And unlike British estates, which are handed down from one landed aristocrat to the next, historical American homes tend to be strongly identified with their original inhabitants — like Thomas Jefferson or William Randolph Hearst.
It's a disconcerting mixture, not least for anyone who dares to write the next historical novel.
Where contemporaries saw only a darkling plain, you discern a tidy park, a well-lit square, or most often a road leading to the next historical milestone.
Andrew Davies's next historical novel adaptation for the BBC will be Victor Hugo's Les Misérables – but nothing like the "shoddy farrago" of the musical.
I am very happy to be here, free from all of those fears and hoping against reason that the next historical break in Cuba will not be a violent one, and that it will bring about a future of peace, prosperity and democracy.
"We are on the brink of government and are going to have to lay the groundwork for the next historical phase for reform of the media," said Tom Mills, a sociology lecturer at the University of Aston who has held informal discussions with members of Corbyn's team about press reform.
The next historical period would initiate a genuine continental crisis.
"Well before then, the announcement of the next historical figure will be made... the figure we've been working with for two years is Jane Austen.
The next historical immigration to Great Britain occurred during the Neolithic period, interpreted by Bryan Sykes professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford as the arrival of the Celts from the Iberian Peninsula, and the origin of Britain's and Ireland's Celtic tribes.
If you need to be at the Tower of London to do research for your next historical novel, the support of a university is one of the best chances you're going to get.
Lest La Plaque Tournante risk being branded "historical," their next show will be an exhibition of bio artist Eduardo Kac, known for his creation of a green fluorescent rabbit.
