Customer Reviews

Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If Peter Maass, in The Gingerbread Age: A View of Victorian America and The Victorian home in America, first made us truly aware of the glories of Victorian domestic architecture, it was Elizabeth Pomada who showed us how it could be brought to vivid life. In this, her first book about the modernizing-by-paint of 19th-Century houses, she concentrates on San Francisco, where the Painted Lady style was invented during the heyday of the hippies. The houses shown in the gorgeous full-color photographs range from the elegantly somber (like Don Parodi's many-bayed house on p. 23) to the minutely detailed (the imposing Colonial Revival mansion on p. 20 and the Bert Franklin rowhouse opposite) to the downright gaudy (Rhine & Kennedy's fire-engine-red offices on p. 29, a tiny lavender cottage on p. 50, a literally rainbow-striped confection on p. 69). If you can't make it to San Francisco in person--or if you've been, and want to relive the glories of its vintage housing--this book belongs on your shelf.

Purchased this book to help me with ideas for a quilt project. Will pass it on to my son who is an architect. He will enjoy having it on his library shelf.

I've ordered numerous books on Victorians and this one is by far the worst. The photos have a washed out look to them. Colors look faded and if you've ever seen a Victorian painted correctly, the colors are vivid and plentiful. Electric lines that ran between the Victorian and the photographer, printed out thick and dark black. Needless to say it decreased the beauty of the home.

Number of pages totals 80 and the majority of them are photos but this book isn't nearly as good as Elizabeth Pomada's other books. It will remain in my home library because I've already paid for it but I can't say it gives me much pleasure to turn it's pages.

As usual, anything I order from Amazon.com arrives in time and in perfect condition. This book is beautiful and I ordered it for a Christmas present for a friend, since I already have a copy. It was the perfect gift.