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The Perfect Home: An Illustrated Tour of the World's Most Beautiful Houses
The Perfect Home An Illustrated Tour of the World's Most Beautiful Houses Author:Mary Gilliatt The Perfect Home is a guided tour of the world's most glamorous houses, from New york to Jaipur, from London to Sydney. It includes grand country houses and historic homes; magnificent modern creations; houses hidden away in remote private paradises and sophisticated urban apartments. — By showing the work of some of the finest... more » professional and amateur architects, interior designers and decorators and giving an in-depth account of how each home was designed, the book shows exactly how the most superlative decorative effects were achieved. The text tells the secrets of the owners -- how they decided on architects or designers, why they chose a particular style of decoration, where they discovered their treasures and antiques, and how they chose their furniture and fittings.
The author first explores the perfect home through history, and investigates how people have been motivated to create these superb houses. She goes on to describe the most romantic of buildings and tells the story of places like a tiny Gothic folly in the depths of the English countryside and the lovely Liselund, a delicate summer palace in Denmark, built for and named after the beloved wife of a Dutch aristocrat. She shows faithful restorations and modern interpretations of old themes from a contemporary version of a classical Greek villa to a painstakingly renovated colonial mansion in Louisiana; and looks at buildings which reflect the surrounding landscape -- from the isolated splendour of St Michael's Mount in Cornwall to an amazing 'glass house' in Pennsylvania which complements perfectly its neighboring Amish architecture. She includes, too, those truly extraordinary houses which are the culmination of a heartfelt personal dream, places such as the brilliant transformation of a cement factory in Barcelona or the exquisite country home created amongst the ruins of a Pennine coal mine.
Mary Gilliatt is uniquely qualified to guide us through these houses, each of which reflects its owner's passion for beauty. She tells the full story behind their creation, offering us a wealth of glorious sights to enjoy and ideas to savor, while also giving us the inspiration to fire our own dreams as well as the information to help make them come true.« less