Family Houses in the Country

In this richly evocative book, another celebration of the magic of homes away from home, the author of Family Houses by the Sea offers warm and perceptive portraits of country houses where idiosyncratic decorative details combine with family traditions to create unique memories that last a lifetime.

Every person--whether a harried urbanite or satisfied suburbanite--harbors thoughts of a dream house. We all desire a home away from our daily cares where our family can commingle in gracious surroundings to create warm patterns of memory and peace. Family Houses in the Country takes us to such retreats in the woods and hillsides, and to the remembered splendors of picnics under cloudless skies and rainy-day costume parties where attic trunks are raided for their treasures. Examining real homes both to evince the existing beauty of their rooms and gardens and to evoke the beautiful ghosts that benignly reside within, author Alexandra d'Arnoux and photographer Gilles de Chabaneix travel through the United States, England, Scotland, Italy, and France to find remarkable houses imbued with the spirit of families who delight in living in them.

As readers we are treated to a peek inside a family homestead nestled in California's Napa Valley, where sun and vines and loved ones seem to inhabit an eternal summer's day. We experience the isolated, strangely welcoming manor of Kerdaoualas, which, situated on a hill in Brittany, casts its shadow over sea and country-side. We explore every room in a lake house in New Hampshire. And we're not surprised to find that a funny, architecturally intriguing home in Shropshire once housed a medieval abbey.  

Family Houses in the Country celebrates family values, real family values: togetherness, the coexistence of generations, the gentle rhythms of childhood, and the comforting rewards of maturity. We may not all be fortunate enough to have grown up in such houses as these, but we do occupy them--at least in our dreams.

Alexandra d'Arnoux--author of Family Houses by the Sea--has written extensively for Maison et Jardin and House & Garden. She currently works for Architectural Digest and lives in Paris.

Photographer Gilles de Chabaneix's work has appeared in many home, style, and design books. He also lives in Paris.