BELLAS ARTES

This deluxe volume offers a meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated history of fifty magnificent estates in three of America’s most prized residential districts: Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills. Lush color photographs as well as a trove of historical images take readers beyond the front gates for an exceptional view of the mansions, grounds, and gardens of these sumptuous estates and tell the history of Los Angeles’s rise from rugged paddocks and farmland to famed metropolis. Each house is explored both for its historical and architectural importance, for here are the epitome of residences and gardens reflecting the famed Italianate and California Mediterranean styles by all the leading architects of Southern California, including Wallace Neff, James Dolena, Gordon Kaufmann, Robert Farquhar, Roland Coate, and Paul Williams. They built for clients such as Gary Cooper, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Bing Crosby, whose own stories reflect the intrigue and foibles of Hollywood society. The book’s final chapter, “Gone but Not Forgotten,” pays homage to great estates that have been destroyed or lost to history.

In this celebration of style, from the moment she entered the public eye during her husband’s U.S. Senate campaign through her time as the first Black First Lady and today as one of this country’s most influential figures, Michelle Obama shares how she uses the beauty and intrigue of fashion to draw attention to her message. Featuring the voices of Meredith Koop, Obama’s trusted stylist, as well as her makeup artist Carl Ray, hairstylists Yene Damtew, Johnny Wright, and Njeri Radway, and many of the designers who have dressed Obama for notable events, The Look brings readers behind the scenes not only to reveal how her most memorable looks came together but also to tell a powerful story about how we present ourselves. Obama’s intimate and candid stories illuminate how her approach to dressing has evolved throughout her life—from the colorful sheath dresses, cardigans, and brooches she wore during her time as First Lady to the bold suits, denim, and braids of her post-White House life and all the active looks and beautiful gowns in between.

The architectural style of the classic American summer, the shingled house can suggest the beach, the countryside, the mountains, and even the city. AD100 architects Ike Kligerman Barkley, one of the most successful firms practicing in a traditional style today, presents 14 houses that celebrate the simple wood shingle's infinite flexibility--ranging from richly historic to sculptural and experimental. The New Shingled House includes examples throughout the fabled seaside resorts of New England--Martha's Vineyard, Block Island, and the Hamptons--as well as houses in California's Bay Area and Point Loma, on a pristine mountain lake in South Carolina, and a Scandinavian influenced family residence in Connecticut. All are characterized by a sense of graciousness and generosity that makes them unique spaces for the owners and enviable spaces for readers. The versatility of the shingle style allows the designers to explore formal ideas and to respond to client preferences and taste. The houses thus achieve the architects' fundamental goal: when their clients enter their new house for the first time, they should feel as though they have always lived there. This stunning visual presentation features new photography by noted interiors photographer William Waldron, who has captured the graciousness and generosity of the elegant interiors and welcoming porches and terraces that make these houses so inviting and timeless.

This panoramic collection showcases stadiums, venues, and pitches, from the quirky to the historic, covering both men’s and women’s leagues, professional to amateur, wherever the game is played with enthusiasm and great style. For those who love the sport, either from birthright or from newly kindled passion, there’s a distinct and beloved resonance and local character to each stadium. This is one of soccer’s great charms, and this book is a road map to a pilgrimage to 1000 arenas that anyone in love with the beautiful game would want to visit in person: some visionary and new, some ageing but iconic, some remote yet picturesque, some tumbledown, quirky yet historical and utterly lovable—but all with such genuine personality, the fans’ hearts beat a little faster to see a match there.

The inimitable style of renowned French interior designer Madeleine Castaing, chronicled in-depth for the first time. While many were drumming to the beat of modernism in the early- and mid-twentieth century, French antiquaire and decorator Madeleine Castaing created her own look that was a unique blend of neoclassicism, Proustian romanticism, and pure wit. Her distinctive aesthetic vision has inspired tastemakers on both sides of the Atlantic, and her devotees--both then and now--are legion. Ocelot carpeting, opaline blue, "coolie" lampshades, and an eclectic mix of neoclassical furnishings ranging from English Regency to Napoleon III all formed part of the vocabulary of "le style Castaing." This lavishly illustrated volume--the first on her work--explores in-depth the elements of her style, and examines how she crafted interiors so emotive that visitors felt that they had stepped into a Balzac novel or a Proustian recollection. Her entire life and career are chronicled, from her early years in Montparnasse, the epicenter of artistic activity in Paris, to her incomparable country house Leves and her legendary shop on rue Jacob in Paris.

Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright were neither competitors nor direct collaborators. Yet these romantic heroes of twentieth-century art and architecture largely operated in parallel. In this seminal book, Rovang weaves together their compelling life stories, examining newly discovered links between them and, in the process, offering a fresh perspective on their work, their intermittent yet poignant friendship, and their closeness to the desert.  Starting in 1933, O’Keeffe and Wright exchanged roughly two dozen letters in which they expressed admiration for one another but also their passion for the places that informed them—many of which they had in common. Both were born in rural Wisconsin and built their careers in Chicago and New York. However, both sought inspiration and fulfillment in places farther afield, including in Japan and the desert landscape of the American Southwest. Juxtaposing images highlighting shared aspects of their individual biographies and work, this unique take on American creative expression explores the nature of artistic friendship and the idea of “home.” Rovang’s text gives rich context to the allure and romance of her visual subject, offering readers new ways to appreciate O’Keeffe’s and Wright’s monumental contributions to American culture.