By Lindsay Field Penticuff
Carl Dellatore's fifth book for Rizzoli New York, "100 Rooms: Lessons from the Finest Designers on the Art of Home," was released earlier this month.
"I wanted to make a book about practical application," Dellatore says. "You have a subject, but within that subject, I'm giving you some suggestions, advice and information that will concretely inform me and the readers."
Dellatore, who is originally from Pennsylvania but moved to New York City in the 1980s to pursue a career in the arts, has a background in printmaking and textiles. He released his first book, "Interior Design Master Class: 100 Lessons from America's Finest Designers on Art of Decoration," in 2016, and is also a content consultant for the interior and garden design communities.
In his new book, Dellatore features 100 individual designers' remarkable spaces that are broken down by type of room, including Gathering (media and family rooms), Transitional (porches and entryways), Respite (bedrooms and sitting rooms), Entertaining (dining rooms and bars) and Utility (kitchens, baths and mudrooms).
The writing process began nearly two years ago and with between 1,200 and 1,500 rooms that Dellatore hand-selected to consider featuring in the book.
"I wanted to represent as many aesthetic visions as possible—minimalist, maximalist, traditionalist, contemporary—because that's the landscape of design," he says. "But thinking in terms of how do I get to 100 rooms from 1,200 to 1,500, the process at Rizzoli is a bit intense.
"I have an editor, there's a book designer, then there's a marketing team. I bring all the rooms to the table first, then we have preliminary photo editing, so I may in any given meeting bring 250 rooms, and what we're actually looking to get from that is 25.
"The rooms are all different; there's a laundry room, a lacquered bedroom, there are three to four different kinds of kitchens, and each designer has one very specific subject to write about."