The Way Home: Reflections on American Beauty

If you believe that too much of decorating today is about "constructing domestic fictions about desired lifestyles" as designer Jeffrey Bilhuber does, you may appreciate his new book THE WAY HOME. It features 12 design projects from NYC townhouses to a Nantucket cottage to a Pennsylvania fieldstone home. Bilhuber's rooms get at what is missing in some design today: we are people with a past. Bilhuber views design as storytelling; our homes should be "narratives of self." He advocates for democratic interiors that reconcile "wildly disparate elements" such as "high and low, rare and common, handsome and homely across the spectrum of cultures and periods". If decorating occasionally loses its way, Bilhuber believes the way home is to listen carefully, as a designer, to the client--to hear the heartbeat of what we find meaningful and beautiful.A word of caution: some of the rooms in this book may have too many "wildly disparate" and "homely" elements for the average reader. What do the rooms in this book look like? Original, soulful, moody, murky, atmospheric, visionary, impish, flashes of genius are some of the words that come to my mind. Handsome elements I loved in his rooms: corner banquettes, japanned furniture, tiger-print fabric, bullion-fringed sofas and coverlets, tufted chairs and headboards, skirted tables, a harlequin chair, cottage furniture, diverse floral prints, colorful tole sconces, painted floors, curtained doorways, glorious antiques and fetching Vermeer colors. I love the cover room which reaches into the past--you can picture Proust sitting in an orange chair brushing madeleine crumbs off his hands before he reaches for his tea cup. Yet the fresh colors and spirit are definitely 21st century; Henry James, Virginia Woolf and David Bowie could happily party in these rooms. There's a Bloomsbury Group bohemian vibe in some while others resemble interiors in Sargent's paintings complete with children.The "disparate" and "homely" style elements which may be provocative and controversial in his rooms? An abundance of scattered pillows occasionally spilling onto floors, cheek by jowl furniture placement, clashing patterns and colors, minimal linkage and repetition for harmony, some dissonance and atonality in rooms, eensie-weensie art above large sofas, rooms which look like the morning after a party, hanging beads, a possible missing focal point, scale variation such as dainty tables paired with voluptuous sofas, mini-tchotchkes on the mantels such as herb jars?, some claustrophobic furniture arrangements, orphaned plants from the garden club's plant sale, and dishevelment which borders on some folks' idea of chaos. But isn't that home sometimes? For myself, I like Bilhuber's design best as created in his New York country home and wish that home were included in this book. Some rumple is divine. The photography by William Abranowicz capturing the handsome and homely elements in this book will make you catch your breath. It is luminous.When artists take risks with classic design elements, as this book does, it provokes a polarity in reactions; you'll probably see an equal amount of one and two star as four and five star reviews with not many in between. I love the concept behind the book, even if some rooms are jarring for my taste. If you like irreverent design, this may be a 5 star book for you.If this book is a bit renegade tugging us in the right direction away from perfect, static and occasionally soulless rooms featured in magazines and design books to a more rumpled, imperfect, welcoming comfort, then bravo! If it inspires us to look to our memories like a well-loved and well-stocked attic for what we find meaningful and lovely, and express it tangibly in our homes, it accomplishes its purpose. It should prompt lively debate in design circles as innovative art does. That's positive. Let the conversation begin. It may stretch the parameters of your design sensibility. You'll have to judge for yourself if the style inside is the way home for you. If it's not, you sense Bilhuber hopes it provokes you to find your own way home.

Bilhuber is unlike any other designer I'm familiar with. As I collect my own little design library, I particularly enjoyed his book The Way Home. I have not read any of his others. His use of color is especially intriguing, not a lot of beige rooms here! The color balance is key in all his rooms. The homes he uses to illustrate his principles here seem much more personal than those in other design books and, if you can't replicate his designs easily because details are so ideosyncratic to the owners, you can well imagine your own personal treasures in their place. My one real criticism is the number of rooms where floor treatments were rumpled to the point of representing a danger. No old ladies better visit his clients! This kind of thing just drives me wild ... like putting bowls of lemons in a bedroom, or the umpteenth sunburst mirror. A floor cloth strewn across a traffic area screams "for effect", not "a real person lives here." That being said, the photos of his own home are especially wonderful. You can't take in his rooms with one sweeping glance, you have to look deeply. And over and over again. Worth the Amazon price for sure. Mary Ashby

And to think this book has been collecting dust on my shelves for over 2 years! I purchased this and 2 other of his books in 2016, but just now getting around to reviewing them (in anticipation for his latest being released soon).I absolutely love this book! Unlike Defining Luxury, with its rambling text, this one is very well written. In each chapter he describes the inspiration for the home, providing a little bit about the family living there. I love that the rooms aren't perfectly staged, with everything just in its place and no mess at all. In this book, beds are unmade, dishes sitting on the tables, etc. Also, one thing I really liked, was how he describes how the homes may have evolved since his original design, with the families putting their own individual stamp on it, or evolving with their changing needs or mood. I also love the mix of colors or patters, and the mix of art, sometimes unexpected, but still lovely.

Bilhuber's new book is wonderful. He explores less formal settings than in his previous books and his mastery of color and pattern is brilliant. He chooses paints and fabrics as if from an Impressionist pallet mixing oranges, greens, blues, yellows, purples and so on across the spectrum. He's also fearless in his use of pattern. To me, he has translated the English country house for our American lifestyle. The rooms are filled with antiques and furnishings selected for these smaller, more intimate spaces. There are eccentric personal collections included in his rooms. For example, one client's inherited ceramic bird collection dots tabletops, mantel and bookshelves. There's a beach house filled with a family's needlepoint pillows in every color of the rainbow. Any other decorator would have jettisoned them instead of incorporating them. To quote Bilhuber:"These rooms couldn't exist without such flourishes - the real, tangible, storytelling components from past lives. " The book is organized around each home so that you can see his entire vision. Last but not least, the photography by William Abranowicz is beautiful.This book is filled with ideas that anyone can incorporate into their home. I've already changed my lampshades.

This is probably not a book I would buy again. I have seen other books by the same author, and checked them out of the library multiple times. Based on the other books, I bought this one. However, I think his other books may have been better than this one. While there are loads of photos in this book, many, at least half, are dark and seem not well lighted. I simply did not feel inspired by anything in this book. Based on this, the book seems overpriced.

I fell in love with this book at first sight as the cover was full of colour, just my style, very eclectic , very homey ,lived in , décor that say's, come here, pull up a chair and grab a book.

Wonderful book which I found quite by chance through a designer in Australia, who says it is her most favourite of design books! Beautiful photographs and lovely stories about the individuals whose homes he writes about. He has a lovely way of writing which really draws you in and leaves you yearning to read more. This book is much more than a design book. It's very special and one I will certainly pick up and read again and again. The homes are inviting, eclectic, inspiring and most of all, real homes for real people. I would say one could emulate his style if you were looking at purchasing his book as inspiration for your own home, but it's also a great coffee table book. I'm already looking at purchasing other books by Jeffrey Bilhuber because I just love his style. I have many interior design books and this is really one of my most favourite!

C est un beau livre, belles photographies mais agencements des decors pas toujours faciles à situer dans l espace.