Summer by the Sea: Cottages from Watch Hill to Little Compton

Noted architect Thomas Kligerman celebrates the magic of summer, exploring the seaside setting and design of secluded cottages facing the Atlantic along the Rhode Island coast

Summer by the Sea is the first book to focus on the seaside cottages of Rhode Island, the birthplace of the shingle style, lauded as the ’architecture of the American summer’. This in-depth tour of seaside communities begins with Watch Hill and moves along the coast, weaving together the history of the state, the evolution of the shingle style, and descriptions of the geology and wildlife that create a unique sense of place.

Each chapter explores a different town - Watch Hill, Weekapaug, Haversham, Block Island, Saunderstown, Jamestown, Middletown, Little Compton - capturing landscape and seascape and studying both historic and contemporary shingle style designs.

Featured are works by 19th century masters Calvert Vaux and Charles L. Bevins, new houses by Jens Risom, Gil Schafer, and Peter Bohlin, and vernacular cottages by unknown builders that have descended through generations of the same family. The most recent is Tom Kligerman’s own house in Weekapaug, a gabled, shingled form that he describes as ’an architectural madeleine for my family, ’ evoking the sounds and scents of his own boyhood summers by the sea.

Lush photographs specially taken for the book by Read McKendree capture the spirit of the place - interiors filled with personal histories, generous, inviting porches, and views out over meadows and ponds to the Atlantic beyond. Tom Kligerman’s own photographs of beaches, harbours, and houses- views taken while biking along narrow roads and sandy paths - complete the portrait of this special summer world.

Thomas A. Kligerman is the founding partner of Kligerman Architecture and Design, an award-winning New York firm with residential projects in prestigious suburbs and summer communities along the East Coast, including the Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, Jamestown and Weekapogue, Rhode Island, and Mount Desert, Maine. A dedicated student of the history of domestic design internationally, Kligerman is the author of three books on the firm’s work, most recently Shingle and Stone: Thomas Kligerman Houses, and a sought-after speaker on the work of McKim, Mead & White, Bernard Maybeck and other iconic figures.

Kligerman was raised in Connecticut and New Mexico and spent years in France and England as a student. These experiences sparked his interest in the rich history of domestic architecture, gardens, and landscapes. Most significant, though, were the summers by the sea spent with his family on the coast of Rhode Island, amid the crash of waves on the rocky shore, sailing on the calmer waters of the inlets and ponds, and bicycling on sandy paths past the shingled cottages that are the architecture of the American summer.

Read McKendree is a well-known architecture and interiors photographer whose work is published in national shelter magazines including Architectural Digest, Luxe, and ElleDécor as well as regional publications including Connecticut Cottages and Gardens, New York Cottages and Gardens, Boston Globe Magazine, and New England Home. A lifelong resident of Rhode Island, McKendree brings an insider’s perspective on the design history of this unique coastline.