NONFICTION - May 17, 1992

DREAM HOUSE: On Building a House By a Pond by Joe Coomer (Faber and Faber: $19.95; 195 pp.). “Dream House” is painful to read because it tells the story of an adventure readers know full well they will never undertake. Who hasn’t fantasized about one day designing and building a dream house; from wrap-around porch to master bedroom, picture windows to kitchen sink, foundation to weathervane? That’s what young novelist Joe Coomer (“The Decatur Road,” “Kentucky Love,” “A Flatland Fable”) and his wife have done. It’s a project that cannot help but inspire envy . . . and not only because the house, a Queen Anne Victorian, sounds gorgeous, with a copper-capped tower, a two-story library, and views of the Texas range from just about everyroom. No: It’s also simply the process of building the house that makes this reader salivate, the idea of making something worthy, something that will last a hundred years or more. Coomer doesn’t cheat by subcontracting out the hard stuff. While he has the good sense to hire professional sheetrockers, Coomer himself installs the gas and most of the electric lines and, with the help of a friend, lays the frighteningly high roof, including the copper sheathing on the tower. “Dream House” is a funny, often charming book, and if it’s overly facile--Coomer wants to make a joke out of everything, and takes his financial and professional luck too much for granted--the compelling nature of his subject makes his ingenuousness a minor sin.