Customer Reviews

Stone Designs for the Home

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Stone Designs for the Home is a wonderful book for anyone that might be interested in incorporating stone to your home. The pictures are wonderful and allot of stone is used in ways that know one would imagine.

Very pleased with this purchase.

Isis L. Primus,
Scottsdale, AZ

A superb look at the work of Santa Fe stonemason John Morris with Candace Wallace helping to create an excellent text. The book shows the drywall stonework created primarily for upscale homes (and the occasional resort) in the Santa Fe area. It is an excellent complement to the book, Stone By Design, which shows work by Lew French, the Martha's Vineyard-based master stonemason. The Lew French book presents the epitome of East Coast stonework; this book does the same for the southwest-style home.

The John Morris work is beautifully portrayed in photographs by Robert Reck. The Rancho Alegre, created by owner Mike Kammerer and builder John Wolf, is an extraordinary compound featured in the Country Homes issue of Architectural Digest, June 2008. It displays some of the finest stonework utilizing both old-world and Southwest territorial and colonial styles. The home includes the most extraordinary bathroom I have ever seen, a huge space created to suggest the interior of a Native American kiva. As with all of the applications of stone inside and outside the gorgeous homes illustrated, or in gardens, there is excellent use of photography to display details.

Candace Wallace is no doubt responsible for editing the excellent text which covers John Morris's career, how he came upon each of the jobs shown, and why a particular stone was used. Most of these projects use stones indigenous to New Mexico; some rock had to be imported. Each type of stone offers different challenges to the stonemason and each is discussed in terms the layman can understand.


One thinks of Andy Goldsworthy when looking at the beautiful dry stone garden walls Morris creates. If you are interested in the use of stone in home and garden design, you will love this book.

John Morris' talents as a stonemason (artist is a better term) is matched by this book's written words assisted by Candace Walsh and the spectacular photography by Robert Reck. The descriptions of several projects draw the reader into the task and, for me, I wanted to be by his side as he imagined, then created unbelievable beauty out of a natural product. The impact of this book on myself was to strengthen and confirm my desire to live out my life in the environment of the South West and forsake other world locales and environs. The book takes the reader through the design and completion of large and small stone projects with a clear understanding of the process. Highly recommended for the lover of natural beauty converted to man's usefullness and pleasure.

The photography displays the stonework in a way that makes you envy the occupants of every structure. If the homes are half as much joy to occupy as they are to look at, the author is a genius.

As a artist I want to read the back stories. John T. Morris shares his personal experiences with each project. I am currently obsessed with Rancho Alegre. I hoped this book would have additional photos of the property. It surpassed expectations!

Echoing the words of the previous 4 reviewers, it is amazing to sit down with this book. I've gone thru it 4 times, reading it twice, in the last week... While this book is about building and design, I find it eclipsing this and being about art and the artist.

This book is so different from all the other ones you find in the home building/landscaping/architecture sections of the book store or the library.

First, Morris' stonework is just unbelievable. Having done a little bit of work when I was younger, the amount of talent and experience he has shows thru in just the first few photos. Each work looks like it would have taken months to years to complete. He may have not been able to follow thru on his desired music career but he certainly is an artist with a vision. I've enjoyed just sitting and looking at individual photos, just to admire how much work was involved. You'll be able to do this, too even without any experience.

And yes, the Reck's photography is very well done. The perspectives he has chosen and the lighting that he has used really tells Morris' tale quite well.

But, the part of the book that I liked best and is why this book is so different, is the writing. I'm not a writer myself so, it's hard to describe how well Morris and Walsh convey Morris' thoughts, his ethics and his love for his work. It's a wonderful relief from other architectural books where the author, usually an architect, waxes on about the beautiful designs of residences that I truly find uninviting or uncomfortable and are far removed from being a "home."

Pick this book up or check it out at the library.