California Romantica

California Romantica features the most important, yet rarely seen, residential exemplars of the California Mission and Spanish Colonial styles, by such noted architects as George Washington Smith, Wallace Neff, Richard Requa, Lilian Rice, and Paul R. Williams, among others. From whitewashed stucco walls and cloistered patios to tile roofs and sumptuous gardens, each house shown is a rare masterpiece, splendidly appointed with authentic Monterey furniture, California tile, and Navajo rugs. Among the magnificent seaside estates, canyon villas, and courtyard bungalows shown is Diane Keaton’s former home in Beverly Hills, which she thoughtfully restored with noted designer Stephen Shadley, and for which she has been recognized as a committed preservationist. She brings her cinematic eye, a keen sense of natural drama, and a profound appreciation for the nuances of shadow and light to the elucidation of these buildings, through the selection of specially commissioned photography. Authoritative text by D. J. Waldie lucidly explicates the architecture and provides an intimate tour of a historic and distinctly Californian lifestyle.

Great Escapes: Selective guides for travelers who want to find quick trips and getaways within a specific locale. They take away the drudgery of sifting through online and printed travel info by listing only the most worthwhile events, activities, and places to stay and eat. Great Escapes: Southern California: Make the most of the SoCal experience by veering toward some unexpected, eclectic haunts: Go "Sideways" along the back roads of the Santa Ynez Valley, find solitude while camping on Catalina Island or the Gaviota coastline, check out San Diego's hip Gaslamp District, and revel in a 50s-style lodge in the desert of Palm Springs.

California Romantica features the most important, yet rarely seen, residential exemplars of the California Mission and Spanish Colonial styles, by such noted architects as George Washington Smith, Wallace Neff, Richard Requa, Lilian Rice, and Paul R. Williams, among others. From whitewashed stucco walls and cloistered patios to tile roofs and sumptuous gardens, each house shown is a rare masterpiece, splendidly appointed with authentic Monterey furniture, California tile, and Navajo rugs. Among the magnificent seaside estates, canyon villas, and courtyard bungalows shown is Diane Keaton's former home in Beverly Hills, which she thoughtfully restored with noted designer Stephen Shadley, and for which she has been recognized as a committed preservationist. She brings her cinematic eye, a keen sense of natural drama, and a profound appreciation for the nuances of shadow and light to the elucidation of these buildings, through the selection of specially commissioned photography. Authoritative text by D. J. Waldie lucidly explicates the architecture and provides an intimate tour of a historic and distinctly Californian lifestyle.

This sumptuous and comprehensive volume embraces one of the most beloved house forms, the Spanish Colonial Revival, presenting at once a lavish portrait of the style as well as the definitive statement on the subject through more than three hundred color photographs. The Spanish style in architecture encompasses facets from a vast array of traditions, many of which are in evidence in these extraordinary houses. Elements include thickset, whitewashed stucco walls, deeply recessed doors, lushly planted courtyard gardens, intricate and colorful tile work, telescoping towers inset with Juliet balconies, elaborately traced wrought-iron window grilles, and richly appointed interiors heightened by drama in light and shadow cast by moody pendant lamps and low-burning fires. The houses featured are the very best of the type, both famous and little-known, and showcase the work of architects such as George Washington Smith, Bertram Goodhue, Wallace Neff, and Paul Williams, from the early twentieth century, to the work of contemporary practitioners, including Marc Appleton, Michael Burch Architects, and others. These homes are a fantasy for living made real in the Southern California sun.

Silvia Tcherassi’s name is associated with fashion, poetry, alternative languages, colors, textures, variety, and, above all, talent. Her spectacular creations are the results of visionary proposals and design combinations that are vividly portrayed in this volume.

Diane Keaton’s cabinet of saved and found photographic curiosities is a visual autobiography of sorts and scrapbook of her fascinations and reflections. A visual autobiography of a kind as only Diane Keaton could tell it, via the celebrated star’s idiosyncratic and personal collections and ruminative texts, Savedoffers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind of the legendary film star. The book begins with an homage to movies—curiously, to old “b” grade horror flicks, such as Attack of the Puppet People—a passion that manifests in a collection of rare film stills showing large-brain aliens with crablike hands and terrified men with eyes growing from their shoulders. In a second chapter or collection, the reader encoun-ters “Cracked,” a startling selection of crinkled and neglected negatives: found portraits that speak of the past through the broken lens of time. Even more intimately revealing are photographs taken by the star herself, be they of pigeons while on downtime from the set of Reds in London or of the “greeters” of Hollywood Boulevard, caught at the other end of her Rolleiflex camera lens, now revealed as the seen, the experienced, the remembered, the cherished. But this is only the beginning, the surface of a very deep dive into the wellsprings of one of the great creative talents at work today. The book is an invitation to dive in.

An engaging account of the uniquely creative spirit and bustling cultural ecology of contemporary Los Angeles How did Los Angeles start the 20th century as a dusty frontier town and end up a century later as one of the globe's supercities - with unparalleled cultural, economic, and technological reach? In City at the Edge of Forever, Peter Lunenfeld constructs an urban portrait, layer by layer, from serendipitous affinities, historical anomalies, and uncanny correspondences. In its pages, modernist architecture and lifestyle capitalism come together via a surfer girl named Gidget; Joan Didion's yellow Corvette is the brainchild of a car-crazy Japanese-American kid interned at Manzanar; and the music of the Manson Family segues into the birth of sci-fi fandom. One of the book's innovations is to brand Los Angeles as the alchemical city. Earth became real estate when the Yankees took control in the nineteenth century. Fire fueled the city's early explosive growth as the Southland's oil fields supplied the inexhaustible demands of drivers and their cars. Air defined the area from WWII to the end of the Cold War, with aeronautics and aerospace dominating the region's industries. Water is now the key element, and Southern California's ports are the largest in the western hemisphere. What alchemists identify as the ethereal fifth element, or quintessence, this book positions as the glamour of Hollywood, a spell that sustains the city but also needs to be broken in order to understand Los Angeles now. Lunenfeld weaves together the city's art, architecture, and design, juxtaposes its entertainment and literary histories, and moves from restaurant kitchens to recording studios to ultra-secret research and development labs. In the process, he reimagines Los Angeles as simultaneously an exemplar and cautionary tale for the 21st century.

At once a style guide, an inspirational tome, and a how-to volume on creating one’s home, this book will serve as a go-to reference for all those seeking to spur their own creativity as they embark on the creation of home. When Diane Keaton decided that she wanted to build her own home from the ground up, she took the advice of her dear friend, film director Nancy Meyers, and took to the boards of Pinterest to find inspiration. There she discovered the practical and the fantastical, elements and styles long adored and ones that she never knew she was drawn to. Keaton’s dream house was officially under way and this book that resulted is a compelling account of her that house, from idea to realization in brick, stone, and wood. The House that Pinterest Built defines what home and house mean to the celebrated movie star, who is known for her love affair with houses and design. Filled with ideas that reveal a personal yet engaging aesthetic, this volume includes compelling photos from Keaton’s past homes and those she admires, as well as a multitude of details from every corner of those spaces and objects that excite and inspire the house designer and dreamer—dramatic staircases and magical light fixtures, film stills and book covers, pottery and art—drawn from the visual treasure trove known as Pinterest and Keaton’s private collection, as she creates and designs her newest house. Rich imagery is accompanied by Keaton’s ideas for selecting furniture, kitchen layout, and bedroom design; she talks about the importance of lighting in the bathroom and why the living room needs to be reimagined. Beyond the interior, she explores curb appeal and environmental sensitivity, always with an eye to making home the way it should be—a place of tranquility, a place where one is restored and where one returns to dream again and again. The book culminates in the dream realized, the house she has imagined, designed, and made, now shared with the world for the first time in all-new photography. “If you want to explore. If you love to see. If you’re looking to look; this book is an example of a home made from the gifts of other people’s addictive yearnings for the perfect home, with the perfect landscape and the perfect interior. It illustrates my choices of your choices. Who knows, you might find one of your pins here. You might smile. You might shake your head and say, ‘This isn’t what I had in mind.’ You might think: ‘Hey that’s my kitchen. She copied my kitchen.’ But the truth is, as much as I tried, I could never entirely recreate the light filled photograph of a kitchen that led the way to the journey that brought me here. No one can.” – Diane Keaton