Glorious Gardens: Private Edens of the World’s Leading Interior Designers

In this lush coffee-table book, Caponigro (Frederic), editor-in-chief of Frederic magazine, tours the verdant estates owned by interior designers. Examining how her subjects balance “manicured and wild” elements, she shows how Nancy Braithwaite filled the outer reaches of her sprawling Atlanta property with unruly swaths of trees, ferns, and azaleas, while the area closer to her home features more tightly controlled greenery in the form of hedges and “a raised square of emerald lawn bordered by dark reflecting pools.” Other gardens lean more heavily toward one extreme or the other, such as Stephen Sills’s meticulously trimmed box hedges modeled on the “great estates of Italy and France” or Brian McCarthy’s more naturalistic blend of dogwoods, catmint, and lady’s mantle. Caponigro explores how the designers’ approach to decorating interiors influences their gardens, discussing how Martyn Lawrence Bullard’s penchant for “high wattage glamour” comes through in his decision to finish his pool with white plaster in emulation of the one at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and how Katie Ridder’s fondness for bold hues can be seen in the dahlia, heuchera, amaranth, and kerria plants that populate her grounds. Caponigro’s commentary is insightful yet succinct, allowing the gorgeous scenery to speak for itself. This charms. (May)