The Nature of Home

Award-winning architect Jeff Dungan designs clean-lined, light-filled houses made of reclaimed materials--brick, wood, stone--that carry an air of lasting beauty and that are made to be handed on to future generations.

Following in the tradition of populist architects Gil Schafer and Bobby McAlpine, Jeff Dungan designs new traditional houses for today. In this, his first book, Jeff Dungan shares his advice and insight for creating these "forever" houses, and explores eight houses in full, from a beach house on the Gulf coast to a family farm in the Alabama countryside to a Southern lake house. All speak of authenticity, timelessness, and lived history that reveals itself through the natural patinas and flaws that come with age. Dungan is a poet-architect, and he writes with feeling about how his work is inspired by the majesty of nature, like the verticality of the oaks that towered over his childhood ramblings through the woods. Layered in between are thematic essays on the importance of elements such as light, stone, and rooflines in creating a home.