The Gentleman's Farm

This sumptuous volume features gracious country homes that blend the very best of vernacular tradition, classical architecture, and high-style elegance. For four centuries, the ideal of the gentleman’s farm has inspired Virginians to create extraordinary homes on landscapes of unparalleled beauty. Often places of retreat, these houses display the virtues of the very best of American historic and classical architecture, incorporating harmonious proportion, elegant interiors, and thoughtful design in traditional styles. Each one in its way a model of taste and beauty, the houses of The Gentleman’s Farm are an expression of an American ideal of domestic happiness, the very picture of home, which has served to influence the style of residential building across the country. The houses featured, including a centuries-old home for a president as well as recently built residences, present a stylish, traditional aesthetic, hallmarks of which include warm, wood-paneled libraries, plaster walls hung with paintings of horse riding scenes, classical motifs, lovingly wrought architectural detail, screened porches, large windows that frame inspiring vistas of the country landscape—all those things that say home to the country and suburban gentleman and gentlewoman."The country home has long been the bellwether of classical architecture, distinctive taste, stately elegance, and tradition. . . Detailing the hallmarks of a classically styled hunt country house, [The Gentleman's Farm] features a variety of interiors from a presiden'ts centuries-old-home to newly designed retreats in the Virginia hunt country. Designers who appreciate proportion, history, and classical architecture, in particular, will find this book a useful addition to their design library."
-ARRAY MAGAZINE

"Calling all lovers of traditional design and historic homes! The Gentleman's Farm: Elegant Country House Living provides an endless array of inspiration for anyone with dreams of owning a genteel estate brimming with woodwork."  
-Curbed.comLaurie Ossman is director of museum affairs at the Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, Rhode Island, author of Great Houses of the South, and coauthor of Carrère & Hastings: The Masterworks.

Debra A. McClane is an architectural historian and preservationist and the author of Botetourt County, Virginia, Revisited.

Walter Smalling is a widely published architectural photographer whose books include Uncommon Vernacular: The Early Houses of Jefferson County, West Virginia, 1735–1835.