American Designers' Houses

From Publishers Weekly
This sumptuous coffee-table book takes readers inside the homes of today’s most sought-after interior designers to explore how they decorate when they’re acting as their own hard-to-please clients. Organized by decorating style (Classic, Fusion and Contemporary), the book focuses on the loving—and often obsessive—details each designer lavishes on his or her own abode. Readers whose tastes lean towards the traditional will thrill to the soothing lemon and mustard interiors of famed designer Mica Ertegün’s Southampton country estate and appreciate Bradbury’s lengthy interview with Albert Hadley, who’s often referred to as "The Dean" of American interior design. Bradbury has a knack for unearthing each designer’s artistic views and for including the details that reveal the most about their personalities. In the section on Fusion, for example, the home of eclectic designer Kathryn Ireland is a clear standout, and readers eager to tackle do-it-yourself projects will be pleased to note that the California-based designer had almost no formal training. She took but one course in textiles and design, "which she enrolled in because she would be the only one in the class and thought her teacher wouldn’t bother to show up." Ireland’s own David Hicks-inspired bedroom is an escapist paradise swathed in lush fabrics with a canopy bed decked out in her trademark bright colors. Though Luscombe-Whyte’s photos brilliantly capture the beauty of these rooms, many seem like showrooms, despite the occasional coffee table books thrown in to give them a lived-in feel. Nevertheless, readers who have been roped in by the recent decorating craze will enjoy learning from the designers themselves how they use color, light and objects to achieve a desired effect.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
What goes into a home? For Karim Rashid, the dynamic young product and interior design guru, a living room is accented with a combustible mixture of hot pinks and iridescent orange. The Connecticut home of David Easton, one of the reigning kings of traditional design, features a vast central space overlooking a classically proportioned garden. Holly Hunt, the hip young West Coast designer, has married an American sensibility with French country charm in her Parisian apartment. All of these homes are distinctive, and all show remarkable taste, which is hardly surprising given that their owners have the sharpest eyes in the Western Hemisphere.

The 20 designers featured in American Designers' Houses consider their homes part laboratory, part showroom-and entirely personal. In interviews that are akin to guided tours, the designers point out favorite objects, reminisce about their work and clients, and share design tips. By focusing on interior designers' own homes, this fascinating book captures their style in its purest and most personal expression, uncompromised by clients' demands, and will encourage readers to develop their own unique decorating style. AUTHOR BIO: Dominic Bradbury is a journalist who has contributed to House & Garden, Elle Decor, GQ, and other magazines. He has written a number of books on architecture and design, including Designers at Home. Mark Luscombe-Whyte's photographs of interiors have been published in Vogue, House & Garden, Condé Nast Traveler, and other magazines.

About the Author
Dominic Bradbury is a journalist who has contributed to House & Garden, Elle Decor, GQ, and other magazines. He has written a number of books on architecture and design, including Designers at Home. Mark Luscombe-Whyte's photographs of interiors have been published in Vogue, House & Garden, Condé Nast Traveler, and other magazines.


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Peeking in at the interiors inhabited by 20 prominent US designers, author Bradbury and photographer Luscombe-Whyte see "individual laboratories of design, arenas where a designer's taste and style can have free reign (sic) and pure execution, reflecting personality and artistic accomplishment. They represent a spirit of invention and innovation that is beyond fashion, more enduring and distinctive." Beyond fashion they may be, but the fashion matters, too, of course; the homes are gorgeously appointed, expensively furnished, and impeccably lit as well as thoroughly documented by Luscombe-Whyte's crisp color photographs. Oversize: 9.75x11.75". Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


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