Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House [Paperback]

Sarah Messer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2005

In her critically acclaimed, ingenious memoir, Sarah Messer explores America’s fascination with history, family, and Great Houses. Her Massachusetts childhood home had sheltered the Hatch family for 325 years when her parents bought it in 1965. The will of the house’s original owner, Walter Hatch—which stipulated Red House was to be passed down, “never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever”—still hung in the living room. In Red House, Messer explores the strange and enriching consequences of growing up with another family’s birthright. Answering the riddle of when shelter becomes first a home and then an identity, Messer has created a classic exploration of heritage, community, and the role architecture plays in our national identity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Red House, built by Walter Hatch circa 1647, was one of the first houses in Marshfield, Mass., a coastal community some 30 miles south of Boston. Although it had been stipulated that the house would stay in the Hatch family, descendant Richard Hatch sold it to Messer's father in 1965, impressed with his respect for the property. While Messer didn't obsess over restoring the house to its "original" state, he approached all changes mindful of Red House history. And so the author (now a poet and teacher at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington) grew up in an oddly anachronistic household—with rag rugs instead of shag, Dutch ovens instead of electric ranges, wood instead of Formica. Daguerreotypes of 19th-century and photographs of 20th-century Hatches were carefully preserved; Hatch's original will was displayed on the wall. Although Messer felt like she was "growing up with someone else's history," this dual identity may have suggested her book's unusual form, which weaves Messer's story of growing up in Red House with the Hatch family's story. Her research into New England history unexpectedly fascinates (e.g., how 17th-century settlers would wear masks when carousing drunk to avoid identification; how they earmarked their communally grazing cattle). Beyond giving readers a sense of the liveliness of early New England life and explaining what it was like to grow up in a historic house, Messer gives readers a great sense of the power of a house to pull and shape its inhabitants.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Messer brings a poet's ear, an architect's eye, a historian's attention to detail, and her own firsthand experiences as a resident in this account of "New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-In House." Alternating chapters tell of two family histories, that of Walter Hatch, who built the Red House in 1647 in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and that of Ronald Messer, who purchased the house from Hatch's great-great-great-great-great-grandson and thus broke the string of Hatches who occupied the residence for more than 300 years. By themselves, the family histories are not particularly distinguished; yet, in the slow uncovering and sharing of quotidian events and their historical contexts--Walter Hatch, for example, was born just two years after the pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving in Plymouth--Messer renders these stories unique, indelible, and mysteriously interactive with one another. This book stands as an important historical document, yet it also gives informed insights into the eternal dynamics of family life, the nature of happenstance and fate, and the sadly detached circumstances in which so many Americans now find themselves. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142001058
• ISBN-13: 978-0142001059
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every house has a history..., July 26, 2004

By 

Corinne H. Smith (Athol, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House (Hardcover)

...and the Red House in Marshfield, Massachusetts, is fortunate enough to have one-time resident Sarah Messer as its storyteller. Englishman Walter Hatch built the original structure in 1647. Ownership passed through 9 or 10 generations of Hatches until 1965, when it left Hatch hands and Messer's parents bought the house. Thus is the author linked to her subject.

She alternates between her own family's history and that of the Hatches, tracing both the fate of the individuals and the imprint each left on the house. There are additions, renovations, fires and restorations. Relatives move away and others come back. Time passes, and the Red House outlives all of its inhabitants. And all along the underlying question is: Whose house is it, really?

"The house contains both the living and the dead, and there are always traces, because the house is not separate, has not one owner but many, has many beams, many different panes of glass, the way a body might have many lovers, the way each owner might look at the house as if at the body of a lover. If the window is removed, is it still a part of the house? If the fireplace swing-arm is taken and put in a museum, is it no longer a part of the house? Can the house be removed from itself? The owner, the past, the parts of the house. I thought: Who can steal a house? Who owns the lover but the loved?" (p. 234)

This reader cannot help but be reminded of a farmhouse in her own past: one that's been in her family since 1915 and might not survive the decade with that surname on the mailbox. But that's a story for another day.

To delve into this fascinating book is to relive the cultural and coastal history of the Bay State through the lives of one extended family, and to further ponder one's own footprint left on the earth. Highly recommended for all who know of such homes and who want not only to restore and remember them, but to also know intimately the souls who once spent (and perhaps STILL spend) time there.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been so much better, May 16, 2009

By 

P. Greer (Soddy-Daisy, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House (Paperback)

The Red House is the oldest continuously lived in house in New England. It was built by Walter Hatch in 1646. When he died, he left a will sayaing that the house could never be sold. It was to be passed down from generation to generation. It was, for over 300 years, until 1965 when Sarah Messer's parents bought the house. The author alternates between telling early history of the house and her own family's history. She does this only marginallly successfully. The historical stories of the house are interesting, her family's stories are not. Some of the family stories are relevant and relate to the house, but then others seemed to be tossed in for no apparent reason.

At one point, the author describes one of her boyfriends: "He smelled like geraniums, screen doors, metal screws. Once, while walking, he grabbed a handful of apple petals and stuffed them into a tree. "There, this is you," he said."

Snippets and memories like this are tossed in amongst the house's story. It is jarring, and I found myself reading over them quickly, except some of them are just so odd, like the one above, that I tried to figure out the reasoning for including them.

I'm giving this 3 stars based on the parts having to do with the house, the rest would get zero to one stars.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Red House is wonderful..., August 16, 2004

By 

E. A. Smith (Newburyport, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-in House (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book on several levels. First, a disclaimer, I'm a friend of the author's sister. So the book was interesting from that perspective. But I loved reading about the generations of the Hatch family as well as the impact of living in a centuries old house on the Messers. Anyone who has a relationship with a house which goes beyond the mere structure can relate to this story of emotional attachment to the building known as home. And Sarah Messer's poetic talents are evident in the beauty of the prose.