I built the ideal house down in the Caribbean. All Englishmen dream of leaving the rain of England and getting a place in the sun - out in the grounds with separate guest houses; that is the ideal scenario.

To be an ideal guest, stay at home.

Back on Nov. 23, 1963, I sailed into Manhattan Harbor onboard the Queen Mary and landed with no job and contacts and just $135 in my pocket. My first lodging was in a rundown hotel for $27 a week with the bathroom down the end of a corridor of beds.

In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist.

We are made from clay, water, sun, air, and dream, and we feed on clay, water, air, sun, and dream. We are rains, snows, suns, we are seasons without the right to go back.

Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house.