From Architectural Digest and Abrams comes Private Views: Inside the World's Greatest Homes- a natural expression of AD's role as the international magazine of design. Our field of focus in putting this volume together was nothing less than the entire world.
But how to choose from the best?
For Private Views, as with their magazine, it is a matter of a variety of tastes and locations, the element of discovery, the subtle and sometimes indefinable relationship a home has with its surroundings and, as always, style. The following pages offer you a brief glimpse of those qualities, exemplified by violinist Ole Bull's Moorish summer villa in Norway, Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Catherine the Great's Chinese Palace in St. Petersburg, a couple's eight-story tower set amid Kenya's wildlife and even a yurt, a traditional house for the nomadic people of Inner Mongolia.
Each of the 30 homes in the book illustrates the creative spark of expert design- seeing how things fit together and grasping the vital connections that others miss. The means of expression may differ, but the results always reflect imagination, self-knowledge and authority. They confirm our belief that great style- with its many forms, inspirations and influences- is universal.
Courtesy Abrams, An Imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch
"To me it is the best place in the world," artist Georgia O'Keeffe said of Ghost Ranch, her first home in her beloved New Mexico. For more than 40 years O'Keeffe spent her summers at the 21,000-acre ranch, which she first discovered in 1934. It was there she lived in isolation with generator-supplied electricity and without a telephone or fresh fruits and vegetables. "It has always been secluded and solitary," she remarked of the adobe house located some 60 miles northwest of Santa Fe. "When I first went there, it was only one house with one room-which had a ghost living in it."
Jonathan Pilkington
Ohio Organic
"We wanted everything to be transparent, not translucent," New Mexico-based architect Bart Prince says about the house that he designed for Steve Skilken in Columbus, Ohio. "There are almost no blinds, draperies or brise-soleils." Along the lower level of the house winds a 75-foot-long pool lined with mirror-and-glass mosaic and surrounded by sandstone pavers and a variety of vegetation. "The owner wanted a lap pool running through a tropical garden, with palm trees and bananas and views of the sky," Prince says. "The living spaces are arranged around that."
Scott Frances
Ole Bull's Little Alhambra
After performing around the world for 45 years, violin virtuoso Ole Bull-the "Paganini of the North"-returned to his native Norway, where he had a summer villa built for his family on the island of Lysøen in 1872. Architect Conrad Fredrik van der Lippe incorporated Moorish tracery, arches and spires with 19th-century Carpenter Gothic motifs. The villa was dubbed Little Alhambra, a reference to its Spanish influence. Pierced-wood arches and twisted columns dominate the central music room , which includes traditional Norwegian furnishings and Bohemian glass chandeliers.
Kari Haavisto
New York Primaries
A series of red and yellow fiberglass panels connect a red cube and a yellow box-two elements of the boldly geometric home of architect Preston T. Phillips. A brilliant blue pyramid, which serves as Phillips's studio, completes the compound, located in Bridgehampton, New York. "I chose the colors and forms for their purity and timelessness," says Phillips. "The pieces had to respond to the site's primal character."
Paul Warchol
A Mongolian Yurt
Though modern technology has begun to influence the nomads of lower Mongolia, these descendants of Genghis Khan steadfastly adhere to their traditional way of life, perhaps nowhere more evident than in their choice of dwelling. The yurt, or ger, as it is more commonly known in central Asia, is a flexible tent-typically 20 to 30 feet in diameter-that can be raised or disassembled in under an hour, with layers of yak or sheep wool to protect occupants from harsh climates.
Herman How-Man Wong
President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan's White House
Working with Los Angeles-based interior designer Ted Graber, President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan refurbished the private apartments of the White House, as well as certain other rooms on the second and third floors, using much of the White House collection. Mrs. Reagan and Graber reconfigured the Yellow Oval Room to make it more comfortable for heads of state who gathered there to converse and exchange official gifts before state dinners. They added the sofas and the marble-topped gilt tables to the formal setting.
Derry Moore
Glass Geometries
Marble steps and a Charles Rennie Macintosh chair distinguish the entrance of the retreat architect Shoei Yoh built for his family near Fukuoka, Japan. "Though I employed modernist materials, the house possesses a very Japanese feel for me," Yoh says. Located on a bluff overlooking the Sea of Japan, the home is secured to the site by two large concrete slabs and walled by glass, a material, Yoh notes, that "most serves the traditional Japanese idea of minimizing the separation between architecture and nature."
Jaime Ardiles-Arce
Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch
"To me it is the best place in the world," artist Georgia O'Keeffe said of Ghost Ranch, her first home in her beloved New Mexico. For more than 40 years O'Keeffe spent her summers at the 21,000-acre ranch, which she first discovered in 1934. It was there she lived in isolation with generator-supplied electricity and without a telephone or fresh fruits and vegetables. "It has always been secluded and solitary," she remarked of the adobe house located some 60 miles northwest of Santa Fe. "When I first went there, it was only one house with one room-which had a ghost living in it."
Mary E. Nichols
Pacific Overture
A wall cantilevers over the pool, "making you feel like you're swimming inside a wave," says one of the owners of a house in Malibu. In keeping with the owners' wish to live in harmony with nature, designer Michael Taylor and architect John Lautner used rock and slate extensively throughout the residence, which is situated on a rugged promontory. Expansive ocean vistas characterize the place. "When you have a fabulous view," Taylor said, "you want every inch of it. That means no carpets, no draperies, no upholstered furniture."
Russell MacMasters
