THIS NEVER HAPPENS. YES, WE MIGHT FIND ONE NEW SUPERBOOK THAT WE HAD SOMEHOW FAILED TO FIND IN FIFTEEN YEARS. BUT NOT FOURTEEN OF THEM IN ONE GO! 1991, THIS ABSOLUTELY HUGE, VOLUMINOUS SET OF FOLDERS ENTITLED WORLD RESIDENTIAL DESIGN WAS PUBLISHED. CAN HONESTLY SAY IT IS LIKE ALL OUR DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS BOOKS ROLLED INTO ONE. TERRIFYING!

That's not even half of them. And they are big folders. The full run weighs in at 37 kilos! It is basically a very sturdy shelf of a superbook. Obviously we love the typeface but that is quickly blown away by what is inside.

Where to start? There are about 1000 images! How about 41 Horizon Avenue? This early Frank Gehry house was built in 1980. That's probably when this photo was taken but, this being Venice, that could well still be a faded orange Beetle parked up outside now. The house has certainly not moved.

Of course World Residental Design is world class and is global in reach but... just down the road from Gehry's Spiller House is the Dennis Hopper residence by Brian Alfred Murphy. Both of these houses are photographed here by the very brilliant Tim Street-Porter whose first wife was British journalist and broadcaster Janet Street-Porter. And she didn't live in Venice, California but in an extraordinary post-modern house in Clerkenwell, London. 

This would be Janet's home office. Cardboard cut out of the venerable British broadcaster Alan Whicker on the window sill. Might have been tempting to prop him up on the tubular steel chair to make a wicker chair - maybe she did do that sometimes. 

More from planet Janet. As well as her bedroom, we have her excellent 1981 book Scandal here on this link. 

Back to Venice (sorry, did just spend February in LA and are missing it already) for another Gehry beach house. Huge wow factor. This whole 14 volume set is something of a huge wow factory, as you may be beginning to understand. 
 

Another bedroom? We don't actually know where the Kleiser Penthouse is, unfortunately, too high in the sky for the internet this one. But you can see how gorgeous the binders are from this picture. 
 

This one we don't know right now what apartment or house it is we are looking at but don't care because any interior with a TV on the floor is a winner for us. The first rule of interior design should always be 'TV on the floor' and the second (newly introduced) should be 'framed pictures leant against the wall'. Especially on a mezzanine level of an A frame house. 

We also like trees in the stairwell. And could go on and on with these volumes but we had three whole sets last week and now just one and should really sell this and start looking for more. They are very, very rare by the way - especially with the three we found now (almost all) off the market. 

Easily the best thing we have found in the 2020s. Just buy them quick (is our advice).