The Private House (Hardcover)

by Rose Tarlow (Author) (Author) "I live inside my head, often oblivious to the world outside myself..." (more)
Key Phrases: Queen Anne, American Indian, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
“There are those who spend lifetimes in houses that have nothing to do with who they really are. They may be perfectly designed, yet if they fail to reflect the personalities of the people who live in them, the very essence of intimacy is missing and this absence is disturbingly visible.”
—From “a window inside”


One of the most influential designers working in America today, Rose Tarlow knows that creating a truly beautiful room is as much an emotional matter as it is one of color, light, fabric, and furniture. In The Private House, she offers insights into the mind of a master designer—as well as a glimpse into some of the extraordinary homes she’s decorated.
Drawing upon her wealth of experience as an antiquaire and a designer, Ms. Tarlow discusses and illustrates simple principles of creative design that are appropriate to any home. Always arrange your comfortable, upholstered furniture first, she writes; pay special attention to how light affects your spaces; and use carpets as background only, never as the focus of a room.

With chapters on lighting, fabrics, color, and intimate spaces, Ms. Tarlow encourages readers to plan and decorate each area of their house with elegance and personal style, covering all the essential elements of design—including the emotional ones. The result should be a house that welcomes family and friends, one that enhances our quality of life.


From the Inside Flap
"There are those who spend lifetimes in houses that have nothing to do with who they really are. They may be perfectly designed, yet if they fail to reflect the personalities of the people who live in them, the very essence of intimacy is missing and this absence is disturbingly visible."
—From "a window inside"

One of the most influential designers working in America today, Rose Tarlow knows that creating a truly beautiful room is as much an emotional matter as it is one of color, light, fabric, and furniture. In The Private House, she offers insights into the mind of a master designer—as well as a glimpse into some of the extraordinary homes she's decorated.
Drawing upon her wealth of experience as an antiquaire and a designer, Ms. Tarlow discusses and illustrates simple principles of creative design that are appropriate to any home. Always arrange your comfortable, upholstered furniture first, she writes; pay special attention to how light affects your spaces; and use carpets as background only, never as the focus of a room.

With chapters on lighting, fabrics, color, and intimate spaces, Ms. Tarlow encourages readers to plan and decorate each area of their house with elegance and personal style, covering all the essential elements of design—including the emotional ones. The result should be a house that welcomes family and friends, one that enhances our quality of life.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First Edition edition (November 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609604724
• ISBN-13: 978-0609604724
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal, Beautiful, and Enlightening, March 19, 2002

By A Customer

After reading and flipping the pages of many architecture and design books over the last 20 years, I have found none as fun or in truly informative as this one Ms.Tarlow has put together. It's her human quality in the writing that really comes across in this book to make it warm and a real learning experience, not like a difficult professor in grad school but more of caring private tutor who tells you all the stories so you learn the lesson not just memorize it. Some of the design situations certainly will not arise in my life (dealing with a kitchen in the pool house comes to mind.) But it's full of great perspective, many lessons and a wonderful read nonetheless. Ms. Tarlow takes us on a journey that is so personal yet so professional and exotic you feel lucky to have been invited into her Private House.

91 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars it should be "MY Private House", February 26, 2002

By	J. A. Brodsky (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This book is minimally instructional. It's filled with the author's memories of the small things that make life interesting--but they don't make the book interesting. This is really a poorly-organized memoir, and not a book on design. The "tips" that the author shares are fairly common knowledge, and it's not worth slogging through yet another paragraph on the joys of a finding a scrap of exquisite fabric in a shop in Paris after a lovely little lunch at an out-of-the-way cafe, and how lovely it looked in Mr. Insert-Name-Here's quaint chateau. Rose Tarlow should have just written her autobiography and not tried to disguise it as a design book. Two stars for the fact that it wasn't completely false advertising.

60 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Subtle and Serene, November 14, 2001

By A Customer

Rose Tarlow invites us into her rarefied world, and aren't we lucky. She has created sublimely elegant furniture and environments for a number of years, yet her work has not received the kind of extensive editorial converage that some of her less talented contemporaries have. She has composed a relatively slim volume of words and images that is at once very personal yet instructional.

We are given a peek into her private life with descriptions of the house she grew up in as well as the creation of her magnificent home in Bel Air California and other projects.She shares some of her fundamental design pricipals in addition to a history of how she began her very unique and successful career.

This is a book for anyone who appreciates extraordinary design in addition to being a wealth of information culminated from a lifetime of exploration and study.