The first book on the houses and interiors of a firm known for its sensitive and sumptuous residential work in traditional and contemporary styles.

Whether for a plantation guesthouse in South Carolina or a Dutch Colonial home on Long Island Sound, Eric J. Smith's evocative designs are the result of thoughtful planning integrated with a deep understanding of his clients' lives and lifestyles, a design ethos beautifully evident in the book.

From a Georgian home in California and a French Country home on Long Island to a Shelter Island fishing camp, Smith's work is at once an homage to tradition and an expression of the living beauties these traditions still offer. Over the course of a storied career, and often working with prestigious interior designers--including Alexa Hampton, David Easton, and William Diamond--Smith has garnered a reputation for a kind of personal architecture that is, in each case, in sync with the homeowner, whomever he or she may be, and the place, whether it is oceanfront, on a hillside, or set beside a lake or stream. Renewing Tradition features custom residential projects from New York to California, and Bermuda to the United Kingdom, and Smith's houses, apartments, and country cabins are a revelation, work to be savored and which will serve to inspire homeowners in search of a guide to achieving comfortable elegance in the home.

About the Author:

Eric J. Smith, A.I.A., is the founding principal of the New York-based firm Eric J. Smith Architect. Marisa Bartolucci is the former executive editor of Metropolis magazine and author of Architecture & Design: NYC. Alexa Hampton is an award-winning interior designer and author.

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Пролистать книгу Renewing Tradition: The Architecture of Eric J. Smith

A reassuring, idea-filled guide to decorating by interior designer Leslie Banker, enriched by advice and contributions from other prominent decorators.

Interior designer Leslie Banker grew up learning the trade by her decorator mother’s side. The most important thing her mother taught her was that thinking like a decorator means focusing on developing the story of the space and its inhabitants. That story is what gives a place style, depth, character, and its own unique look, as well as — most importantly — makes the people who live there happy. Think Like a Decorator shows readers how to do just that.

Banker teaches readers how to drill down and articulate what appeals to them. She explains how to drop anchors for the project, whether it’s a favorite paint color or an inherited family piece, and what is essential to living comfortably in a home (hint: enough chairs at the dinner table). Banker also covers how to identify what is not working currently (the pile of backpacks that grows at the end of each day in that neglected corner) and how to solve the inevitable issues that will arise (the paint color that turned garish on the wall).

Witty and entertaining, with Q and As from noted designers including Alexa Hampton, Tom Scheerer, Amanda Nisbet, Katie Ridder, and Christopher Spitzmiller, Think Like a Decorator is, ultimately, about how to live happily and well at home.

About the Author:

Leslie Banker is principal at Leslie Banker & Company, an interior design and decorating business, and coauthor of The Pocket Decorator and The Pocket Renovator with her late mother Pamela Banker. She lives in New York City and Jamestown, Rhode Island, with her husband and daughter. Alexa Hampton, owner and president of Mark Hampton since 1998, is an AD100, Elle Decor A-List world-renowned interior designer known for translating the classical principles of good design and decoration into some of today's most elegant, enduring, and functional landscapes.

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Пролистать книгу Think Like A Decorator: To Create a Comfortable, Original, and Stylish Home

The celebrated designer’s latest book, devoted to gleaning design inspiration from the personal scrapbooks and notebooks of great women of style — including her own. Interior designer Charlotte Moss has spent years collecting as well as creating scrapbooks — a pastime both meditative and instructive about her own ideas regarding design and style. In this unique book, Moss brings together her own scrapbooks along with those of notable women, both contemporary and historical, whose flair for style inspires us, including interior designer Elsie de Wolfe and society doyenne Gloria Vanderbilt — all never before published. Organized by theme — home, garden, travel, entertaining, and fashion — each chapter includes examples of Moss’s signature style mingled with excerpts from the scrapbooks of these great women. From the ambassador’s wife and bon vivant Evangeline Bruce, we learn that she preferred accessorizing tabletops with simple florets of broccoli in biscuit tins. And from the iconic Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, we see her notes and menus from the legendary White House dinners she threw. One-piece (among many) of sage advice includes perfecting one extraordinary meal and serving it again and again, rather than experimenting endlessly.

About the Author:

A celebrated tastemaker, prolific designer, and author, Charlotte Moss most recently wrote the successful Charlotte Moss Decorates (Rizzoli, 2011). Deeda Blair is a philanthropist. Pamela Fiori is a celebrated magazine editor who has helmed Town & Country as well as Travel & Leisure. Alexa Hampton is the president and owner of Mark Hampton LLC. Candy Pratts Price is the editor at large for Vogue.com. Deborah Needleman is the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal Magazine.

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Пролистать книгу Charlotte Moss: A Visual Life: Scrapbooks, Collages, and Inspirations

At an early age, Alexa Hampton learned the language of good design, the vocabulary to speak it, and the elements that define it. As the daughter of interior design legend Mark Hampton, she traveled the world by her father’s side, touring the great architectural landmarks and discovering beauty, training her eye.

Now one of America’s most influential designers herself, Alexa Hampton provides a tour of stunning residences from her own portfolio.

Eighteen classic spaces illustrate in rich detail the elements that govern cultivated design - contrast, proportion, color, and balance. Among the residences are a landmark 1912 McKim, Mead & White restoration on Fifth Avenue in New York City; an eclectic house by the sea layered in textures, patterns, and colors; a contemporary apartment distinguished by simple geometry and clean lines; and Hampton’s own apartment, filled with an exquisite collection of architectural elements.

Hampton also explains how she tailored each space to meet her clients’ needs while retaining a timeless aesthetic, and she provides design expertise on everything from fabric schemes to the particulars of paint. From a French neoclassical tour de force of architec-ture, artwork, and design to a Queen Anne summer cottage furnished to showcase the house’s graceful nineteenth-century dimensions, the spaces here speak the language of design - a language that, under Hampton’s tutelage, anyone can master.