Book Description

The Spanish-style architecture of Southern California's seaside estates, canyon villas, and courtyard bungalows is central to its romantic image, one that has traditionally evoked a Mediterranean paradise. The details of this inexhaustively rich style-- ornate wrought iron and wood balconies, colorful tiles, graceful arches, and palm-dotted gardens-- reflect the region's Spanish, Mexican, and southwestern history and culture as well as its popular outdoor lifestyle.

This book showcases Southern California's most historically significant and beautifully preserved Spanish-revival houses of this century. Twenty-one private homes built between 1922 and 1991 are featured in stunning color photography that captures exterior and interior architectural details, Spanish and Mexican antique furnishings and folk art, and lush landscaping and tiled fountains. Among these are the Adamson House in Malibu, with its extraordinary collection of custom tile from Malibu Potteries; the contemporary Greenberg House in Brentwood, by Ricardo Legorreta; The Andalusia Courtyard Apartments in Hollywood; and Casa Pacifica, the former home of Richard Nixon, overlooking the ocean in San Clemente. Brief narratives highlight the history of each building and its design influences on the Spanish-revival movement in California.

The Spanish revival grew in popularity around the turn of the century when many young American architects traveled to Spain, Italy, and Mexico, bringing back sketches and, as the foreword notes, romantic memories of "graceful foliage...small Indian towns...tiled dome and rococo towers." Hundreds of Spanish-style houses, apartments, and bungalows were built throughout Southern California in the following decades, many of them commissioned for movie stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.

The Spanish revival is marked by two main phases: the mission revival, which incorporates the white stucco, cloistered patios, tile roofs, and exposed-beam ceilings typical of eighteenth-century California missions; and the more elaborate Mediterranean revival, influenced by Spanish and Italian Renaissance sources, eighteenth-century Spanish plateresque and churrigueresque forms, and Moorish-Andalusian styles.
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Reviews (9)

fantastic book for both professionals or coffee table
Beautiful pictures depict romantic spaces with clear details, they helps me as an architect to re-create the Spanish living environment with many examples from different projects. The 20 houses in this book are gorgeous and inspiring -whether you are looking for ideas or merely relax reading. This is not a book showing only pieces of details for decorator use, it's an awesome architectural book as well as a perfect collection for my coffee table.

A MUST!
One of those books that is just full of great images of the Spanish Revival/Moorish style architecture of So. California. While not heavy on text, this book is a very important visual reference for designers, etc. who want to see how it used to be done. Many photos are of the interiors, but most are of the gardens.

If interested in the glazed Malibu tiles seen throughout the book, check out "Ceramic Art of the Malibu Potteries: 1926-1932" by Ronald L. Rindge.

Gorgeous book!
This is a gorgeous book full of color photos and description of Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture in Southern California. The beginning of the book provides a review of the style with information on stylistic influences and historical setting. As another reviewer mentioned, the homes in this book are mostly huge, and it really would have been nice to see some well-done modest homes (i.e. the 1000 or 1600 square foot variety). Nevertheless, this is the ONLY full-color book I have been able to find on this style, and I do think it provides helpful elements for use in smaller houses, but one needs to be imaginative to find them. If you are living in a smaller house, you can't just lift a whole room out of this book. For example, the cover photo features a huge staircase and fountain. It is very difficult (and would be inappropriate) to duplicate this type of thing in a smaller home, but I might notice that the decorative tile on the stair risers and the saltillo tile on the steps could be used on the steps up to my own modest front porch, for example. We have used a number of individual elements from this book in our own home, and we've used the photos to get an idea of what "works" and what doesn't in this style. I do really wish, though, that there was a companion book that showed how this style can be used to advantage in smaller homes, since the vast majority of homes of this style are in the 1000-2000 square foot range.

Overall a beautiful and helpful book, and I do think it was worth the money.

Works of Art
I asked for and received the book for Xmas. My driving force was the inspiration and ideas its photos evoked from me the first time I opened the pages. If you like California Spanish architecture the book is superb. The tile work, architecture and iron exemplify some of the best examples I have seen. My inspiration will hopefully translate into the renovations I complete throughout L.A.

Classy Coffee Table Book
Nice photography--examples of what architects can do for people with plenty of money. The adaptations are ingenious but provide little inspiration for Spanish-style homes of 1200 to 1600 square feet, for smaller families or retirees, which is what this reader was looking for. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

This is true regional architecture, handsome and useful.
Brick Floors and Cypress Beams in Louisiana

Today, real architects don't do charm, but long before it fell out of style, A. Hays Town, born in 1903, was building Acadian cottages, Creole villas and Spanish courtyards in his native Louisiana. After retiring from his commercial practice in the 1960's, he designed even more of these houses, which are beloved by Southerners. Now everyone can visit 25 of the 500 he built in "The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town" (Louisiana State University Press; $39.95). The sparse text is by Cyril E. Vetter, and the 200 photographs by Philip Gould prove that good proportion and materials work. White-painted brick walls with red brick floors under high ceilings with cypress beams work even better. This is true regional architecture, handsome and useful.

A subtle salute to the heritage in homes of A. Hays Town
Town, a South Louisiana native and student of the South, offers a subtle salute to the region's heritage in the 25 homes featured in "The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town." Photographs by Philip Gould capture the subtle design and recurring patterns in Hays' design. The text by Cyril E. Vetter and a tribute by Andres Duany is reverential...It is tempting to pause over Gould's photographs of Town's work, treat them like Ken Burns treats Civil War photographs and follow the lines. An alley of crepe myrtles frames the brick archway entrance to a richly detailed courtyard...A weathered fence serves as foreground detail for a shot of a deep, brick-floored porch...These are elements of Town's style. His residences wear it well.

Beautiful photographs of timeless architecture
"The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town" combines text by Cyril E. Vetter with photographs by Philip Gould. Together, they celebrate the classic houses designed by Town. The book is full of superb photos of both interiors and exteriors. The book ends with a short essay by Andres Duany, in which he declares, "The long, long career of A. Hays Town is like a bridge that brings forth the traditional architecture of Louisiana to the present generation of builders."

Many picturesque elements recur throughout the book: classical statuary, brick floors, exteriors with a look of natural weathering, 2-level exterior galleries, etc. Some particularly memorable images include the following: Hamilton House's interior courtyard overlooked by a second floor balcony; Westerman House's charming lily pond, made from an old sugar kettle; the rustic wood posts on the porch of the Bonnecaze House; the elegant white pillars of the Godchaux House; and more.

My only disappointment is that floor plans for the homes are not included; they would have, in my opinion, given readers a better sense of these houses. Still, if you love great American architecture, I recommend this book.

If you like Louisiana architecture, you'll love this book!
Hays Town developed his own interpretation of Louisiana-flavored design that is timeless. The pictures are inspiring; both inside and out. His total control over the houses resulted in interesting and functional design both inside and out. I would recommend for anyone thinking about building or buying.

True To Life
As an Interior Designer who grew up in the bayou, I find this book to be right on the money. It's better than I ever expected. Anyone who is trying to learn more about Louisiana living or just wants to reflect on childhood memories would lose themselves in this book. It's easiest to understand how Louisiana Architecture affects the Louisiana lifestyle by seeing photographs. For those poor souls who don't know A. Hays Town's work; you will. His position in great American arcitecture has already been secured! ... Read more

Book Description

MiMo: Miami Modern Revealed is the first comprehensive survey of the rich postwar architecture that epitomizes the romance and energy that is Miami. Well-known for its revitalized South Beach Deco architecture, Miami's vibrant strain of modern architecture combines attention to space, form, and innovative design with a nuanced subtropical exoticism particular to the region, the gateway between the States and Latin America. From humble motels to sprawling oceanside resorts, this lively style also thrives in the city's civic, domestic, and commercial architecture. MiMo tracks the history and development of the Magic City from the days of nightclub acts and swank hotels to the advent of the crystalline downtown skyscrapers, including detailed overviews of work by Morris Lapidus, Gilbert Fein, and regional masters Alfred Browning Parker, Norman M. Giller, and others. Preservation-minded, the authors list the important buildings which did not survive decades of redevelopment, and conclude with a chapter on the effort to protect threatened MiMo masterpieces. Hundreds of recent and period photographs from the heyday of Miami glamour complete this celebration of some of the hottest architecture around. ... Read more

Book Description

Foreword by Michael Sorkin

Introduction by Richard Guy Wilson

"This excellent book makes a strong case for a renewed appreciation of regional modernism." -- Erika Belsey, Art New England

Inflected by local climate, construction practices, regional culture, and Florida lifestyle, the work of the Sarasota school of architecture marks a high point in the development of regional modernism in American architecture.

Although the Sarasota school wasn't a consciously organized movement, it was an important chapter in American modernism that, unlike the earlier Bay Area school and Chicago school, has received little study or published scholarly treatment. John Howey provides the first solid documentation of the Sarasota group's designs and theories. He has interviewed all of the surviving architects and original clients and has included a rich archive of photographs by Ezra Stoller, Alexandra Georges, and others. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

GOOD Mid-Century Modernism
This is the story of a group of talented young architects who were in the right place at the right time. The time (1946-66) was when America was in a building boom, the public wanted fresh, clean designs. Sarasota was a growing town and Modern Architecture was going to change the world. The Father of it all was an architect named Ralph Twitchell. In 1940 Twitchell hired a young intern architect named Paul Rudolph. Rudolph would go onto Harvard GSD, serve in the Navy and return to Sarastoa in 1946, and then become Twitchell's partner in 1950. The two of them, with a group of other talented architects (most notably Victor Lundy) would go on to design some extraordinary custom homes, churches and schools. Their architecture stressed the tectonic (the use of new technologies). Although the Sarasota aesthetic was in similar vein to the California post- war architecture, it also was heavily derivative of a Florida vernacular architecture. Rudolph's early philosophy stressed five points: the Clarity of construction; Maximum economy of means; Simple overall volumes penetrating vertically and horizontally; Clear geometry floating above the Florida Landscape; Honesty in details and in structural connections. It is always a treat to see his pen and ink renderings. A must for the serious student of modernism. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Beautifully presented
Beautiful photos, good text, but awkward size (doesn't fit on book shelf)

Trememdous book by a tremendous photographer
In my opinion this coffee table book is the one by which all others should be judged. Gleason is one fine professional photographer who needs to expand into yet more regions on this same subject of old plantation homes ... Read more

Book Description

"Texas Style," is now reflective of America itself. Rugged individualism, high quality, large living, and impeccable taste are values that Texans share with all Americans. Tyler Beard, who is known as the "King of Texas Style" and whose own ranch has been featured in dozens of books and magazines, introduces us, in a way that only an aficionado could, to homes that are incredibly appealing in beauty, architecture, and pure Texan spirit. Vibrant photography by Jack Parsons offers inspiration, ideas, and a glimpse of how Texans are living today. Beard examines architectural and design elements throughout the home, both inside and out, highlighting details of furniture, construction, art, and history along the way. An in-depth resource guide will help readers find all things Texan, no matter where they live. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Rustic Western Interiors at Their Best!
Without exaggeration, this is the best book to date documenting rustic western interiors. The extraordinary Cowboy and Indian memorabilia collections featured in these homes will make you green with envy. Large, beautiful photographs of exceptional Texas homes, no sterile contemporary interiors here. I've always admired Beard and Parsons work, this is the best to date. No disappointments here! ... Read more

Amazon.com

This publication documents the genesis and development of one of the first New Urbanist communities in the United States, Seaside, which has been the subject of intense debate among architects, planners, ecologists, and civic-minded citizens.Located in Florida's panhandle, this town was created in the early 1990s by two of the most prominent leaders of the New Urbanist movement, Miami-based architect- planners Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. As their firm, known as DPZ, continues to become more involved in urban planing and builds more towns like Seaside around the country, this book is an essential starting point for understanding DPZ's controversial town-making principles. ... Read more

Book Description

For anyone who has dreamed of living in a Colonial-style home, this showcase of Colonial Williamsburg standouts is an irresistible wish book. And for the home design do-it-yourselfer, it is even more than that. Domestic design and construction expert and award-winning historic preservation writer Hugh Howard provides a tour of favorite Colonial Williamsburg restorations that will fast become a primary resource of ideas and no-nonsense information.

This magnificent treasury presents each house in beautiful new color photographs and an easy-to-read floor plan, revealing all the characteristic architectural details that define the Williamsburg style. Relating the stories of the restoration projects that gave these structures new life, this book covers large and elegant dream houses along with equally charming smaller houses, including those that are open to visitors as well as rarely shown private examples. Colonial Houses will have enormous appeal for the 800,000 guests who flock to Colonial Williamsburg each year, and for all those who simply love its aesthetic. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Williamsburg at its Best
I absolutely love Colonial Williamsburg so when this book was published I couldn't wait to receive it. The photographs of the homes and their interiors are of high quality. The book offers you a look at more that a dozen homes of the historic area with a brief history on each. In addition are several of the floor plans, before and after photos, photos of carved moldings, beautiful staircases, and furnishings. I have reordered this book for Christmas presents. A great book @ a great price! ... Read more

Book Description

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur Grant recipient, and his architecture students at Auburn University have been designing and building striking houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama's Hale County. Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."

In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.

The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject. "I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency
Creative architecture doesn't have to be paved in gold. Mockbee and his students use basic materials in the most interesting ways for creating wonderful living, playing and meeting places for poor people out of former shacks or sometimes starting from scratch. I would love to see actual planned communities for the general public built in this style. I would live there! Very inspiring...

this book is great
i am a student at the rural studio right now and the book represents the rural studio very well. the book introduced me to architecture, and now i am here in architecture school and i am at rural studio.

A beautiful book, but slightly lacking
I have been an admirer of the work of the Rural Studio from the start and couldn't wait to get this book... The photos are beautiful and touching, but the book is lacking in drawings (i.e. plans) and text. I was hoping for more about the thoughts and processes that students put into the designs, the role of Sam Mockbee in it all, and some architectural drawings that would more comprehensively showcase the projects

overrated butt-kissing
This book includes too much butt-kissing and paternalism. Sure, Mockbee and his students are helping these people, but they seem a bit too proud of themselves. I wish there was more technical information about the designs, materials, and techniques.

great book
it's inspiring to see Mockbee's design-built works extended to and enhanced another layer of communities with creative uses of materials. ... Read more

Book Description

From its earliest days as a burgeoning colonial port blending European, Caribbean, and Asian influences, Charleston has maintained a unique brand of southern cosmopolitanism. Charleston Style: Past and Present traces the city's allure through its exquisite and sometimes eccentric architecture, decorative arts, and garden designs, which express a wide range of European and American styles, including Georgian, Federal, Chinese Chippendale, Gothic and Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Eastlake, and more. Author Susan Sully explores Charleston as a medium through which this spectrum of styles becomes transmuted into a distinctive regional mode.Sully's Charleston is a place where antique and modern, fantasy and reality, playfully intersect. During its ascendance as one of America's wealthiest cities, Charleston's most privileged citizens acquired sophisticated, even decadent, tastes that continue to infuse their homes and gardens. After the Civil War, hardship, pride, and nostalgia shaped an aesthetic in which peeling gilt and tattered lace became badges of honor. Thanks to one of the earliest and most energetic American preservationist movements, the past extends into the present in Charleston, and the city's spaces reveal its complex spirit.Charleston Style: Past and Present features nineteen residences ranging from archetypally gracious antebellum mansions to cottagelike dependencies to the iconic Charleston "single houses," with their sweeping piazzas, high ceilings, and tall windows. Also featured are some of the city's most charming gardens, inspired by the formal and picturesque landscape designs of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe as well as by the exotic gardens of Japan. With rich color photography by John Blais and a delightful foreword by acclaimed novelist, Josephine Humphreys, Charleston Style: Past and Present delivers an evocative portrait of this fascinating city. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Rekindles Fond Memories
Susan Sully's book revived many delightful memories of my recent visit to Charleston. Her evocative prose paired with the beautiful photographs made as much of an impression on me as seeing Charleston's gracious architecture in person. It's not often that such a pretty book is also so well written, but Sully' elegant, beautifully crafted sentences do justice to the photos and the grand old homes themselves. After reading her book I wanted to book a flight back for another visit!

Charleston Captured Splendidly!
Susan Sully's Charleston Style splendidly captures the unique beauty of my city. Sully's writing is gorgeous, lush and evocative as many of the homes she shows us. Her thorough research is obvious; then she takes the facts and, with words, weaves a beautifiul gossamer fabric representing one ofAmerica's most beloved cities. As a Charlestonian, I was introduced to places I never knew existed. The detailed photographs, artistic and architectural, complement the text. I bought numerous copies to give to friends who have visited Charleston in reality or in their dreams.

finally, a beautiful book with an intelligent read!
Just named one of the ten best books of 1999 about South Carolina by "The Nation," this winner rises above the usual book of stunning photography in the quality of Sully's writing. Her thoughtful and incisive reflections upon a complex city are rendered in delightful, sensual, intelligent prose. All this is compellingly presented in a classic coffee-table stand-out!

Recent press on Charleston Style
Praised in House Beautiful (May '99) for author Susan Sully's "evocative text [that] lifts this book a notch above many similar style books," Charleston Style was listed by The State newspaper from Columbia, SC as one of the top ten books by or about South Carolinians published in 1999. The State's reviewer, William Starr praises the book's "uncommonly attractive" appearance and notes that "the author combines valuable information with an artistic sensibility.... Among the book's virtues is Sully's willingness to look beyond the obvious into homes which give us some very different views of this most traditional of historic cities."

Check out Charleston Style!
Despite author Susan Sully's grammatical errors, misspellings ("sheathes of wheat" instead of sheaves of wheat -- why, oh, why don't editors catch those anymore?), labored metaphors, and use of cliche' ("dripping with spanish moss"), I loved this book. Josephine Humphreys writes a beautiful and moving foreward. The photos (by John Blais) are literally breath-taking (to borrow another cliche'). Imperative reading for the student of architecture or design, or for those simply enamored of regional style. ... Read more

Book Description

This book is about how a consistently high standard of excellence was achieved in Charleston architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Regardless of what style Charleston's architects used—Greek or Roman, Gothic or Renaissance, Adamesque or Greek Revival—they were in agreement about what constituted excellence. Special emphasis is placed on the knowledge that was required to create Charleston's early architecture. An introduction discusses the writings and buildings of Andrea Palladio, Robert Adam, A. Welby Pugin, and other influential architects. Sources of inspiration for Charleston buildings have included specific buildings in Greece, Italy, England, France and Germany.

Whenever possible, primary sources of information were used to determine how various types of Charleston buildings were designed and constructed. A dozen of the city's best-documented buildings are considered in detail as a basis for comparison:

Houses: a list of all expenses to construct a row of five row houses from 1709–1711; a comprehensive set of building accounts for a double house designed in c. 1745; and a contract for a Charleston Single House designed in 1789

Religious Buildings: accounts of the construction of two Anglican churches built from c. 1721–1723 and from 1752–1761; a Congregational church and a Baptist church designed by the first American architect; the first Reform synagogue in the United States; and Unitarian and Episcopal churches with Gothic fan vaulting

Public Buildings: architectural drawings for an exchange and custom house designed in 1766; complete records for constructing a state administrative building that set a new standard for construction and that introduced the Greek Revival style in Charleston; a federal custom house that was initially designed locally; and a municipal orphan house in the Italianate style.

These buildings are compared with hundreds of others of similar types and styles to reveal what was most characteristic and most distinctive about Charleston architecture.

This book also contains a summary of information available before 1740, an analysis of buildings depicted in the 1740 view of the city, a survey of nearly three thousand surviving Single Houses, a review of the principal buildings that existed in 1826, a study of the origins of the Greek Revival style, a comparison of the influence of Jefferson and Latrobe on Mills, a discussion of how the Greek and Roman orders were adapted, and a section on the characteristics of Adamesque architecture. Appendices included a list of all architecture books known to have been available in Charleston from 1751–1856, data on the number of houses that existed at various times from 1672–1861, and studies of building types such as rice mills and design features such as the piazza.

Over 600 illustrations are included of the best-designed and most typical buildings in Charleston and the most influential sources of design. The illustrations consist of historic photographs, drawings, and views; numerous measured drawings and maps; and more than two hundred recently taken photographs. ... Read more

Book Description

"Everyone, rich or poor, deserves a shelter for the soul."—Samuel MockbeeBased on this simple premise, in 1992 Samuel Mockbee launched the Rural Studio to create homes and community buildings for the poor while offering hands-on architecture training for coming generations. Choosing impoverished Hale County, Alabama, for his bold experiment, Mockbee and his Auburn University students peppered this left-behind corner of the rural South with striking buildings ofexceptional design. Most use recycled and curious materials: hay bales, surplus tires, leftover carpet tiles, even discarded 1980 Chevy Caprice windshields. The publication of Rural Studio brought this innovative work to the public, and—five printings later—continues to affect the way people view architecture. Since Mockbee's death in 2001, the Rural Studio has continued to thrive, a tribute to its founder's vision. In 2004, the American Institute of Architects posthumously awarded Mockbee its highest honor, the Gold Medal for Architecture. Under Mockbee's successor, Andrew Freear, the studio has seeded southwest Alabama with an additional seventeen architectural landmarks, and all are shown here. With thoughtful text from Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and stunning photographs by Timothy Hursley, this new book explains the changes the studio has undergone during the last four years and its continuing ability to "proceed and be bold," as Mockbee counseled. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

History through Architecture
This study of vernacular architecture is a great contribution to the social history of slavery. By looking at facets of design such as settlement patterns and the formal qualities of buildings, Vlach shows how patterns in material culture provide clues for understanding the patterns of history that one can read by examining the buildings. This remarkable book not only documents plantation architecture as an important contribution to the historical record, but it also provides a fascinating interpretation of the subject. It is an especially important study because of the dearth of written documents left by slaves.

Excellent Study of Plantation Architecture
John Vlach's book is a thorough study of the architecture of plantation slavery in the South. He primarily used resource materials from the 1930s Historic American Building Survey and WPA interviews with former slaves to develop a social history. The research is solid and comprehensive. Vlach demonstrates ways to interpret the buildings for information about the life of the people who worked and dwelled in them, and he backs up his conclusions with interview materials. It's a terrific way of studying architecture that merges folklife studies with architectural history. The conclusions expanded my understanding about history, and this book is an essential contribution to learning about black history. ... Read more

Book Description

Lawrence Murray Dixon (1901-1949) was a native Floridian whose career started in New York where he worked for Schultze and Weaver, the firm famous for designing the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Like most of the architects practicing in the boomtown that was post Depression Miami Beach, Dixon was outside the American architectural establishment-- he did not receive a complete architectural education, nor did he complete anything like a grand tour. He was nevertheless the most prolific architect practicing in Miami Beach in the late 1930s and early 1940s, building all types of commercial and residential buildings from the smallest house to the most lavish oceanfront hotels. Perhaps most importantly, Lawrence Murray Dixon was one of the first architects to build large-scale hotels in the Art Deco style in Miami Beach, bringing in the jazz age style of machine-age optimism and prosperity. Yet, what makes Miami Beach remarkable is not only the way in which Dixon and his colleagues used Art Deco to meet the local need for lower cost resort architecture, but the way in which they adapted the style to incorporate local motifs and historical styles. The result is the unique architecture of South Beach, as it is now known, the largely restored international vacation hotspot, and the country's first twentieth-century architectural district to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.Dixon's archive, one of the era's most complete, is now in the collection of Miami Beach's Bass Museum of Art. Its drawings and marvelous duotone photographs (mostly from New York photographers Gottscho & Schleisner) form the backbone of this book and show these landmark buildings in their original, pristine state. Allan Shulman and Jean François Lejeune were afforded full access to this treasure trove of rare images. But their research and writing is not limited to Art Deco architecture in Miami Beach alone-- Shulman and Lejeune look to the World's Fairs, the skyscrapers of New York, and the skylines of other twentieth-century cities, like Tel Aviv, Rio de Janeiro, and Casablanca. This makes The Making of Miami Beach 1933-1942 the most complete, up-to-date and highly researched history of Art Deco architecture as it was adapted to the utilitarian, yet fantastic, needs of South Miami Beach. ... Read more

Book Description

“Southerners seem to stay close to each other, accumulating ties of kinship in a way that ultimately becomes almost impossible to unravel, and thus the family house remains the center of births, marriages, and deaths through the generations.”
—From Under Live Oaks

There is a part of the South that clings to its past, whether that past is an imagined or a real one. Resonant with antebellum elegance and sometimes turbulent history, the houses of Under Live Oaks act as a touchstone for another time, becoming repositories of rich family traditions for their owners.

This tenacity to hold on to their history is beautifully demonstrated in the decor of these houses, filled with antiques and personal treasures, decorated in the style that was fashionable 150 years ago and that has not been tampered with since. More than 200 images from acclaimed photographer Peter Woloszynski fill the pages of Under Live Oaks, giving a provocative view into a world many never see—a world of faded portraits, shelves of dusty porcelain, dolls lined up in an armchair, family letters, lace fans, invitations to the cotillion, old steamer trunks. These houses were the royal palaces of the age, furnished with the finest objects and fabrics—many imported from Europe—that the first half of the nineteenth century had to offer. Under Live Oaks offers a remarkably consistent vision of a period, a period that takes its place in the dark history of America and that casts a permanent shadow over its legacy.

The houses range from an Italianate villa in Columbus, Georgia, to a masterful Greek Revival mansion in Fairvue, Tennessee; from the charming Catalpa in St. Francisville, Louisiana, to the melancholy Winter Place in Montgomery, Alabama. The classic plantation houses of Natchez, Mississippi, compete in beauty with an elegant townhouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, and the historic Sherwood Forest in Charles City, Virginia. All the states of the Deep South are represented. A few of the houses are open to the public; others are unknown and unvisited except by family and friends. Yet all of them stand as witnesses to a bygone era.

Noted author Caroline Seebohm eloquently casts the stories of the land, the houses, and their owners. She vividly evokes the power of the architecture and interior design of these houses, and through her we hear the owners’ pride of place and staunch allegiance to their family history. Under Live Oaks is an intimate tour of the Old South, an experience available to only a few and that in the not-too-distant future will be lost forever. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Photo's are great
If you like old houses of the South this book has some wonderful pictures. Some interesting photos of the interior rooms with a little bit of personal collections of the families. A great coffe table book. Not deep reading.

Southern Gothic Rehash
Both author and photographer of "Under Live Oaks" are English, and their knowledge of the South is distinctly secondhand and second-rate. Seebohm even acknowledges needing a crash course in Southern architecture from a friend! Instead of genuine knowledge and insight, we are offered a gauzy gothic cocktail of Hollywood cliches. (Mix one shot of "Gone With the Wind" with a dash of "Suddenly Last Summer" and a gallon of "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.") For a beautiful and intelligent book on Southern architecture, try "Architecture of the Old South" by Mills Lane. For photos that shed some light on Southern myths and realities, try "William Eggleston's Guide." ... Read more

Book Description

Architecture of the Old South: Greek Revival & Romantic and its companion volume, Architecture of the Old South: Colonial & Federal, are the climax of some twenty years of exploration, research and writing. Buildings are three-dimensional history books that reflect the comings and goings, successes and failures, aspirations and follies of real people. Virginia was the oldest, most populous and richest colony in the South, with early architecture of unsurpassed elegance and variety. Maryland, thanks to an early start and the successful cultivation of tobacco, produced colonial architecture second only to Virginia and South Carolina, the rich rice colony.

Meanwhile, North Carolina, with treacherous coasts, poor harbors and shallow rivers, was slow to prosper and remained isolated. Georgia, the last and poorest of the English colonies, struggled from insecurity and near collapse till the 1760's and, like North Carolina, remained sparsely settled, poor and undeveloped till after the Revolution. Louisiana, the former colony of France, continued to be dominated by French culture, French language and French laws long after it was sold to the United States in 1803.

In the 1760's Virginians and Carolinians, moving into the uplands and already pressing against the mountains, began exploring Tennessee and Kentucky. After the Revolution, this wave of transcontinental migration was renewed, not only to Tennessee and Kentucky, but also to northeastern and coastal Georgia and, leapfrogging lands in the Mississippi Territory still occupied by the Indians, to the banks of the lower Mississippi river.

Georgia and North Carolina enjoyed their greatest prosperity during the heyday of the Greek Revival. Mississippi and Alabama, the two states carved from the historic Mississippi Territory, were settled by a third wave of immigration in the 1830's that produced a surprising variety and quality of buildings in the relatively brief period before the Civil War.

These books try to explore Southern architecture beyond the clichs. The great buildings of the Old South were created by outsiders and newcomers, especially New Englanders, whose contributions to Southern society and culture have been long underestimated. Thus, these historic buildings show how the South participated far more fully in the mainstream of American life before the Civil War than has been generally appreciated. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Rich and immensely-informative
"Architecture of the Old South" is a rich and immensely-informative volume.

Mills Lane spent over fifteen year of "exploration, research, and writing" to produce this now classic work. He has attempted (and succeeded) in documenting how, surprisingly, "the great buildings of the Old South were created by outsiders and newcomers, especially New Englanders, whose contribution to Southern society and culture has been long underestimated."

Laudable buildings from such great cities as Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans are amply represented here, as are country houses and plantation estates. And to Lane's credit, he includes some quirky homes and frontier houses that have architectural connections to some of the region's more familiar buildings.

Van Jones Martin's color photography is crisp and unfussy. The best pictures include William Bryd II's handsome 18th-century mansion, in Westover, Virginia; Charleston's elegant, 18th-century Unitarian Church; and the grand, curving stair in Peter Wilson Hairston's 19th-century, two-story home in Advance, North Carolina.

A fine Bibliography and Index can also be found in this handsome and important work. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great value for this book
This book is mostly a historical account as Seaside, the development in the panhandle of Florida, is being developed. It mostly shows photographs of the different houses built so both architects and designers can get an intimate view. It is a great book as a reference for building in the Florida vernacular...

Disappointing
I have an abiding interest in homes on the sea. I've ordered a batch of them. When I saw this book, I assumed that it was a book about a variety of seaside homes of varying architectural styles. I was disappointed to find that it was a book about a single community in Florida, most of the homes being done in an architecturally consistent style. If you're looking for a book of relatively contemporary homes in Florida, this might be of interest to you, as it's well done from that perspective. Otherwise, I'd look at the other available titles, many of which are quite beautifully done.

Photographic Equivalent of Birthday Cake!
This exquisitely-photographed book about the 80-acre northern Florida community is the perfect antidote to the winter blues or for anyone wishing to take an armchair trip to this breathtaking beach area. Located approximately 70 miles east of Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, Seaside was featured as the perfect city in the movie "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey. The movie itself was dreadful, and the real star was Seaside. ( )

Good book on a great town
Brooke's book accurately portrays the rewarding small, Florida gulf town of Seaside-an architectural delight. I had the opportunity to visit recently, and didn't want to leave it's relaxing environment. The book contains a good description of the town's history and it's founder, Robert Davis, as well as vivid photography. As the town continues to grow, I'd like to see updates on new features in Seaside, as well as more information on the cottage owners and how they choose the decor and color schemes for their individual homes. It's a great coffee table book and must-have for visitors to Seaside. ... Read more