A House in the South: Old-Fashioned Graciousness for New-Fashioned Times

Book Description

Though times have changed, the charm and grace of Southern style endures. It’s a design tradition that values gentility and gracious living above conspicuous consumption; history and mystery above the cutting edge; and hospitality above all else. Today’s Southern homes reflect a sense of style that remains in touch with the past as it embraces the present.
In this affectionate portrait of Southern homes, Frances Schultz and Paula S. Wallace lead a tour of more than twenty of the South’s proudest houses and most remarkable modern domiciles, proving that the legendary graciousness of the Southern home lives on in all forms–from seaside cottages to some truly over-the-top domains. Despite the differences among these diverse homes, the most timeless aspects of Southern style abound, including:
• Using wrought iron for decorative elements
both inside and outside the home
•Incorporating the porch as an essential room
of the house
• Collecting antique silver to complement the
contemporary table

Magnificent full-color photographs of each house show everything from the grand and elegant to the quaint and quirky, making this unique book a visual treat for anyone enchanted by the eternal grace of the American South.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing.......2007-07-16

Overpriced and boring. Take a great look at that wonderful cover. It's the best thing about the book. How disappointing for the price. Blah.

Southern Comfort.......2007-05-25

This is the book you want to read if you are interested in all the variety and spice of Southern living, from formality to casual bare-foot elegance. The authors have captured the essence of Southern grace and charm, and revealed some spectacular decorative work in the process.

customer service superb.......2007-05-10

loved the book but I cant say enough abought how amazon takes care of their customers wish everyone was like that

Creole Houses: Traditional Homes of Old Louisiana

Average customer rating:

CREOLE ARCHITECTURE
Creole Houses
Another great book from Steve Gross & Susan Daley
Creole Houses

Creole Houses: Traditional Homes of Old Louisiana
Steve Gross , and Sue Daley
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0810954958

Book Description

Creole houses, found from New Orleans to northern Louisiana, are one of the nation's unique architectural treasures. A blend of French and Spanish colonial styles, with West Indian, Canadian, and other influences, these lovely houses were astutely designed to withstand their sultry, subtropical environment. Significantly, most major examples withstood the devastating hurricanes of 2005.

No other book of photography evocatively examines the development of this singular American style, embracing architecture and interior decoration, which thrived from the early eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century. Creole Houses offers an appreciation of Creole culture as seen through its historic homes and celebrates not only a memorable way of life, but the history, and the unique sensibility, that produced it.

Customer Reviews:

CREOLE ARCHITECTURE.......2007-06-22

A very nice book on a beautiful architectual style. These houses fit perfectly into the Southern Louisiana landscape, they were built for balmy humid climate of the region. I found the history of the people that built these homes very interesting, the text was imformative and the images nicely produced. If you are interested in this style i highly recomend the book on Hays Town, he was a modern master of the venacular.

Creole Houses.......2007-05-14

This book is not what you expected; it is a book on southern houses and their interiors, but not about the stuffy designer places that you usually see. The interiors are even more sophisticated and tastefull than any you have seen in such books. It is the first time you have seen the beautiful Louisiana-made chairs and armoires in their native environment.

It seems like the photographers really searched hard to find just the right houses to elucidate the Creole style. It is a house style that seems like one you would want to recreate and live in today

Another great book from Steve Gross & Susan Daley.......2007-05-02

This book brings important attention to the existence of these historic Creole homes in a part of the country that has been shattered by natural events in recent years. Fortunately, these homes are survivors: of their glorious past, of the ravages of weather, economy and time. The photographic vision of Gross and Daley is a brilliant dedication to documenting places as they are and not how we might want them to be. OLD HOUSES, one of their first books, set a precedent for their evocative style of artistry in what they choose to photograph from our architectural and domestic past. They continue to seek the forlorn, the forgotten, the poignant and the unusual. Their latest book, CREOLE HOUSES, is further revelation of their aesthetic message--of how old places and ways can be both beautiful and resonant in our modern, complicated world. CREOLE HOUSES is both record, homage, and a visual and written poem to historic Louisiana architecture.

Creole Houses.......2007-04-20

I have over the years acquired a couple dozen books on old New Orleans and Low Country architecture, none has captured the true feeling of that fading glory like Creole Houses. Photos are superb, text is authorative, end sheets are a delight, and the binding first rate. This book is a peek inside antebellum Creole country from plantation houses to servant's quarters.

Lets hope these folks do more such volumes. My suggestion would be the 18th century Georgians of the Mid-Atlantic states.

g

Average customer rating:

GLORY OF THE OLD SOUTH
Rich and immensely-informative

Architecture of the Old South
Mills Lane
Manufacturer: Abbeville Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1558590447

Book Description

Architecture of the Old South: Greek Revival & Romantic and its companion volume, Architecture of the Old South: Colonial & Federal, are the climax of some twenty years of exploration, research and writing. Buildings are three-dimensional history books that reflect the comings and goings, successes and failures, aspirations and follies of real people. Virginia was the oldest, most populous and richest colony in the South, with early architecture of unsurpassed elegance and variety. Maryland, thanks to an early start and the successful cultivation of tobacco, produced colonial architecture second only to Virginia and South Carolina, the rich rice colony.

Meanwhile, North Carolina, with treacherous coasts, poor harbors and shallow rivers, was slow to prosper and remained isolated. Georgia, the last and poorest of the English colonies, struggled from insecurity and near collapse till the 1760's and, like North Carolina, remained sparsely settled, poor and undeveloped till after the Revolution. Louisiana, the former colony of France, continued to be dominated by French culture, French language and French laws long after it was sold to the United States in 1803.

In the 1760's Virginians and Carolinians, moving into the uplands and already pressing against the mountains, began exploring Tennessee and Kentucky. After the Revolution, this wave of transcontinental migration was renewed, not only to Tennessee and Kentucky, but also to northeastern and coastal Georgia and, leapfrogging lands in the Mississippi Territory still occupied by the Indians, to the banks of the lower Mississippi river.

Georgia and North Carolina enjoyed their greatest prosperity during the heyday of the Greek Revival. Mississippi and Alabama, the two states carved from the historic Mississippi Territory, were settled by a third wave of immigration in the 1830's that produced a surprising variety and quality of buildings in the relatively brief period before the Civil War.

These books try to explore Southern architecture beyond the clichs. The great buildings of the Old South were created by outsiders and newcomers, especially New Englanders, whose contributions to Southern society and culture have been long underestimated. Thus, these historic buildings show how the South participated far more fully in the mainstream of American life before the Civil War than has been generally appreciated.

Customer Reviews:

GLORY OF THE OLD SOUTH.......2006-10-24

This is a wonderful book on some of the most spectacular buildings in American. The text is highly informative and the images are crisp and vivid, the author does a fine job of capturing the buildings in their best light, and he is quite thorough. The south is a special place, with it's own pace and culture, much is made of the divide of European and African American's, but as a southerner I can tell you that, both groups understand each other totally, for better or worse and for the most part work and live together better than in other parts of the country, these buildings where built for the most part by the whole of the south, and the styles reflect the culture, be it french, spanish, english, irish, african, scottish or whatever. The architecture of the great southern cites, Charlston, New Orleans, Natchez, and Savannah are on display here as are the wonderful rural plantations. I highly recommend this book to anyone with any interest in the architecture of the south or just enjoys well conceived books on interesting topics.

Rich and immensely-informative.......1999-06-16

"Architecture of the Old South" is a rich and immensely-informative volume.

Mills Lane spent over fifteen year of "exploration, research, and writing" to produce this now classic work. He has attempted (and succeeded) in documenting how, surprisingly, "the great buildings of the Old South were created by outsiders and newcomers, especially New Englanders, whose contribution to Southern society and culture has been long underestimated."

Laudable buildings from such great cities as Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans are amply represented here, as are country houses and plantation estates. And to Lane's credit, he includes some quirky homes and frontier houses that have architectural connections to some of the region's more familiar buildings.

Van Jones Martin's color photography is crisp and unfussy. The best pictures include William Bryd II's handsome 18th-century mansion, in Westover, Virginia; Charleston's elegant, 18th-century Unitarian Church; and the grand, curving stair in Peter Wilson Hairston's 19th-century, two-story home in Advance, North Carolina.

Book Description

“Southerners seem to stay close to each other, accumulating ties of kinship in a way that ultimately becomes almost impossible to unravel, and thus the family house remains the center of births, marriages, and deaths through the generations.”
—From Under Live Oaks

There is a part of the South that clings to its past, whether that past is an imagined or a real one. Resonant with antebellum elegance and sometimes turbulent history, the houses of Under Live Oaks act as a touchstone for another time, becoming repositories of rich family traditions for their owners.

This tenacity to hold on to their history is beautifully demonstrated in the decor of these houses, filled with antiques and personal treasures, decorated in the style that was fashionable 150 years ago and that has not been tampered with since. More than 200 images from acclaimed photographer Peter Woloszynski fill the pages of Under Live Oaks, giving a provocative view into a world many never see—a world of faded portraits, shelves of dusty porcelain, dolls lined up in an armchair, family letters, lace fans, invitations to the cotillion, old steamer trunks. These houses were the royal palaces of the age, furnished with the finest objects and fabrics—many imported from Europe—that the first half of the nineteenth century had to offer. Under Live Oaks offers a remarkably consistent vision of a period, a period that takes its place in the dark history of America and that casts a permanent shadow over its legacy.

The houses range from an Italianate villa in Columbus, Georgia, to a masterful Greek Revival mansion in Fairvue, Tennessee; from the charming Catalpa in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to the melancholy Winter Place in Montgomery, Alabama. The classic plantation houses of Natchez, Mississippi, compete in beauty with an elegant townhouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, and the historic Sherwood Forest in Charles City, Virginia. All the states of the Deep South are represented. A few of the houses are open to the public; others are unknown and unvisited except by family and friends. Yet all of them stand as witnesses to a bygone era.

Noted author Caroline Seebohm eloquently casts the stories of the land, the houses, and their owners. She vividly evokes the power of the architecture and interior design of these houses, and through her we hear the owners’ pride of place and staunch allegiance to their family history. Under Live Oaks is an intimate tour of the Old South, an experience available to only a few and that in the not-too-distant future will be lost forever.

Customer Reviews:

I wish I could give this 10 stars!.......2007-04-24

I own a 120 year old farmhouse in the South and I am fascinated w/ the history and culture. This book is a JOY! I LOVE reading about the families in the book, the photos are GORGOUS and I have been unable to put this book down! Of all the 'Home' books I've read this is by far my absolute favorite! ENJOY!!!

Photo's are great.......2003-08-22

If you like old houses of the South this book has some wonderful pictures. Some interesting photos of the interior rooms with a little bit of personal collections of the families. A great coffe table book. Not deep reading.

Southern Gothic Rehash.......2002-12-13

Both author and photographer of "Under Live Oaks" are English, and their knowledge of the South is distinctly secondhand and second-rate. Seebohm even acknowledges needing a crash course in Southern architecture from a friend! Instead of genuine knowledge and insight, we are offered a gauzy gothic cocktail of Hollywood cliches. (Mix one shot of "Gone With the Wind" with a dash of "Suddenly Last Summer" and a gallon of "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.") For a beautiful and intelligent book on Southern architecture, try "Architecture of the Old South" by Mills Lane. For photos that shed some light on Southern myths and realities, try "William Eggleston's Guide."

Average customer rating:

Architecture of the Old South : Georgia
Mills Lane
Manufacturer: Beehive Press (GA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0883220377

Average customer rating:

Beautiful book, beautiful memories.
french version available in www.amazon.fr
Wonderful Photography
My review is not yet available

The Houses of Old Cuba
Llilian Llanes
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0500282722

Book Description

From the indigenous simple huts known as bohios to elegant neoclassical villas, from the grand palaces of the Spanish occupation to luxurious quintas or country mansions, all the secrets and enchantments of Cuban life, past and present, remain intact today in the city of Havana, in the towns of Trinidad, Camagüey, and Santiago de Cuba, and in the countryside. This superbly illustrated book reveals a Cuban architectural heritage that is often ignored or hidden from the view of visitors to the island. Drawing upon local archives, museum records, memoirs, diaries, and other native sources, Llilian Llanes describes Cuba's architectural history from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth. The evolution of Cuban architecture, influenced by climate and social conditions, parallels the cultural, political, and economic history of the island, and the houses and their decoration reflect periods of greater or lesser prosperity, as well as social inequalities. Courtyards, balconies, galleries, balustrades, grilles, and louvered doors: the evocative photographs, all in color, illustrate the subject magnificently with exterior and interior views plus close-ups of details. Extended captions explain the development of architectural features and the houses themselves over centuries and provide fascinating details of Cuban daily life, customs, and pastimes. 168 color photographs and a map.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful book, beautiful memories........2004-05-12

I purchased this book for my husband, he was forced to flee Cuba at the age of 5. He has a vast collection of books on Cuba and Cuban-American issues, and this is a very welcomed addition. The photographs are lovely, and when viewed by our Cuban relatives, it brought back lots of memories. Lovely as an art or historical book.

french version available in www.amazon.fr.......2001-02-05

both versions of the book, in english and french, are excellent. however, there are some 'minor' differences, for example the cover. there is also a spanish version that shares the french version cover design.

Wonderful Photography.......2000-11-08

This is a fabulous book with exquisite pictures. The photography is marvelous and it gives the reader an opportunity to see the nice range of architectural styles that can be found in Cuba.

My review is not yet available.......1999-05-25

I'd like to see the original version ( in French?) I know it is by Editions Arthaud. Please inform me about this version. Is it on a website?

Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach

Average customer rating:

Love My-amah Deco!
Remembering Old Miami Beach
Radiant Virtual Visit

Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach
Laura Cerwinske
Manufacturer: Rizzoli International Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0847803457
Release Date: 1991-02-15

Book Description

Born out of fantasy and speculation, designed for fun and profit, Miami Beach has been, from its inception, a city of mythical composition. Its famed Art Deco District was designated a Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, and today the area is basking in a revival of interest and attention. Nevertheless, while fashion photographers and entrepreneurs, artists, developers, restaurateurs and club owners flock to the neighborhood, it is still struggling, after years of deterioration and neglect, to recreate itself out of its own forgotten glamour. Despite a new palette of confectionery colors and the renovation of numerous buildings, the Art Deco District remains in need of urban cultivation, of a reinterpretation that transcends its original resort identity. Author Laura Cerwinske introduces Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach by discussing both the area's past and its future. Throughout her comprehensive exploration of the most concentrated neighborhood of Art Deco buildings in the world, she details the style's evolution and examines its design.

Tropical Deco: The Architecture and Design of Old Miami Beach treats its readers to a delightful view of a unique adaption of a historic architectural style. For, while Miami Beach's Art Deco architecture derives its stylistic roots from the streamlined and electric visions of the cosmopolitan North, Tropical Deco design is much softer and more temperately seductive. These are buildings whose narrative and evocative nature is at once sophisticated, naive and filled with humor.

Customer Reviews:

Love My-amah Deco!.......2006-03-20

I found this book years ago at the Delray Beach library. It had been checked out so many times that it was in pretty ragtag shape. I decided to order my own copy just so I could gaze at deco whenever I wanted to. This book is a fantastic primer for anyone interested in Miami. Read this book and then take it with you on the Miami art deco tour; you will be that much more prepared to appreciate the tour and prepared to ask questions to your knowledgeable tour guide.

Remembering Old Miami Beach.......2005-01-08

This book has been around for 20+ years and is mostly photographs taken in late 1970's and early 1980's. Much has changed in the ensuing 25 years. Many of the buildings have since been repainted, as in the Carlyle featured on the cover. Some, as with the graceful St Moritz, have been restored (today it looks much different, and better, then in this book's photograph). Best of all this book documents some things that are no longer there as in the wonderful photos of the Tiffany murals, the old Cinema Theatre interior. and the demolished Sands Hotel.

The book is broken up into chapters based on architectural details (Facades, Doorways, Materials, etc). The text is well written and gives one a good grounding in the Miami Beach Deco architectural style. Best of all it is filled with wonderful photographs. A great historical record of a time when the Art Deco District had just been formed.

Radiant Virtual Visit.......2003-07-26

Open the pages of this book to feel the heat on your face and sand between your toes. You're looking at some of the most whimsical and delightful architecture in the world. Imagine approaching this country for the first time from the water and being greeted by these buildings. They are a testament to this country's creativity, humor and ability to dream into the future. And the best part is that they are so well preserved so that you can experience them in person inside and out.

Old Florida: Florida's Magnificent Homes, Gardens and Vintage Attractions

Average customer rating:

This book represents the REAL Florida
A Surprising Treat!
beautiful tour of OLD FLORIDA's lost treasures
Very disappointing

Old Florida: Florida's Magnificent Homes, Gardens and Vintage Attractions

Manufacturer: Rizzoli
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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Decorating | Interior Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0847825639
Release Date: 2003-11-08

Book Description

Although today Florida is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, many of the architectural landmarks that reflect its colorful and diverse history remain unknown. An adventuresome group of pioneers were drawn to the uncharted and exotic landscape of late
nineteenth-century Florida, creating buildings of extraordinary imagination and beauty. Since then Florida has experienced a century of remarkable architecture, from the ornate Italian villa Vizcaya to the Venetian Pool of Coral Gables to the Art Deco hotels of South Beach to the the Ringling Museum house, called Cad'Zan.

This book is the first to capture the full range of styles, from the ornate, opulent, and spectacular, to the charming, country "Old Florida," which is now becoming so popular. Residents and tourists alike will appreciate both the renowned sites and a private glimpse of such amazing attractions as the orange-grove cottage where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote The Yearling and Thomas Edison's winter home, which has a fascinating laboratory.

Customer Reviews:

This book represents the REAL Florida.......2007-05-03

Forget theme park world that most people associate with Florida today, OLD FLORIDA chronicles the vintage, the off beat and the unusual places that recall a time not too long ago before the Sunshine state was over run by tourism.

We used to spend some time in Florida visiting a great aunt in Dunedin and this book is a reminder of what we missed along the way--and things I'd like to return to see (if the kids will let us bypass Orlando). Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' farmhouse is definitely on the list as are some of the other places chronicled in this book.

The photographers, Steve Gross and Susan Daley, who also produced and photographed OLD HOUSES, SANTA FE: HOUSES & GARDENS, and CATSKILLS COUNTRY STYLE, as well as their recent release, CREOLE HOUSES, appreciate and photograph these unusual places that should be both seen and preserved. Their work provides an armchair glimpse into another time--each place is preserved and kept in its own unique manner and fortunately brought to life, and held for posterity, in the evocative vision of these photographers. We all need to see the built environment a bit more as they do and appreciate what we still have from the past before it is beseiged by homogenous strip malls and McMansions. Gross and Daley help inspire and lead the way.

A Surprising Treat!.......2006-05-19

Who knew? Browsing the bookstore shelves for a present for a dear friend recently retired to the Sunshine State I came upon this fine book, OLD FLORIDA. This book is a gem! The excellent photographs show all the great gardens and historic houses like the ones in St Agustine we love to visit and many we plan to. I will be ordering several more to give as gifts.

beautiful tour of OLD FLORIDA's lost treasures.......2006-04-24

I love this book! It is a beautiful tour of OLD FLORIDA"S lost treasures of architecture and all the facinating houses and gardens that most tourists never go to. In this age of over development and franchise attractions this beautifully photographed book showed us many wonderous places that make Florida unique. When I found this book I was amazed and looked up the authors, Sue Daley and Steve Gross. It turns out that they have done several books of this sort. They also did a book on Sante Fe and another one on the Catskills and both are as beautiful and interesting as OLD FLORIDA. They are both photographers who seem to be able to find both historic and contemporary houses to photograph that one would love to visit. This is what makes their books so good, their sophisticated eye for showing a place through it's houses and people who created them and we can't wait to see where their books will take us next.

Very disappointing.......2004-06-30

Once upon a time, Rizzoli was a publisher of beautiful and definitive books. How the mighty have fallen. "Old Florida" is sadly typical of Rizzoli's current product: hit-or-miss photography accompanied by text barely worthy of a tourist brochure. Recommended only if you need some eye-candy to glance at while clicking between A&E and the TravelChannel.
If you really want to learn about Florida history and architecture, consider these books instead: "Speedway to Sunshine: The Story of the Florida East Coast Railway" and "Mizner's Florida: American Resort Architecture."

Plantation Houses and Mansions of the Old South

Average customer rating:

Needs better pictures
A treasury of classic Southern architecture

Plantation Houses and Mansions of the Old South
J. Frazer Smith
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0486278484

Book Description

Profusely illustrated survey ranges from pioneer cabins to French Provincial and Neoclassic revivals. Detailed drawings, including 36 floor plans, depict such venerable residences as The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's homestead, the Gothic chapel of Old Jefferson College, many more. Rich commentary, with additional material on carpentry, other topics. 109 line illustrations, 7 halftones. Bibliography.

Customer Reviews:

Needs better pictures.......2005-08-07

The author speaks of the pleasing cream color used on the stucco walls of a particular home, but we are looking at an ink drawing. There are no actual photograhs in the book. I didn't enjoy trying to "imagine the color" at all.

I found it hard to recognize homes such as "Oak Alley" which I have actually visited. The line drawing did nothing to impress me at all. The artist line drawings do not do any home in the book any justice. It's unfortunate that after reading a small part of the book, I put it aside because I don't have a photo reference of the house I'm reading about.

This book would be better left on the shelf. Don't waste your money.

A treasury of classic Southern architecture.......2001-05-15

"Plantation Houses and Mansions of the Old South," by J. Frazer Smith, is an informative celebration of the home architecture of the southern United States. This volume is actually an unabridged reprint; the book was originally published in 1941 with the title "White Pillars: Early Life and Architecture of the Lower Mississippi Valley Country." The book includes a foreword by Leicester B. Holland.

The book contains drawings and floor plans of many historic homes. These visual elements are accompanied by a generous text. Smith not only profiles important homes, but also illustrates the evolution of the southern home from a single one-room cabin into "dogtrot" homes, and eventually into larger structures.

Some of the homes presented in the book are Cragfont (1820) of Tennessee, with its impressive second-floor ballroom; Andrew Jackson's "the Hermitage" (1831); the Forks of Cypress (1820), an Alabama house with a 2-story wrap-around portico; and the Walter place (1855), a Mississippi home with twin octagonal towers.

Unfortunately, a perspective drawing and floor plans are not included for every house presented in the book. Also, an unpleasant racist subtext shows up at points in the book. Holland's foreword notes that the book "is a survey of the habitations of man of the Caucasian race [...] of the south." Elsewhere in the book are offhand or patronizing references to "niggers," "darkies," and an "old Mammy."

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful pictorial of the Old Dominion homes!.......2005-09-27

Well put together historical representation of the plantations and the homes of the early settlers of the Virginia Colonies. It is so important to see and appreciate that which still exists of our heritage in the early Virginia settlements. Something we all should be very proud of is the way these beautiful homes have been restored and protected.

Great book, worth every cent........2001-12-24

I bought this book for my boss who designs houses. He and I were happily satisfied with the extrordinary details of the homes in this book. You will love the architecture, interiors, country settings, furnishing, and colors of these homes. All seem to have been meticulously cared for and lived in. You will be transported back in time as you turn the pages and wish you could visit and stay a while in these homes.

I don't think there are any floorplans, but the book is awesome for the pictures of each house inside & out.

Beautiful pictorial survey.......2000-01-05

Wonderfully photographed, just the right amount of text, good cross section of houses around the state.

Lavish treatment of private Virginia estates........1998-05-25

This book transported me back to my home state of Virginia (my Florida driver's license is only 14 months old) in an almost visceral way. I recommend it not only to Virginians but to anybody who wants to travel through a doorway into a more genteel place and time.

Filled with lavish full-color photographs and satisfying historical descriptions, this is the kind of coffee-table sized book that you want to curl up with and linger over.

The exteriors of the homes, photographed to reveal telling architectural detail, are also shown in their natural surroundings. You see the Virginia rivers that flow beyond the front lawns; the lavish beds of tiger lilies in full bloom; the grazing horses in pasture; the paper-white dogwoods blossoms at their peak in spring; the shade-dappled pea-gravel paths hemmed in by generations-old boxwoods that you can fairly smell. One estate in particular - Westover - reminded me of many childhood visits to family friends who lived in a very similar faux plantation house named Wilton on the banks of the James River in the Varina district of Henrico County.

The interiors of the houses are revealed in full clarity. Entire rooms are photographed, as well as details of construction and furnishing: chair rails, paneling, china settings, chandeliers, secret doorways, period furniture, fabrics and paintings on the wall. You feel as if you would like to sit in that bay window and savor the view to the outside; relax in that chair by that fire; explore that winding spiral staircase all the way to the top; play a hand of cards at that card table with the silk-inlaid top; drink brandy out of that crystal goblet; sleep in that four-poster bed under that bedspread; run your hand over that polished bannister railing.

The accompanying essays convey the history of each house, its architectural uniqueness, and the chain of ownership into the present day. Long enough to be informationally satisfying but brief enough to retain reader interest (no mean feat!), the prose serves to cre! ate a bridge into a past that has nonetheless been kept intriguingly alive by the stewardship of the current owners of these houses and grounds. The 27 homes profiled, built during the historical periods of English Colonial (1690-1720), Colonial (1720-90), Federal (1790-1830) and Antebellum (1830-60) are scattered through Virginia's Tidewater, Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountain areas.

Breck Montague, owner of the English Colonial estate Toddsbury in Tidewater Virginia's Gloucester County, says that "When I turn down the lane on my way home, I turn my car radio off and roll down my window. I smell the humus of the forest, and I feel the peace and tranquility of the place." Indeed, that feeling of place and quietness permeates this entire 215-page book, and time spent with this sumptuous volume is practically guaranteed to lower your blood pressure.

Because Toddsbury and the other homes in Virginia Country are in private hands and not on public tour, this book will prove especially useful to historians, designers, architects, landscapers, and antique and art lovers. Virginia Country is well suited for either library or private collections.

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Articles by Betsy Wells Edwards have appeared in lifestyle, business and equestrain publications. She lives with her husband and son on a 19th century farm in Goochland County, Virginia. Taylor Dabney's work has appeared in numerous publications and exhibits. He has been a recipient of the Virginia Commission for the Arts Photography Fellowship and was named in 1987 to the top-five list of new photographers at Photography Magazine's annual awards convention.

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