Book Review: Palm Beach Chic

Palm Beach Chic by Jennifer Ash Rudick, Photography by Jessica Klewicki Glynn, Published by Vendome Press 2015.

 

Palm Beach, Florida - the lush, stylish, and expensive barrier island on the Atlantic coast is an enclave to some of the most beautiful, and luxurious homes in the country. Palm Beach Chic, by Jennifer Ash Rudick with outstanding photography by Jessica Klewicki Glynn, prominently features 25 of these glorious homes, many of them attached to famous architects and owners both past and present. From sprawling ocean front estates to quaint, architecturally significant cottages and dashing apartments, the book published by Vendome Press, is filled with over 400 pages of unique inspiration.

 

Reading through the book is like peeling back through the palm leaves, and gaining access to some of the most private homes at the easternmost tip of Florida. A sort of panoramic vicarious vacation taken through sight as you turn page by page, unaware that you're dialing the number of your realtor, thinking "It's time to sell, and move to Palm Beach!" Note: buy a few winning lottery tickets while you're at it!

 

While I can't take you page by page, I can certainly give you a little visual of the homes inside of Palm Beach Chic, starting with one my favorites: the West Palm Beach home of Lars Bolander, Bamboo Hill:

 



Famed Broadway producer, Terry Allen Kramer, who has original shows like Kinky Boots and Movin' Out on her mile long IBDB page, calls this 46,000 square foot compound, La Follia, home in Palm Beach:

Designer Pauline Pitt helped with interiors of the home, finished in 1995, and designed by architect Jeffrey Smith.

 

 

Harry and Laura Slatkin, American Royalty when it comes to home fragrance, are the founders of Slatkin & Co., the revitalized British sportswear brand Belstaff, and the luxury fragrance line of Nest brand candles. Harry is brother to designer and author Howard Slatkin, and I'm sure that their home in Palm Beach, known as Gumdrop, was thoughtfully touched by Howard's refined Midas hand:

 

 

Of course, Palm Beach is home to the start of a particular fashion house that is well known for its color and pattern: Lily Pulitzer. Daughter to the famed preppy fashion house designer, Liza Pulitzer Calhoun has clearly kept a love for bright color in her own Palm Beach cottage:

 



And lastly, (for this post anyway) the beautiful entryway of Jay and Diahann Cochran. The Cochran's worked with designer Jeff Lincoln to turn their 1935 home, just one block from the ocean, into a light, bright, Floridian show stopper complete with items found during their many sojourns to Africa.

 

No matter your taste, no matter your style, no matter your budget, no matter your space - I guarantee that you will find inspiration a-plenty within the pages of this stunning collection of photographs and stories about some of the finest homes in the world.

 

Available at Amazon.com here, I'm sure that Palm Beach Chic will be more than another to your library, neh, it will serve as the perfect coffee table book to keep you occupied, intrigued, voyeuristically satisfied through the winter, and inspired all year long!