Impressed with the way Ruhlman brought so much into this book. In 256 pages he touched on family, house, city, suburb, and transportation history, all the while showing the family dynamics. When was the last time you read a book that made you wonder if maybe it would be fun to renovate a house? Or one that made you want to go on vacation to Cleveland? I'll be sure to avoid say no to the renovation projects, but I'm ready for a trip to Cleveland. ( )

HOUSE A Memoir is the story of buying and renovating a hundred-year-old house in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, but of the development of both Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, the way houses have changed over the centuries, and the meaning and effect of a house and home on a family. Why is a culture where twenty percent of the population move annually made up of people longing for a home? How does a house shape a family? He observes that people take better care of something, including a home, when they know they are going to have it for awhile.
When did families move from living in a single room to having separate rooms for various activities and privacy? He implies that is a post-Middle Ages phenomenon but there were homes with several rooms two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. He credits the Dutch for developing the modern form of a house as a way to help children develop into adults.
When their children were preschool, they decided to buy a house to give the children the anchor they believed were necessary for a child’s emotional stability. They found a magnificent house (four stories, lots of rooms for their life style and needs) in a neighborhood of beautiful old houses. The house had been on the market for several months and they realized it needed a lot of major work to pass inspection and be livable.
Michael Ruhlman, the author, grew up in Shaker Heights, the community immediately to the south of Cleveland Heights. His wife, Donna, was raised in Flushing, New York. They moved to Cleveland Heights because Michael realized he could do his work anywhere and wanted to return to his roots. Also, the cost of living in Cleveland was much, much lower than it was in most other cities. Donna really missed living close to the East Coast. The disruption of working on the house and having different perspectives on where to live plays havoc with their marriage.
The main part of the book describes the process of inspecting the house, buying it, and renovating it, partly by their own work and partly by hiring professionals. The whole family lived crowded into a few rooms on the third floor for several months until the main parts of the house became usable. As almost every home owner will discover, things did not always go smoothly.
HOUSE talks about how the cities of Cleveland and Cleveland Heights developed and the role that public and private transportation, from horse and carriages to streetcars to private cars affected the growth of neighborhoods.
He checked government records to find out when the house was built, by whom, and who had lived there before his family. He was able to speak to some of the previous residents who related what life was like when they lived there. Along the way he discovers what he believes to be the wrongful imprisonment of a former resident.
HOUSE provides an interesting and useful guide for people considering purchasing and remodeling a home as well as a guide on tracking down information about the history of a house.
I think the book could have been improved by the inclusion of pictures of the house, before, during, and after the renovations. Donna is a photographer so it should have been doable. ( )

In “House – a Memoir” author Michael Ruhlman relates how he and his wife, Donna, buy and renovate a century-old house in his hometown of Cleveland. This delightful book tells of their search for the perfect house, the anxieties of having it professionally inspected and, finally the frustrations and joys of turning the old house into a home.

Yet, this book is much more than a “Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House” retelling. The author seamlessly transitions his narrative into an exploration of what it means to be from somewhere and how we relate to that place. With candor and wit, he reveals his own longing for the familiarity of home. In addition, he discusses the nature of American cities and their suburbs, and of our need for community. Woven throughout the story are a variety of other worthy subjects including domesticity, haunted houses, marriage, local history, and the search for belonging.

Beautifully written and well researched, I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves houses and feels a deep connection to home. ( )