HouseParts

Picasso's Dove of Peace

Christmas on Madison Avenue, 2012                                                                          Hotel Plaza Athenee, Oscar de la Renta, Milly, Cartier, Laudree, Ippolita

From the stunning, just-released book, Soirée: Entertaining with Style                 by Danielle Rollins:

Image #1- Peach-Mint & Strawberry-Basil Ice Pops with Prosecco. Image #2- Interior designer Suzanne Kasler (l) and a friend at a Rollins lawn party. Image #3- A springtime lunch for friends in the garden at "Boxwood", Rollins Atlanta estate. Image #4- Rollins and interior decorator Miles Redd, co-hosting a black-tie dinner and looking quite glamorous in the mirrored master bathroom of Redd's New York townhouse. Yup, his bathroom. Image #5- Friends share a good laugh before a charity benefit dinner on the lawn of Rollins estate in honor of the iconic designer Oscar de la Renta. Image #6- Miles Redd as the very personification of dapperness, on the occasion of the dinner party he co-hosted with Rollins.

Photo credits: Quentin Bacon, Sarah Dorio, John Kernick for Rizzoli.

For more on this book, go here: http://houseparts.tumblr.com/post/32664275431/soiree-entertaining-with-style-by-danielle

Really loving this handsome, 1940s Maison Jansen "Palais Royale" dining table in black lacquer and steel used as a desk in the New York apartment of designer Sandra Nunnerly.

Soirée: Entertaining with Style by Danielle Rollins, just released from Rizzoli

Is there anyone in the entire universe who doesn't know of Miles Redd's amazing work featured in these top two images? Well okay, let's just make that the Tumblr design universe, but still. The debut of the reinvented "Boxwood", the storied Atlanta estate in focus here and lavishly chronicled in a 16-page spread in Town & Country Magazine in 2010, depicted a stylish pairing of world-class residential architecture with Redd's richly-hued take on traditional design --- but then, that's old news.

So now for some new scoop (and it's big!) Just as you might have surmised, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anyone would ever call Redd's client for that particular project a shrinking violet. Danielle Rollins is as tasteful and glamorous as is the grand estate in which she resides, but let it not be said she holds court there, for I know Danielle personally and can attest to her bona fides as being the real deal. She's warm and charming and utterly down to earth. So, would it surprise you to hear that her particular brand of entertaining sets a mighty high benchmark? Indeed, it does. Now you can make use of Danielle's expertise to lend an elegant edge to your own soon-to-be-fabled soirée -- regardless of the square footage of your manse or the availability of liveried footmen in your fair city -- thanks to her new book, Soirée: Entertaining With Style.

Knowing Danielle as I do, I'm expecting this book to be an instant classic. It went on sale nationwide October 2nd, so don't miss your chance to take some cues from this extraordinarily-stylish hostess. Danielle Rollins entertains in a manner that's legendary here in Atlanta. I have no doubt her book can help you, too, become a style icon in your own right as you learn to create your own delicious backstory.

- Credits: Photos #1, 2 by Francesco Lagnese.  Photo #3 by Kernick/Bacon, courtesy of Rizzoli.  Photos #4, 5 & 6 by Dorio/Rose/Shone.

“The Menagerie” at Horton Park, UK, west entrance