Houses in books....where do you want to live ?

[Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow]

Just reading the thread about homes and somebody mentioned no food smells in the kitchen.
This made me think of Penelope Keeling's house in The Shellseekers.
She has a huge basement kitchen with French doors into the garden, there is a scrubbed pine table with a jug of flowers on it and a delicious smell of garlic and herbs. She has shelves full of books and lots of records and silk indian throws on the sofa and omg! I want to live there!

Which fictional house do you want to live in?

I don't think anyone's taken mine yet, phew.. Fox Corner, the house in Life After Life. A fantastic family house and garden where everyone's lives are rooted. Really captured my imagination and I've realised I think of it a lot when thinking of dream houses.

Maybe also the house from the start of Atonement for a weekend place for big parties and guests.

Oh Brideshead !
Cold comfort farm - after all of the improvements were made by them obvs.

maireas yes thanks for the names (I’d forgotten). I listen to those audio books regularly. Howling with laughter.

Oo just found this! Worth a visit for fans like me.

www.kateatkinson.co.uk/news_detail.php?id=3

They're brilliant, @HeronLanyon ! I've read them so many times. I rather like Lucia's Elizabethan manor in the first book, complete with spit and Perdita's garden!

Kirrin Cottage from The Famous Five, sea views, secret passages, it's very own island - bliss!

@DigOutThoseLemonHandWipes

Green Gables please.

Yes!!

Penscombe from jilly cooper
House in Cheyne walk in Chelsea from Penny Vincenzi's No Angel trilogy
Chrestomanci Castle
Tanamera or the chateau/vineyard in a Farewell to France
Mistral's house in provence

So many I can't name them all!

Rourkes house, well Rourke and LtEve of course - a mini castle with a pool, a dojo, a gym, a Summerset...

maireas with the ‘Roman’ pottery find ! Miriam margolyes reads 3 or 4 hour adaptations and fully unabridged (8 hrs per book) have just been released on audible.

Brilliant! Unabridged? That's a great recommendation!

As soon as I read the title, I thought of Rosamunde Pilcher! My choice would be Nancherrow from Coming Home, however, it sounds divine!
Second would be The Four-Story Mistake from the 1940s American children's book of the same name by Elizabeth Enright.

@TheChippendenSpook

I'd love to lie in the Magic Faraway tree. In Moonface's house with the slippery-slip.

Omg...yes this

Any house that can make someone say yes to marriage after initially refusing must be a great place. So Pemberly. She definitely changed her mind after seeing it...

[quote CaptainCallisto]@Pogostemon I was just thinking the same! If you've claimed the house, may I have the lodge? We can have swimming parties at the lake with sausages and gin fizzy lemonade (for which I shall wear Rhapsody in Stripes) [/quote]
And I shall wear Spotted Peril and bring the cocoa tin.

Always fancied the Practical Magic house, or Uncle Alp's cabin in Heidi (imagine the views), but Green Knowe is definitely the one for me.

Bag End, Last Homely House or Gabriel and Bathsheba's farmhouse with the furniture "a'sheening from long years of handlin'"

The Folly from Rivers of London.
Sooky Stackhouse house in the wood.

@Pogostemon Those were the two I instantly thought of when I saw this thread, plus the big house on Oakley Street and the Nancherrow dower house. Greedy guts that I am, the flat with the service elevator to the restaurant has been my dream since I was little.

When I was a child I always wanted to live in the Little House in the Big Woods. It was so evocatively described and sounded so cosy and homely.
But as an adult I'd have to be the one doing all the housework with no labour-saving appliances, with a sideline in milking cows, making cheese and butchering hogs.

So I shall go for a PG Wodehouse London mansion house apartment (with a manservant to make me breakfast, and dinner at my club each evening), and spend my weekends at house parties in various stately homes.

This thread is making me so happy - thank you OP!

I always wanted Milly Molly Mandy's life home or Maria Merryweather's bedroom in The Little White Horse. Ingleside seemed like perfection...

I can't think of any adult books!

As a child I was very fond of Uncle Aquila's house in Calleva, with its spacious rooms, tower, and wild garden close to the city walls. But now I'm grown up, I've taken a fancy to the house of Marcus Corvinus on Rome's Caelian Hill with its walled garden, pool, bath house and numerous rooms.

It comes complete with staff of course, and I'm sure I'll get on well with the Major Domo and with Meton the best chef in Rome.

@AdaColeman

As a child I was very fond of Uncle Aquila's house in Calleva, with its spacious rooms, tower, and wild garden close to the city walls. But now I'm grown up, I've taken a fancy to the house of Marcus Corvinus on Rome's Caelian Hill with its walled garden, pool, bath house and numerous rooms. It comes complete with staff of course, and I'm sure I'll get on well with the Major Domo and with Meton the best chef in Rome.

Ooh, yes! Uncle Aquila's house is gorgeous. Plus the excellent underfloor heating, which now would be rather snob.

Oh! I tell you what I'd like - the magician's house in the Puddle Lane books. Though Davy and Sarah's house with its nice little attic bedroom is lovely too. They're all probably well over a million by now.

Bag End for the good food supplies and general comfort.
The Harvilles' home in Persuasion for the welcome.
Greendale as a village is a good shout.😂