Estate Dream Homes

Dramatic estate-quality designs filled with unsurpassed luxuries, from maids quarters to morning kitchen. Architecture at it's finest.

The long-awaited first book from HGTV's biggest stars and Emmy nominees, the Property Brothers, on buying, selling, and renovating a home

Divided into four sections: "barefoot elegance": estates for carefree living; "on the waterfront": resort-style living; "Old World splendor": homes that reflect European traditions; "a place in the sun": sun country and Mediterranean estates. Includes plans with such extras as: maid's quarters, in-law and guest suites, home theaters, and expansive courtyards

Experience the craft of Dan Sater, a true master of residential home design, as you turn the pages of this stunningly beautiful book. Here you will find 32 of Dan's finest and largest luxury estate homes?most never before published?from authentically detailed and richly appointed Tuscan and Spanish masterpieces to breezy, refreshing Florida-style seaside treasures. Read a candid introduction of each project from Dan and then go on a breathtaking pictorial and narrative tour of each home. See a birds-eye view of the property on the colorful site plan and ?walk through? the house using the detailed floor plan. Glimpse some of Dan's most creative past and future projects in the ?Concepts? chapter and consult the ?Resource List? at the back for valuable information on builders, landscapers, pool contractors, interior designers, lighting engineers and photographers who have been part of the ?Sater Team.? For those who are designing, building, furnishing or just dreaming about a state-of-the-art luxury home, this inspiring book will be a fantastic wish come true. Take advantage of the rare opportunity to peek over the shoulder of one of America's acclaimed residential designers and enter some of the most enchanting and stimulating homes ever built!

One grey dismal day, Janine Marsh was on a trip to northern France to pick up some cheap wine. She returned to England a few hours later having put in an offer on a rundown old barn in the rural Seven Valleys area of Pas de Calais. This was not something she'd expected or planned for. Janine eventually gave up her job in London to move with her husband to live the good life in France. Or so she hoped. While getting to grips with the locals and la vie Française, and renovating her dilapidated new house, a building lacking the comforts of mains drainage, heating or proper rooms, and with little money and less of a clue, she started to realize there was lot more to her new home than she could ever have imagined. These are the true tales of Janine's rollercoaster ride through a different culture - one that, to a Brit from the city, was in turns surprising, charming and not the least bit baffling.

The incomparable Rebecca Solnit, author of more than a dozen acclaimed, prizewinning books of nonfiction, brings the same dazzling writing to the essays in Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness. As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit’s concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in, from the jungles of the Zapatistas in Mexico to the splendors of the Arctic. This rich collection tours places as diverse as Haiti and Iceland; movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring; an original take on the question of who did Henry David Thoreau’s laundry; and a searching look at what the hatred of country music really means. Solnit moves nimbly from Orwell to Elvis, to contemporary urban gardening to 1970s California macramé and punk rock, and on to searing questions about the environment, freedom, family, class, work, and friendship. It’s no wonder she’s been compared in Bookforum to Susan Sontag and Annie Dillard and in the San Francisco Chronicle to Joan Didion. The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness proves Rebecca Solnit worthy of the accolades and honors she’s received. Rarely can a reader find such penetrating critiques of our time and its failures leavened with such generous heapings of hope. Solnit looks back to history and the progress of political movements to find an antidote to despair in what many feel as lost causes. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit’s collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Her essays are a beacon for readers looking for alternative ideas in these imperiled times.

For nearly five decades Barbra Streisand has been one of the singular figures in American entertainment. From the cabaret to the Broadway stage, from television and film stardom to her acclaimed work as a director, from the recording studio to the concert hall, she has demonstrated that the extraordinary voice that launched her career was only one of her remarkable gifts. Now, in her first book, Barbra Streisand reveals another aspect of her talent: the taste and style that have inspired her beautiful homes and collections. My Passion for Design focuses on the architecture and construction of her newest homes, the dream refuge that she has longed for since the days when she shared a small Brooklyn apartment with her mother, brother, and grandparents. A culmination and reflection of Streisand's love of American architecture and design between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the book contains many of her own photographs of the rooms she has decorated, the furniture and art she has collected, and the ravishing gardens she has planted on her land on the California coast. In addition to glimpses of her homes, Barbra shares memories of her childhood, the development of her sense of style, and what collecting has come to mean to her. My Passion for Design is a rare and intimate private tour into the world of one of our most beloved stars. It will be welcomed by her many fans and all lovers of the great achievements of American design.