A Ceiling of Sky: Special Garden Rooms and the People Who Created Them [Hardcover]

Pat Ross (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Everyone has a different idea of what constitutes the perfect "outdoor room"--for some it's a private haven for relaxation; for others it's a place for parties and family gatherings for multiple seasons each year. Whether your style is a private deck with a hammock or a grassy expanse with plenty of picnic tables, you're sure to find inspiration for creating a unique space in A Ceiling of Sky. Its lush photos, personal interviews, antique engravings, and elegant quotations are guaranteed to earn it coffee-table rights.

Photographer and author Pat Ross has an eye for detail, and she's adept at uncovering the personal touches that make each garden space unique. With her camera pointing at the clothespins that sneakily attach a cushion to a patio chair in a Southwestern cottage garden bursting with colorful perennials, we hear resident gardener Charles Muise's humorous side: "If we're on the porch when we get a twister warning, we can just grab our chairs and head for low ground!" Urban gardeners annoyed by filchers will applaud Lemeau Arrott-Watt's comment accompanying the photos of the extravagant roses blooming on her Greenwich Village rooftop: "A ten-pound hammer and a crowbar became my best friends."

No matter the locale, many of the gardens are evocative of New England and the tidewater area of Virginia, so transplanted Easterners may find a bit of their hometowns in these pages. Curl up and start dreaming! --Jill Lightner

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Time Life Education (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0737006110
• ISBN-13: 978-0737006117
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,136,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In addition to The Circle of Enduring Love and The Kinship of Women, Pat Ross is the author of Formal Country, reissued in a tenth anniversary edition, and Decorating Your Garden. She has written more than 40 books for adults and children, dividing her time between her New York City apartment and a farm in Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I greatly enjoyed this book., April 18, 2007

By 

J. Matson "lover of books" (Montana, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Ceiling of Sky: Special Garden Rooms and the People Who Created Them (Hardcover)

I somehow "acquired" this book. (I don't remember where, when or how I acquired it.) I began browsing through it by just looking at the author's great pictures and reading the captions. I kept getting distracted because I would continue on and start reading the text also. Finally, I just gave up that route & read the entire book, cover to cover, text and captions together. Even though I don't have nearly the size to work with of most of the featured gardens, I still enjoyed the book. It gave me some useful, practical ideas to incorporate into my own outdoor space. I especially like the feel of most of the gardens that they just "happened", weren't really planned. (But of course they were planned out but they have that feel to them - more like walking into a meadow, "cultivated" wild areas & some wild "cultivated" areas.) Living in Montana, I enjoy picking up this book in the middle of our 6 month winter & dreaming of spring.