Designers Here and There:
Inside the City and Country Homes of America’s Top Decorators
By Michele Keith
The Monacelli Press
On sale at stores nationwide and on such websites as amazon, barnesandnoble and borders.

During the week, interior designers select fabulous fabrics, furniture, paint, lighting, and accessories for clients’ homes. On the weekends, they can devote themselves to beautifying their own. Materials and finishes that later appear in commissioned work often appear here first, as designers use the rooms and walls of their primary and secondary residences like a blank canvas for perfecting details and techniques central to their trade.

Thirty-eight private city and vacation residences belonging to today’s most renowned decorators from around the country inspire with full-color images of exquisitely appointed chic city apartments, elegant townhouses, minimalist midcentury gems, quaint cottages, historic mansions and farmhouses, cozy log cabins, and beachside retreats in locations ranging from Palm Desert to Palm Beach, Austin, Chicago, and Boston.

Michele Keith’s lively, accessible text brings each distinct personality to life, revealing how and why the designers gravitate to styles ranging from firmly traditional to coolly contemporary to Hollywood Regency, how the attributes of each location—setting, proportions, and character—influence design direction, and how designers including Martha Angus, Barclay Butera, Eric Cohler, Andrew Fisher and Jeffry Weisman, Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, Eve Robinson, and Vicente Wolf choose to spend time in the intensely personal spaces they have created. Each designer’s top five favorite decorating tips encourage all eager to perfect their own homes to begin.

 

Enjoy some snaps from the book signings held around the country. (click to enlarge)

 

About the Author: Michele Keith is a freelance writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Departures, Traditional Home, New York Spaces, and O, the Oprah magazine. Her previous books include Country Living Easy Makeovers (Hearst Books, 2009) and Great Country French Style (Meredith Books, 2006). She is currently working on a how-to decorating book for children.