According to the story, Christopher Wren, who helped design the Oakes family mansion, said Connecticut has "a kind of American beauty," resembling Kent but possessing larger and higher landscapes.

True Baldwin, a millionaire unnerved by the stock market crash of 1929, is advised to return to the Connecticut farm of his youth in order to buy land to till for his health.

After discovering that his childhood home became owned by Polish immigrants, he and his daughter Candace, an architect, find what she calls "the most beautiful house in America."

Finding the house in a state of disarray, Temmie assumes the responsibility of cleaning it while Judith seems incapable of helping her with household chores.

Temmie takes on the name of Oakes and eventually marries Ondia Olszak, a Polish immigrant who works on her family's tobacco farm.