There’s nothing like coming home from work and finding goodies in the mailbox. Just before I left on vacation I received a few things that I didn’t get a chance to photograph until last weekend. First up is a very special piece of art by Juliet Vonturi, a textile designer based in the Bay Area, California. My heart broke when Juliet mentioned she had to flee the area due to the forest fires 🙁 Despite that setback she managed to send me a gorgeous panel of blue silk that she hand-painted – something she recently started offering. 

I didn’t have any frames on hand that were square so I improvised and taped it into my antique fireplace screen. 

Juliet’s atelier produces marble stone silks, linens, printed fabrics, as well as design coordinate pure botanicals made by expert artisans with sustainable colours. The marble prints are absolutely exquisite and I am totally in love with them. Some samples…

I also received a couple more books from Vendome Press that are just what you need to add to your Christmas list. First up is Life at the Top: New York’s Most Exceptional Apartment Buildings. By Kirk Henckels and Anne Walker with photographs by Michel Arnaud.

This is all kinds of eye candy. A broad range of styles are included from totally traditional to funky and modern. This book shares fifteen incredible apartment houses throughout New York – several addresses on Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue, Central Park West and more. One of my favourite features in the book are the floor plans. OMG!!! I have never seen such spacious apartments! 25 rooms, with 10 of them being maid’s rooms! Seriously?! This book really blew me away. I really enjoyed seeing how the other half live. 

Next up is Outside In: The Gardens and Houses of Tichenor & Thorp  by M. Brian Tichenor and Raun Thorp with Judith Nasatir with photographs by Roger Davies. 

This one is a bit more down to earth than the last book. I was surprisingly unaware of the architecture and design husband-and-wife team of Tichenor and Thorp, but perhaps because they are dubbed “Hollywood’s best kept secret”. Deeply fluent in the Mediterranean and American vernaculars and the modern forms of the California Tradition, Tichenor & Thorp design exceptional properties that integrate large-scale residences and luxurious gardens and landscapes into a singular, unified vision: house and landscape imagined as one complete expression for a given site and particular client. Featured projects include a Spanish-inflected courtyard house and garden in Las Palmas; a Newport Beach hilltop hideaway that evokes a Portuguese quinta; a Provençal bastide and surrounding gardens transplanted to the côte sud that is Rancho Santa Fe; two luxe contemporary Manhattan apartments; a modern mountain getaway at the foot of the Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and several more. What’s really cool about this pair is the diversity of their projects and the broad range or periods and styles and all executed really well. The outdoor spaces are dreamy.