Defining Luxury: The Qualities of Life at Home

Jeffrey Bilhuber returns with a second book after Design Basics, his successful debut volume. In a lavish new format, the media-savvy designer for tastemakers and celebrities presents his most recent projects from coast to coast. Bilhuber views luxury as essential to every life well-lived, a way of appreciating and sharing our joy in existence, not the exclusive purview of the few. The designer encourages the reader to seek, aspire, and revel in luxury at home, however simple or adorned: from the embrace of the perfectly tufted reading chair to an heirloom vase cradling freshly cut garden roses to a dazzling chandelier that makes light dance. In seven chapters filled with charming anecdotes and lovely observations, the designer--whom Hamish Bowles has likened to a twenty-first century Billy Baldwin--explores the idea of luxury as life's abundance reflected in a home's varied elements: Discovery, Passion, History, Ornament, Grace, Comfort, and Delight. Each project discussed evokes the many qualities of a distinctively American luxury practically expressed and fully enjoyed at home: beauty, family, refinement, and hospitality. Within these, the reader gleans insight from Bilhuber's inimitable style and learns that luxury is about cultivating a state of mind as much as it is about the objects with which we surround ourselves.