B.K. Troop — a middle-aged, witty, bipolar, alcoholic homosexual — lives alone in a cramped New York apartment. His life is turned upside down when his best friend, Sasha Buchwitz, dies and leaves him her Manhattan brownstone. To afford the property tax, B.K. turns his new home into a colony for young, struggling artists, to whom he can serve as mentor, if not muse. He christens the place the House Beautiful. The House Beautiful tells the story of a fateful summer when a young man named Adrian Malloy arrives at B.K.'s door, lugging a suitcase and dragging a garbage bag crammed with what B.K. presumes to be odes and sonnets. Overjoyed to have found a new poet, B.K. sweeps Adrian into his home and under his wing. Although Adrian is the spitting image of John Keats, he is not a poet. He is an astronomy student, who has sought out B.K. for very private reasons, which he is reluctant to reveal. At once hilarious, romantic, wise, and lunatic, The House Beautiful tells the story not only of B.K.'s emerging friendship with Adrian, but of all the artists' adventures that summer, as they struggle to make art and love.