*A must-have for any design enthusiasts, especially those interested in Carleton Varney and Dorothy Draper*Insider views of the world's most famous resorts, the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan*Perfect compendium to HSN's television show, Live Vividly*As practical as it is beautiful, this book contains decorating advice from one of Architectural Digest's "Deans of Design" "Everything's grand" says decorator extraordinaire, Carleton Varney. After over forty years in the interior design business, Varney opens his archive and brings together his favorite large-scale luxury decorating projects, including an Irish country manor, a sixteenth-century castle, a colonial mansion, a Southern plantation, along with two of his best-loved resorts - the Greenbrier in West Virginia and the "Queen of the Great Lakes", Michigan's Grand Hotel. On these pages, he also showcases his most recent private residential project - a 6000 square foot Mediterranean-style home, near the Rio Grande. In Decorating in the Grand Manor, Varney focuses our attention on all the elements of elegant design, from crystal chandeliers to magnificent architectural details and dispenses his time-honored advice on how to achieve the look at home.

Has there ever been an American decorator as famous as Dorothy Draper? Like Martha Stewart, Draper was a preacher and teacher whose how-to books and Good Housekeeping columns provided middle-class housewives with affordable ideas for making their homes more functional and comfortable.Thanks to her originality as a stylist and her daring as a businesswoman, she became one of the most respected career women in the United States. She shocked the design world in 1937 when she decorated the thirty-seven-story Hampshire House apartment hotel on Central Park South in New York City, delivering a project that became indicative of her signature touch - 'baroque fantasy'. In the Pink: Dorothy Draper, America's Most Fabulous Decorator , by Carleton Varney, lavishly illustrates for the first time Draper s most important projects. From the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia and Quitandinha in Brazil to her important fabrics for F. Schumacher & Co. and her automobile and airplane interiors of the 1950s, Draper c

Designer and interior decorator Dorothy Draper’s colour-filled life story is one of high society, money, gossip, and throughout it all, reinvention. Carleton Varney has owned and directed Dorothy Draper & Company, Inc., for almost 60 years. He worked with Mrs. Draper at the end of her illustrious career, and wrote the only biography of her life, The Draper Touch: The High Life and High Style of Dorothy Draper, in 1988. In the book, Varney sets the scene and defines the milieu that Draper was born into in 1889 and from which she escaped to become one of America’s leaders in design — a true visionary entrepreneur. Thirty-three years later, Shannongrove Press is releasing this deluxe edition of The Draper Touch. With a new foreword by Varney, newly found photographs, recently discovered historical documents from a private collection, and archival ephemera from Draper’s family, this beautiful tome reveals Draper’s fascinating journey and the real stories behind her ground-breaking work.

Carleton Varney turns his decorating vision towards the water in his most recent tome, Decorating on the Waterfront. Here, he gathers stunning images of new design projects in this collection of inspirational stories that use motifs and colours from years by the shore. Growing up on the Massachusetts coast influenced his penchant for bright cheerful colour schemes and warm polished interiors that exude luxury living today. Varney continues to live near the ocean and decorates for clients on the waterfront from Palm Beach, Florida to the shores of Lake Huron, Michigan. This book brings into focus Varney's career-long journey to bring elements and inspirations from the world around us to life at home.

In 1947 and 1948, Van Johnson was MGM's top male box office draw. "On screen he was the Pied Piper; Elizabeth Taylor's lover, he was a war pilot with Spencer Tracy," writes his friend and decorator Carleton Varney in the introduction for Van Johnson's Hollywood: A Family Album. Along the way, his wife, Evie Wynn Johnson, an amateur shutterbug captured behind-the-scenes images of their friends some of Hollywood's most famous stars, such as Gary Cooper, Judy Garland, and Humphrey Bogart on the road, on the set, around the pool, and at their Hollywood home. She put together these casual and candid images in a family album that has never been published before. Their daughter, Schuyler adds her memories to this unique document of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Located in the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, Mackinac Island is a magical place, accessible only by ferry, private boat, or small plane. In 1887, Grand Hotel was built on the island to accommodate a new leisure class. Today, horse-drawn carriages (no motorised vehicles are allowed) still bring guests to the 660-foot-long porch to catch the breezes off the Great Lakes. When the Musser family - the owners of the hotel - brought in designer Carleton Varney, a 40-year relationship began, as did an ongoing mission to renovate, update, and create the guest rooms, public spaces, and outer buildings of Grand Hotel. That project continues today. ("The job of decorating is never done," says the designer.) Varney has developed a vision that brings visitors back year after year to their choice of the 397 rooms - no two of which are alike. In Rooms to Remember, Varney - in his usual colourful and anecdote-filled style - walks the reader through over 200 lavish photographs of the 43 Named Rooms and Suites, providing decorating details, history, and insights. This book is the perfect visual guide for anyone ready to explore the beauty and history the hotel has to offer, and a takeaway memento for those who've visited this special place. Come along and join this glorious tour of an iconic American hotel!