Product Description

It's the ultimate escape fantasy: Trade in the rat race for life on a tropical island and all the languid luxury that it evokes. For India Hicks and David Flint Wood, the dream became reality when, after high-profile careers-she as a fashion model, he as an advertising executive-the couple left the city behind for the Bahamas. Five years and three children later, the husband-and-wife team have impeccably restored three houses and one hotel. Fusing traditional European design with Asian, African, and Caribbean influences, the resulting interiors reflect their love of intense color and their keen sense of style-inherited on India's side from her father, the renown interior designer David Hicks, and further enhanced by the family's travels.

In Island Life, the secrets of these sumptuous, unique homes-used as locations for Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, and Vogue magazine, among others-are revealed in intimate detail. With panoramic color photographs, David Loftus captures not only the eclectic combinations of antiques, flea market finds, and modern furnishings, but also the overall ambiance of the tropics. For those who share David and India's dream, this is where to start planning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68414 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The daughter of designer David Hicks and the granddaughter of Louis Lord Mountbatten, India Hicks spent a decade as an international fashion model "before moving to the Bahamas with former advertising executive David Flint Wood." The two collaborated on building, restoring and decorating three homes, as well as a hotel; their book documents the results of their design efforts, and offers how-to tips on getting similar effects. Over 200 full-color photos by David Loftus offer calm, lovely looks at the couple’s Bahaman interiors (as well as a few exteriors and landscapes—along with occasional looks at the photogenic couple and their three children). If not for the authors’ explicitly invoked pedigree and a foreword by Ralph Lauren, this book might look a little plain, with a layout straining toward Williams-Sonoma catalogue quality but not quite hitting the mark. The final page of the book offers information on staying at three of the homes documented herein, including one of David Hicks’s own, which was "designed and built by him in 1969 and completely restored in 2002."
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About the Author
INDIA HICKS, daughter of David Hicks and granddaughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten, spent a decade working as a fashion model in New York and Paris before moving to the Bahamas with her husband, former advertising executive DAVID FLINT WOOD. This is their first book. Photographer DAVID LOFTUS specializes in fashion and design, and is well-known for his work with celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Tamasin Day-Lewis.

Customer Reviews

A gentle nod to British Colonial style
I enjoyed this book because it was full of accessible and affordable ideas, unlike so many interiors in magazines and design books that require you to be a millionaire before you begin to try and copy some of the ideas.

Elegant and Charming
I am very interested in both the tropics and interiors, so could not believe my good luck in finding this book. It illustrates perfectly a timeless elegance in the islands and has been well written, with a charming personal touch.

Nice to look at....PERIOD
The cover was very appealing. First impressions etc;. The inside photos even more so. The writing however sounded like the ramblings of a spoiled child living in an unreachable reality sometimes and at other times, the snobbery of an aristocracy only appreciated in the mind of the writer and those who really believe that paradise can only be created by the writer.

I live in the Bahamas and so yes I have a paradise of my own, but does anyone really care about 'my personal paradise' so much that they would read about it. I think not. The thing that makes simple beauty, well simply beautiful is simply leaving it alone.

Final thot; Nice to look at.....PERIOD.

other books I own - CARIBBEAN STYLE; CARIBBEAN ELEGANCE; ISLAND STYLE.