Need This Book

Fantastic Architecture : Personal and Eccentric Visions by Michael Schuyt and Joost Elffers

Mary Tyler Moore’s Laura Ashley-style bedroom. I like the light cast by the arched window. And the green carpet!

Mary Tyler Moore’s bathroom. The shower curtains!

Truman Capote’s Tiffany lamp and paperweights.

Pauline Trigère custom-made signature logo wallpaper and fabric.

Gore Vidal’s spartan bedroom in the Gulf of Salerno, Italy.

Robert Redford’s amazing Native American Kachina doll collection. So jealous.

My dream home by Diana Vreeland. She once said, “I want my home to look like a garden. A garden in hell!” The woman had IMPECCABLE taste.

Diana Vreeland’s dressing table. No space is left empty, just the way I like it.

Diana Vreeland’s bed and to-read pile. Great Royal books.

The face of Joan Crawford - exactly the kind of thing I’d expect to find in her house. This made me happy.

Yves Saint Laurent’s awesome sheep chairs. Again — so jealous!

Jean Arthur’s grotto-like fireplace. I love the driftwood coffee table.

There are some great photos in here of Theatre architecture from Hollywood’s golden age, but I think the ruins that remain today are way more interesting. There’s something about the sad decay of these once-grand ‘Picture Palaces’, all boarded up and condemned, their insides ravaged, that I find so overwhelming.

I wonder if you could buy one of these to live in? Of course it would cost a fortune to repair and it’d probably be in the middle of  a ghetto, but still - if you had the cash, it’d be pretty amazing. You could just set yourself up so you never have to leave the house (which I think is the ultimate in luxury). All you need are books, movies, central heating and food and booze delivered.

What I like best about roadside-novelty architecture is the mammoth effort that went into their construction - especially considering they were often nothing more than two-bit burger joints, service stations or ice cream parlors … all pretty unassuming enterprises. So naive and unpretentious were these buildings, they were often designed by the owners themselves. They were genuinely eccentric, over-the-top, ridiculous and totally awe-inspiring.

It’s so sad to think now that no-one really cares.