Put the kettle on, wrap yourself in a blanket and peep interior designer Nina Freudenberger’s Mountain House: Studies in Elevated Design, where a 17th-century farmhouse in a Swiss valley rubs shoulders with a cozy cabin in California’s San Gabriel mountains; where a granite-and-concrete home tucked into a Portuguese hillside nestles up against a tiny, townhouse-like cabin in the Catskills of upstate New York; where snowy scenes of an Alpine chalet meet the verdant surroundings of Sonoma County. The structures here, found in 12 countries, are wildly different (though many are on the small side and evidence smart uses of space). What they hold in common is a visible sense of retreat; all seem to be in conversation with their surrounding landscapes. I don’t think there’s a spread within that doesn’t make me tremble a bit with sheer want. But to imagine occupying these spaces leads us to challenge ourselves to rise above such human impulses. After all, mountains “remind us of how small we really are, which makes them practically divine,” writes Freudenberger.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
