IDEAL HOMES

MAYA ANGELOU Poet, novelist, playwright and academic Lives with her housekeeper in a house in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

LOCATION: On the outskirts of a small town in the South, which is beautiful: it's where I'm from, and where I live now.

ESSENTIAL LOCAL AMENITIES: A market where the fruit and vegetables are fresh every day. At least one good museum. A decent orchestra for classical music and jazz, and a dance company or two. A friendly church with kind and welcoming parishioners.

CHARACTER: French colonial.

PERIOD/HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS: It would have to be 19th-century - I like the commodious rooms of the period. But I wouldn't like the self- consciousness of knowing I was living in a house where, for instance, Edgar Allan Poe had lived.

CONSTRUCTION: Brick-trimmed, with white clapboard, and a pitched roof.

BEDROOMS: At least four.

BATHROOMS: At least four.

RECEPTION ROOMS: Three - a formal living room, a family room, and a sun room.

KITCHEN: Large - 20-25ft in each direction - with eight "eyes" (rings) on the stove to make life easier. I like to cook and I have a few hundred cookbooks, so I need bookshelves.

DECORATIVE STYLE: I would have lots of antiques, as well as contemporary furniture. White or off-white walls please me: wallpaper is too busy, and would obscure my art. I have a serious collection of African-American art.

LUXURIES: A Jacuzzi in my bedroom, so I could go from the bed to the Jacuzzi and then back to bed again.

SPECIAL OUTBUILDINGS: A garbage house, because I don't like seeing garbage cans around.

VIEW FROM THE WINDOWS: Lots of flowering trees.

SIZE OF GARDEN: About half an acre.

GARDEN'S BEST FEATURES: I am blessed in having a woman gardener who puts lovely things in the garden for me to find. It pleases me not to know there is a flower behind a tree until I almost trip over it.

NEIGHBOURS: Close enough so that, if I need a hand, they can be of use; or if they need a hand, I can be of use. But not too close.

MOTTO OVER THE DOOR: None. Either the house says what it is on its own, or I have missed my target.

WHAT IT WOULD COST: Ted Wohlbruck of Dickens Mitchener Real Estate in Charlotte, North Carolina thinks Maya Angelou's dream home could be found in Davidson, a small town 25 miles north of Charlotte. She could expect to pay between $300,000 and $350,000 (pounds 190,000-pounds 220,000) for her house, but she might have to compromise on period as 19th-century properties are quite rare.

! Maya Angelou's sixth volume of autobiography, 'Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now', is published by Virago at pounds 5.99