Popular for fall foliage walks and skiing in the winter, the White Mountains of New Hampshire also are a traditionally favored summer vacation spot. So says Bryant F. Tolles Jr., a museum studies professor who specializes in the history of architecture as it relates to leisure, recreation and tourism.

In his latest book, Summer Cottages in the White Mountains: The Architecture of Leisure and Recreation 1870-1930, Tolles studies the summer cottage phenomenon and the lifestyle associated with it.

Tolles describes the summer cottage as "the supreme architectural expression of family leisure and recreation...the ultimate symbol of professional, social and financial success...the epitome of what [many] perceive as virtuous and exemplary in our national society."

A coffee-table book with stunning black-and-white and color photographs, many of them taken by the author, the book is of interest to anyone who ever owned or dreamed of owning a summer home.

Tourism at the turn of the 20th century has long been a favorite research subject for Tolles, a professor of history and art history at UD, where he also is the director of the Museum Studies Program. A native New Englander who owns a home in the White Mountains, Tolles previously traced the architectural heritage of the area's grand resort hotels.

The summer cottage phenomenon is an outgrowth of the grand resort hotels, he said, adding that many of the hotels built the first cottages for guests who were seeking more privacy.

"Many of the region's earliest cottage owners were former hotel guests, who stayed in cottages either owned or operated by the hotels," he wrote. "In the associated cottages, many sought privacy, solitude and flexibility not possible in the often regimented artificial 'social fishbowl' existence of the hotels."

As transportation and highways improved, tourists began to build their own summer homes. These improvements "allowed families to build cottages virtually anywhere they could acquire land," Tolles wrote.

There was quite an "appeal and prestige derived from property ownership," he noted, adding that summer homes also were good real estate investments and gave homeowners a financial stake in the community.

"Separate living conditions also provided cottagers the opportunity to bring together family groups in private, personalized settings and to accommodate and entertain guests according to [the family's] own standards," he said. "Cottage life offered people the opportunity to pursue individual interests. Many were rural retreats to carry on professional activities and hobbies, such as writing, music, art, horticulture or natural history."

Most of the individuals who built privately owned, single-family homes in the White Mountains were accomplished in their respective fields with high public profiles, Tolles said.

"A few were wealthy and nearly all were of comfortable financial means. Most had professions that enabled them to commit the time required to fully enjoy the summer vacation experience. There were many academics and members of the clergy--people with flexible schedules. They were highly cultured, well-read individuals with travel experience and exposure to sophisticated social life in both urban and rural settings"

The cottages they built often were planned by professional architects from the cities the owners called home, although some were conceived by a small group of highly talented local contractors, carpenters and builders.

The style of the cottages "represented an evolution of national architectural styles with regional variations," Tolles wrote. "Most possessed common qualities of simplicity, rusticity, moderate size and practicality. They were the antithesis of the great vacation cottages (mansions) of other major resort areas like Long Island, Newport and Bar Harbor. The White Mountain cottages were far less monumental and extravagant."

The cottages of the White Mountains are an interesting case study, not only for their many and varied styles but also because an amazing 65 percent of the original cottages built between 1870-1930 survive and are used today, he said.

In doing his research, Tolles was able to interview many current owners and he studied local and tourist newspapers, county deed and probate records, photographs, maps, architectural drawings and family correspondence.

"The importance of these single-season residences to the architectural, social, cultural and economic history of the mountains is essential to the story of summer life," Tolles said.

Summer Cottages in the White Mountains is published by the University Press of New England.

Tolles received both his bachelor's degree in American studies and his master's degree in history from Yale University and his doctorate in history from Boston University.

Prior to joining UD, he served as assistant director of the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord and as director of the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass. From 1965-1971, he was an assistant dean at Tufts University.

He also has written about the architecture of Salem and New Hampshire, is at work on a book on the resort architecture of the Adirondack region and is working on the New Hampshire volume of the Buildings of the United State Series to be published by the Oxford University Press for the Society of Architectural Historians.

–Beth Thomas