Great American Houses and Gardens Pop-Up

Muralist Fischer turns his artistic talents to the small scale in this pop-up tour of eight of the most opulent estates in the U.S., from the Dupont family's Winterthur manor in Delaware to the Beaux Arts splendor of Henry Edward Huntington's eponymous abode in San Marino, California. In complexly designed pages featuring diminutive informational booklets and 3D constructions of spiral staircases or lush garden vistas, Fischer introduces readers to the grand-and sometimes gaudy-expressions of vast wealth and exacting aesthetic values. Industrialist James Veering's ""Venetian fantasy"" Vizcaya and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, proof that ""man's apotheosis could be perfectly represented in architectural form,"" are also presented within, alongside The Governor's Palace in Colonial Williamsburg, Va., Mount Vernon, Biltmore in Asheville, N.C., Winterthur, and The Hermitage in Tennessee. A brief introduction offers an overview of the project and gives Web addresses for further research. It's hard to figure out exactly whom this volume will please, as it covers what's presumably an area of adult interest in a format more suited to kids, but it's an interesting project nevertheless, and the craftsmanship involved is definitely impressive.