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| California Romantica: Spanish Colonial and Mission-Style Houses | 
 enlarge | Author: D.j. Waldie
Creators: Diane Keaton, Lisa Hardaway, Paul Hester
Publisher: Rizzoli
Category: Book
List Price: $65.00
Buy New: $40.92
You Save: $24.08 (37%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $38.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  (14 reviews)
Sales Rank: 97603
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 322
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5.5
Dimensions (in): 13.3 x 9.7 x 1.4
ISBN: 0847829758
Dewey Decimal Number: 720
EAN: 9780847829750
ASIN: 0847829758
Publication Date: November 6, 2007
Release Date: November 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nice Book February 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is an excellent ART book. The photos are exquisite but the whole of the book leaves a little too much left unsaid. The beauty of these period houses are the huge quantity of fine detail and how those details interact. To really get a feel for this type of style it's important to see those details in total and not just specific details in a vacuum. While the shots were all beautiful it would have been much better if the overall feel of the book was more encompassing instead of a macro view with the focus on fine art photography. I absolutely loved the photography, I just was left wanting a little more.
 California Romantica February 8, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Classic!, Like a fine wine or a beautiful woman over 40 this book captures the essence of the Spanish architecture along the California coast. Must read for any historian doing restorations. Builder and designor alike will enjoy.
 California Deceptica February 5, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The review by Judith is right on. This book is a disappointment. I was expecting this book to showcase detailed examples of classic Spanish Colonial Revival homes but it shows very little of the homes at all. Good thing I perused it at the local bookstore instead of buying it sight unseen. The book is a pretentious, abstract study of how the light, shadows, textures, and colors interplay on close-up shots of sections of walls, doors, tile and other small, mostly interior, sections of the houses. The book is too bulky and the photos are not even crisp and clear, but often fuzzy. The white text on black pages is irritating. Each chapter is devoted to a particular house and you can review all of the photos for one chapter and still not know what the house looked like. Plus, all of the houses are devoid of furniture for some reason. The author seems to have a special fascination for boring partial views of empty rooms. To add insult to injury, the last chapter actually consists of dull, boring, underexposed shots of the dark interior of a partially torn down house, apparently being gutted or remodeled, that are better suited for a claims adjuster's file. There are many good books that showcase fine Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with fine photography. This is not one of them. Now I understand why this book does not offer the Search Inside feature.
 Not what I expected February 3, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Like the author expresses, there is a certain magic to behold in this kind of architecture. As a native Californian, I truly have felt this magic when encountering a variety of Spanish-inspired buildings in my lifetime. There is nothing like it. However, when I took my first look at this book, I just didn't feel that the magic was captured. While much of the photography is certainly well done, it generates no emotional connection with the subject. Most of the pages simply evoke a certain cold austerity. The architectural details are fabulous, but without human context. It has a museum-like quality that contradicts the real warmth one feels when living in these spaces. To me, something is missing - heart, warmth, emotion?
Are we talking about the same book? February 2, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As for me, this book was a whole lot of nothing. A huge coffee-table sized book filled with large photos of small architectural detail seems kind of coy. It was like viewing a panoramic landscape through a tee-ninsy porthole--I was expecting an architecture book, not a book of what is essentially photographic clip art. A window grill. A gauzy view of a dusky area of Peter Strauss' garden. The photos did nothing to illuminate or celebrate the architecture of which Diane Keaton is so passionate. The text is . . . a little too fawning. "The Dolgen house," ugh. (If you've worked in the business, you know exactly who owns these glorious homes, though the reader is not actually allowed to SEE them.) I was looking for something more. Huge disappointment.
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