Bookshelf: Vacation Homes, Living Artfully, Period Gardens

Summer is a time for dreaming and the first book on my bookshelf this month inspires me with fantasies for my dream vacation home. Another recently published book inspires flights of fancy for designing a period style garden. Perhaps we'll opt for a vintage 1920s garden once we've finished our 1920s bungalow renovation! But even in my wildest dreams I don't imagine owning three homes as fabulous as those of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Never mind. We can get a sense of her style with a look inside the book…

Designers Abroad: Inside the Vacation Homes of Top Decorators

This colorful book takes a peek inside 22 vacation homes owned by leading designers. There are more than 200 photos, from tropical escapes in Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand, to designer Stephen Shubel's sanctuary in the Loire Valley. It is interesting to see how the decor in the vacation homes is inspired by different countries and cultures. Timothy Corrigan's apartment in Paris is gorgeous. His dining room is to sigh for, with its decorative wood panel walls, marble fireplace, antique French furniture, and a splendid chandelier. The designers also tell how they achieved the looks in their vacation homes, so there is plenty of inspiration to be found!

American Home Landscapes: A Design Guide to Creating Period Garden Styles

If you want to create a period garden or just add in some period elements, this book shows the way! It looks at 400 years of American landscape design with more than 300 illustrations to provide inspiration. The authors are the horticultural historian Denise Wiles Adams and landscape designer Laura Burchfield. They clearly know their stuff. They divide garden history into six eras, from 17th-century colonial style up to the end of the 20th century. Dig in to the book to find out about the plants and features such as pathways and fencing used in different periods of history. Then get digging!

Living Artfully At Home with Marjorie Merriweather Post

The stylish heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post founded General Foods. The businesswoman was also famous for her parties, her philanthropy, and her homes! This illustrated book describes life at three of her homes from the 1950s to the 1970s. You can't exactly call them vacation homes because she just shifted between them by season. She spent summer at Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks and winter at her villa in Palm Beach. In spring and autumn, you'd find her at her Hillwood Estate in Washington, DC. Marjorie Merriweather Post was a big collector and a fan of 18th century French decorative arts. So we've got a love of French antiques in common, although unfortunately I don't share her enormous wealth! Visitors can see her collections at the Hillwood Mansion and Gardens. But if you can't make it to the house, check out the book. The author, Estella M. Chung, is a curator at the estate.