Traditions and Techniques of Building New England Stone Walls

Gardner addresses the inherent design challenges that arise when working with the typical rounded, hard-to-use fieldstone of New England; gives valuable advice on acquiring materials, preparing the site, and laying out a footing; outlines the basic principles of constructing single-, double-faced, and retaining walls; and reveals how to build walks, patios, planters, ramps, foundations, wells, steps, corners, pillars, and stiles. He considers the mythology of the stone wall and its place in the New England imagination: why we revere the miles of old farm walls that wander through our woods and fields, and why we are driven to preserve, restore, and duplicate them.

The Granite Kiss explores the history, aesthetics, and philosophy of working with stone in a book that will bring as much pleasure to armchair craftsmen as it will valuable instruction to the beginning wall builder.

“A Thoreauvian do-it-yourself guide.”
—Christian Science Monitor

"Stone work is mostly a matter of wrestling stones. Finally, someone has managed to wrestle the language itself-a perhaps more difficult task-into explaining exactly how that work is done and why it is so satisfying to do. Kevin Gardner has wrought a small miracle, thoroughly describing not only the craft itself but its history, its modern uses, even its esthetics. If your heart is warmed by the sight of a tumbled old wall organizing a wooded New England landscape, you'll find out why-and a lot more-in The Granite Kiss."
—John Jerome, author of Stone Work