Howard, Hugh 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952; married; children: two daughters.

ADDRESSES:

Home—East Chatham, NY. Agent—Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc., 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

CAREER:

Writer. Writer and researcher for Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio, A&E Network.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Glen Waggoner and Kathleen Moloney) Baseball by the Rules: An Anecdotal Guide to America's Oldest and Most Complex Sport, Taylor Publishing (Dallas, TX), 1987, published as Baseball by the Rules: Pine Tar, Spitballs, and Midgets, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 1990, published as Spitters, Beanballs, and the Incredible Shrinking Strike Zone: The Stories behind the Rules of Baseball, Triumph Books (Chicago, IL), 2000.

The Home Inspection Handbook, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1987.

I'm Not Doing It Myself: The Comprehensive Guide to Managing a Home Construction or Renovation Project, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (New York, NY), 1987.

How Old Is This House? A Skeleton Key to Dating, Identifying, and Understanding Three Centuries of the American House, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (New York, NY), 1989.

The Preservationist's Progress: Architectural Adventures in Conserving Yesterday's Houses, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Bob Vila) Bob Vila's Complete Guide to Remodeling Your Home: Everything You Need to Know about Home Renovation from the #1 Home Improvement Expert, illustrated with drawings by Nancy Hall and photographs by Michael Fredericks, Avon (New York, NY), 1999.

House-Dreams: The Story of an Amateur Builder and Two Novice Apprentices and How They Turned an Overgrown Blackberry Patch, Ten Truckloads ofLumber, a Keg of Cut Nails, and an Antique Staircase into a Real Home, Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 2001.

Wright for Wright, with photographs by Roger Straus III, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2001.

Natchez: The Houses and History of the Jewel of the Mississippi, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2003.

Thomas Jefferson, Architect: The Built Legacy of Our Third President, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2003.

Natchez Houses: The Antebellum Jewels of the Mississippi, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2004.

Colonial Houses: The Historic Homes of Williamsburg, with photographs by Radek Kurzaj, Abrams (New York, NY), 2004.

Writers of the American South: Their Literary Landscapes, with photographs by Roger Straus III, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2005.

Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson: A Journey into America's Architectural Past, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2006.

The Homes of the Founding Fathers, with photographs by Roger Straus III, Artisan (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Hugh Howard is the author of numerous works about historical architecture and home remodeling, including House-Dreams: The Story of an Amateur Builder and Two Novice Apprentices and How They Turned an Overgrown Blackberry Patch, Ten Truckloads of Lumber, a Keg of Cut Nails, and an Antique Staircase into a Real Home and Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson: A Journey into America's Architectural Past. Howard also serves as a writer and researcher for Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes: In Search of Palladio, a television series that explores the work of sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio.

In House-Dreams Howard chronicles his efforts to design and build a luxurious new 2,500-square-foot home outside of New York City, despite having almost no practical experience in construction. Incorporating ideas from both Palladian and nineteenth-century American architecture, Howard and his small team did the majority of the work by themselves, completing the project in eighteen months. House-Dreams received strong reviews. "This is one of the most enjoyable home-improvement books readers are likely to encounter," noted Booklist contributor David Pitt, and a critic in Publishers Weekly stated that the "absorbing book should appeal to readers who dream of building their own houses, but also to those who have less lofty ambitions." Alex Hartmann, writing in Library Journal, believed that Howard "delineates the relationship between people and process." According to Hartmann, the author's work "is less a house-building manual than a meditation on the meaning of place, home, and family."

Howard has also published titles that examine the architectural achievements of Thomas Jefferson, who designed, among other buildings, his home at Monticello, the Poplar Forest retreat, and the Virginia state capitol building. Thomas Jefferson, Architect: The Built Legacy of Our Third President, "a well-written book," in the words of Library Journal critic Valerie Nye, provides a brief biography of Jefferson and discusses his place in the history of American architecture. In a later work, Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson, Howard looks at the life of Dr. Fiske Kimball, a twentieth-century architect and scholar who discovered and preserved the architectural heritage of some of American's early builders, including Jefferson, William Buckland, John Trumbull, Charles Bulfinch, and Benjamin Latrobe. Howard also argues that Jefferson's reputation as a architect owes much to Kimball's extensive efforts to research and document his accomplishments. Reviewing the work in Booklist, Jay Freeman observed that Howard "tells his story by working forward in time, recounting Jefferson's achievements, and backward in time, uncovering those achievements." A contributor in Publishers Weekly similarly noted that Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson resembles "a one-act play that alternates between scenes set in Jefferson's late 18th century and Kimball's early 20th century, when he investigates numerous archives." According to a Kirkus Reviews critic: "The star here is Kimball, who upstages even Jefferson, emerging as a towering figure in American architecture and architectural scholarship."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Howard, Hugh, House-Dreams: The Story of an Amateur Builder and Two Novice Apprentices and How They Turned an Overgrown Blackberry Patch, Ten Truckloads of Lumber, a Keg of Cut Nails, and an Antique Staircase into a Real Home, Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Architectural Record, January, 1992, Ayres Cowley, review of The Preservationist's Progress: Architectural Adventures in Conserving Yesterday's Houses, p. 48; May, 2004, Guy Wilson, review of Thomas Jefferson, Architect: The Built Legacy of Our Third President, p. 72.

Booklist, September 1, 1999, James Klise, review of Bob Vila's Complete Guide to Remodeling Your Home: Everything You Need to Know about Home Renovation from the #1 Home Improvement Expert, p. 6; May 15, 2001, David Pitt, review of House-Dreams, p. 1718; August 1, 2006, Jay Freeman, review of Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson: A Journey into America's Architectural Past, p. 25

Bookwatch, July, 1991, review of The Preservationist's Progress, p. 1.

Choice, December, 2003, C.W. Westfall, review of Thomas Jefferson, Architect, p. 701; July-August, 2004, R. Longstreth, review of Natchez: The Houses and History of the Jewel of the Mississippi, p. 2036.

Esquire, April, 1987, review of Baseball by the Rules: An Anecdotal Guide to America's Oldest and Most Complex Sport, p. 32.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1991, review of The Preservationist's Progress, p. 455; April 15, 2001, review of House-Dreams, p. 562; July 1, 2006, review of Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson, p. 664.

Library Journal, May 1, 1989, Douglas G. Birdsall, review of How Old Is This House? A Skeleton Key to Dating, Identifying, and Understanding Three Centuries of the American House, p. 77; March 1, 1991, David Bryant, review of The Preservationist's Progress, p. 87; October 1, 1999, review of Bob Vila's Complete Guide to Remodeling Your Home, p. 131; May 15, 2001, Alex Hartman, review of House-Dreams, p. 159; May 15, 2003, Valerie Nye, review of Thomas Jefferson, Architect, p. 85.

Magazine Antiques, June, 2005, review of Colonial Houses: The Historic Homes of Williamsburg, p. 68.

New York Times Book Review, July 28, 1991, Philip M. Isaacson, review of The Preservationist's Progress, p. 22.

Publishers Weekly, March 13, 1987, John Mutter, review of Baseball by the Rules, p. 80; May 7, 2001, review of House-Dreams, p. 243; August 15, 2005, review of Writers of the American South: Their Literary Landscapes, p. 49; July 10, 2006, review of Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson, p. 62.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 1989, review of How Old Is This House?, p. 24; November, 2003, review of Thomas Jefferson, Architect, p. 214.

Southern Living, June, 2003, Robert Martin, review of Thomas Jefferson, Architect, p. 52; November, 2005, Mary Jo Woods, review of Writers of the American South, p. 46.

Washington Post Book World, June 9, 1991, review of The Preservationist's Progress, p. 17.