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"Private Views: Inside the World's Greatest Homes\nA first look at Architectural Digest's new book featuring 30 of the most intriguing homes from all over the world. In stores this fall.\n\"I do not think in terms of architectural style,\" artist Carlos P\u00E1ez Vilar\u00F3 says of the residence he built for his family on the cliffs of Punta Ballena, Uruguay. Casapueblo, the name he has given his home, \"has evolved from feelings, moods and influences\u2014Moroccan, Turkish, Indian, Polynesian, Mexican, Egyptian and native cultures everwhere. Architecture should be felt. That's why the human element is always the heart of it.\"\n\"We couldn't just move into a castle and expect the children to be grateful,\" says Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland. \"This place was not designed for kids.\" Along with her husband, Ralph, the 12th Duke of Northumberland, she renovated several state rooms and the private quarters at Alnwick Castle, which dates to the 11th century and is second only to Windsor as the largest inhabited castle in England. The 6,000-acre property includes a water garden by landscape architects Jacques and Peter Wirtz. The castle was used as a setting for Hogwarts School in the first two Harry Potter films.\nWing House, near Rancho Santa Fe, California, was designed by architect and designer Wallace E. Cunningham for a midwestern couple relocating to the San Diego area. \"The subtle curvature of the surrounding topography is reflected in the design, which encourages constant movement from one space to another, from interior to exterior,\" says Cunningham. The house, which sits on a four-acre site, is defined by concentric semicircles and composed of two overlapping private wings, with the public spaces at the center.\nIn the 1930s, architect Julia Morgan designed several houses as part of William Randolph Hearst's Northern California retreat, Wyntoon. Willy Pogany, a Hollywood set designer and illustrator of children's books, created the murals on the timber fa\u00E7ade of Bear House, where Hearst always stayed.\nTo create their African game sanctuary, Michael and Dodo Cunningham-Reid bought 500 acres of land on Lake Naivasha in Kenya and began construction of a tower as a weekend retreat. \"Concrete was used for the first three floors, then a steel rib cage clad in Kenyan cypress,\" says Dodo Cunningham-Reid, who conceived the pagoda-like eight-story structure. \"There's a lot of high tech in there, but you can't see it.\" At night, a variety of animals\u2014hippos, cheetahs, giraffes, impalas and zebras\u2014wander by the base of the tower, while mornings are punctuated by the cry of the fish eagle.\nMarble steps and a Charles Rennie Macintosh chair distinguish the entrance of the retreat architect Shoei Yoh built for his family near Fukuoka, Japan. \"Though I employed modernist materials, the house possesses a very Japanese feel for me,\" Yoh says. Located on a bluff overlooking the Sea of Japan, the home is secured to the site by two large concrete slabs and walled by glass, a material Yoh notes \"most serves the traditional Japanese idea of minimizing the separation between architecture and nature.\"\n\"Her Majesty's Own Dacha\" was how the very first building project of Catherine the Great's long reign came to be known. Built by the Italian-born architect Antonio Rinaldi, the royal dacha evolved into a compound of small structures on an estate some 25 miles southwest of St. Petersburg. The centerpiece was the Chinese Palace, which was begun in 1762 and finished six years later. Its lavish ornamentation features a dizzying array of costumed figures and Oriental landscapes, blue-and-white Chinese vases, black-japanned chests and European chinoiserie chairs.\nA brilliant blue pyramid serves as the studio of architect Preston T. Phillips, who created a boldly geometric home for himself near Bridgehampton, New York. A red cube and yellow box\u2014connected by a series of red and yellow fiberglass panels\u2014complete the compound. \"I chose the colors and forms for their purity and timelessness,\" says Phillips, \"The pieces had to respond to the site's primal character.\"\nThough modern technology has begun to influence the nomads of lower Mongolia, these descendents of Genghis Khan steadfastly adhere to their traditional way of life, perhaps nowhere more evident than in their choice of dwelling. The yurt, or ger, as it is more commonly known in central Asia, is a flexible tent\u2014typically 20 to 30 feet in diameter\u2014that can be raised or disassembled in under an hour, with layers of yak or sheep wool to protect occupants from harsh climates.\nLocated 30 miles south of Paris and widely considered the most beautiful example of 18th-century palace architecture in private hands, the Ch\u00E2teau du Marais is home to the apartment of designer Juan Pablo Molyneux and his wife, Pilar. The couple's wing of the palace dates to the late 17th-century and comprises three stories."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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