quartzsite, Ariz. (with a quick stop in Chico), Keister documents the development of what used to be called "autocamping."

Autocamping was popularized by Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone (of tire fame), along with an unlikely companion, a naturalist named John Burroughs. After about 1915 the group called themselves "the Vagabonds," attracting newspaper attention everywhere they went. The group was not exactly rustic -- Firestone brought his butler along to help him better appreciate "roughing it."

Later on, the "Tin Can Tourists" organization was established in 1919; they "took their name from the tin can provisions that they subsisted on and, some say, also from the Tin Lizzies many of them drove."

The Great Depression and better roadways put Americans on the road. It was the golden age of the travel trailer. Subsequent decades saw the development of house cars, refined camp cars, family buses, truck campers, vans and motor homes (which had their start with the Frank Motor Home in 1958 which morphed into the Travco Motor Home in 1965.) There are other storied names in the book: Volkswagen, Winnebago, Newell, Barth, Flexible.

Keister devotes a chapter to each kind of "mobile mansion" with a focus on "personal visions" in the last chapter. Pride of place here goes to "Draco," a four-wheel-drive motorhome created by Shahn Torontow of Victoria, British Columbia, who constructed it so his photographer wife, disabled by Lyme disease, "could still go on backcountry photographic expeditions. The bones of Draco are an Oshkosh M-1000 Aircraft Rescue Fire Truck." There's also a wheelchair lift, 14-inch wide tires, a winch and "a 335-horsepower Caterpillar 3406A diesel-pusher engine." The contraption was photographed in Chico. Dishes have magnets glued to their bottoms so they "stick" on steel plate walls and a "macerator-type toilet liquifies waste ... (which) can be pumped into the exhaust system where it is vaporized at over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit."

Pop culture connections abound. Converted Greyhound Scenicruisers (last made in the mid-1950s) help bands reach their next gigs; Charles Kuralt (the CBS "On the Road" guy) used an FMC ("Food Machinery Corporation") motor home; Barbie's "Disco motor home" came from Mattel; Mae West owned "a 1931 22-foot house car build on a Chevrolet truck chassis" -- it slept four and sported a rear balcony where West could address her fans; Ozzie and Harriet used an Alaskan Camper; John Steinbeck traveled with his poodle Charley in 1960 in a GMC pickup truck and Wolverine camper; the Partridge Family's hippie bus was a '57 Chevy school bus; and Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters drove a converted bus, too.

Sprightly fun, Keister's homage to mobile living costs less than 10 gallons of gas -- and lasts a lot longer!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Trailers?, May 3, 2006

By 

Ronald Mayo "Fishguy" (Lopez Island, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mobile Mansions (Intl) : Taking Home Sweet Home on the Road (Paperback)

Interesting and informative especially for an RVer. I especially liked the historical progression leading from Gypsies to today. I also appreciated a look at some of the more unique campgrounds like Quartzsite and the Slabs.

But I wish he had more coverage of modren travel trailers. They make up a large part of today's RV sales and they shouldn't be writen off yet.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Douglas Keister loves his subject matter & the camera shows it..., April 6, 2006

By 

Trulyvintagetrailers "Amy & Baby Deva & Jim" (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mobile Mansions (Intl) : Taking Home Sweet Home on the Road (Paperback)

The BEST review anyone can give a Photo themed book is to reference the pictures and allow them to truly illustrate the subject matter. Beyond his articulate prose, Mr. Keister speaks so lovingly to the subjects of this book with his images. Seldom do I enjoy BOTH the photographs and the text of a book...... Congragulations to Douglas Keister on a well-researched and beautifully photographed history of truly vintage mansions on wheels!