Nancy A. Ruhling

“Every guitar has its own personality,” says luthier John Monteleone. “It’s my job to give it its own dynamic voice. Each one I make is an extension of my soul.” At 61, Monteleone is a master of his craft, and he is widely acknowledged as the successor to the eminent jazz-guitar luthiers John D’Angelico and […]

For a New York businessman, his wife, and their four young children, an 1892 marble-and-limestone townhouse—the city’s first in the Parisian Beaux Arts style—is not only an architecturally significant showplace, but a comfortable family home as well. However, when the owners acquired the residence nearly 10 years ago, they realized that its layout and interior […]

A couple’s search for a home that would recall the era of Louis XIV, France’s Sun King, ultimately led them from Paris to London, to a historic, white-stucco building in Eaton Square. Inside the terraced edifice, they found a 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom flat that opens onto a garden shared by the buildings’ residents. The first preference […]

Sferra Fine Linens has created bedding so precious that you might hesitate to lie on it. The Burano sets—each comprising one ivory fitted sheet, one ivory flat sheet, and two pillowcases—are made from 1,020-thread-count, Italian-woven Egyptian cotton. More significantly, they incorporate Point de Venice lace, a centuries-old style of embroidery that the company, which now […]

Some eight decades ago, when Long Island’s Gold Coast glittered like one of Daisy Buchanan’s diamond necklaces, the heir to a steamship company fortune crafted a mansion here that could have housed Gatsby himself. Louis Luckenbach, whose grandfather founded the Luckenbach Steamship Co., built his palace in the style of a French Normandy estate, amid […]

When viewed from the pebble drive that leads past stately linden trees to its entryway, the French country–style residence appears as though it has been nestled in this sheltered spot in Washington, D.C.’s Spring Valley neighborhood for a century or more. Its limestone and stucco facade provides a polished old-world accent that distinguishes the house […]