Featuring the Origins of U.S. Leaders in the Book "Houses of the Presidents" Though big money has seeped into presidential politics to an astonishing degree, you would never know it from flipping through "Houses of the Presidents," by Hugh Howard (Little, Brown, $40). Consider Bill Clinton's childhood home in Hope, Ark., with its exposed water heater next to the kitchen stove and tiny spool-post bed. Or the Bush family's surprisingly modest one-story home in dust-swept Midland, Tex., out of which emerged two presidents and a governor of Florida. Our favorites are the LBJ Ranch in Texas and Ronald Reagan's Santa Barbara spread, Rancho del Cielo. The homes reflect a blend of rugged individualism (Reagan wielded a chainsaw to make fences) and big-city sophistication (L.B.J."s three-TV setup allowed him to watch all the network news broadcasts simultaneously) that strikes us as presidential. Indeed, we humbly propose a new Constitutional amendment: forget Camp David and give every incoming commander-in-chief his or her own ranch.