Description:
Whether it's a weekend home, a shady retreat out in the garden, or just the memory of a summer spent at the beach, many of us associate a specific place with a feeling of getting away from it all. It's a place one goes to feel removed from the stresses of modern life and leaves feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Of course, your idea of a getaway depends on your definition of relaxation, and Chris Casson Madden's Getaways serves up a variety of exemplary, sometimes lavish, retreats, such as a 58-foot boat; a family farm with a menagerie of horses, ducks, geese, and goats; and a compound in the Hudson River Valley with its own natural waterfall. Several celebrity getaways are featured as well, including Michael Keaton's cabin on his Montana dude ranch, a boathouse on the Hudson River that serves as Toni Morrison's creative inspiration, and Katie Couric's country home. Not all of Casson's getaways are the typical weekend or summer homes. Some are year-round retreats or even special rooms within a home. Donna Kaplan's re-created 19th-century French bathroom, with its antique glass perfume bottles, tapered candles, and fireplace, leaves her well rested after a long soak in the cast-iron tub. Lynn von Kersting and Richard Irving's Sunset Boulevard home has a pool and a porch filled with bohemian furnishings, cozy paper lanterns and candles, and lush tropical flowers and plants--a perfect spot for entertaining friends. Bob Levenson's garden getaway is a backyard arbor consisting of four intertwined gingko trees layered with clematis and climbing roses. These imaginatively decorated and diverse retreats should inspire those with beach houses, cabins, and the like to consider how the elements of a "getaway" can be incorporated into their second home. And those currently without a getaway may be motivated to simply set aside a room or space outdoors that can serve as a sanctuary from busy otherworlds. --Kris Law
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