Take a walk on the green side of the fence

Did you ever drive down the streets in "those" neighborhoods--the ones with the too-high-to-see-over fences, the key-pad entries, the manor at the back of the 5 acre lot places, and wonder just what they really look like inside? Do their husbands leave their dirty clothes on the bathroom floor? Do their kids leave the dishes sitting wherever they happen to be when they are done with them? Does their dog track mud in across the kitchen floor? Do they try and fit laundry in once a month whether they run out of undies or not? Hmmmmm....probably not. They probably have maids and butlers and cleaning people to handle all that stuff that those of us in the real world strugle through every day.

BUT, if you want to see what their manors look like at their best, this is the magazine for you. Every month, a hefty AD arrives at the mailbox, and inside is just chocked full of photos and articles about those houses we can normally only drive by and wonder at.

Not all the offerings are houses,either, some are apartments. Not the little 600 s.f. efficiency our son lives in at college, but apartments with terraces that are bigger than my back yard. Each pictoral forray into the lifestyles of the rich and famous comes with a well-written article describing who created the masterpeice of wood and brick. They go into details such as how many countries they visited to pick just the right wood for the front foyer, the way that they shaped the foundation to make the most of the natural rock formations existing on the property so the freshwater stream would flow through the center of the game and media room. You know. It's the little details that count.

You get to veiw extensive antique and art collections as these people see them every day. Exotic hand-knotted carpets, stained glass windows, hand cut crystal chandeleirs. As they say in "Blast From the Past", it's amazing what you can accomplish when you say "money is no object", and mean it!

My favorite articles I think deal with the historical homes and how they have been refurbished and brought back to life, or some of the garden areas that they have built around these mansions--just fantastic. One article dealt with a man who started a business salvaging scrap from old homes and businesses which were being torn down--now people who were fixing up old mansions and buildings come to him to match trim or doorknobs. Talk about your foresight!

This isn't the type of magazine you buy if you are planning to remodel and looking for ideas--unless you are married to Donald Trump or something. But it is a dream book none the less. It allows you each month to step out of your world and into that world where Rockefellers and Kennedy's tread. You get an inside veiw into the things they live with and take for granted, and gives the rest of us a little taste of the finer life. Be prepared to pay for your little fantasy trip, however, this magazine isn't cheap!