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MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Henry Adams may refer to:
  • Henry Adams Bellows (1803–1873), New Hampshire Supreme Court judge & State Legislator
  • Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918), son of Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
 lives in an old kitchen, but you'd never know it. The architectural historian has transformed the space with antique mirrors, a Chinese carpet, artfully stacked books, a low-hanging chandelier, imported textiles, Bayard Rustin's walking sticks and stone fragments from other old brownstones in Harlem. His electic collection of furniture ranges from a carved West African West Africa

A region of western Africa between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea. It was largely controlled by colonial powers until the 20th century.



West African adj. & n.
 stool to an early 1900s lyre-back chair that evokes the mahogany suite of Mama Willie, his stylish great-great grandmother.

Besides Mama Willie, Adams was influenced by the grandeur of Stan Hywet Hall, a 65-room house museum in Akron, Ohio, where he was a volunteer tour guide on his off days. His love of history, culture and design is reflected in his new book Style and Grace: African Americans at Home.

Through his prose, along with pictures by Mick Hales, Adams walks readers through his home and those of photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks; Rep. Charles Rangel and his wife, Alma; model Kimora Lee and hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons; and dancer Sylvia Waters.

Readers can envision sitting for a spell on the Rangels' English camelback cam·el·back  
adj.
Shaped like a hump or an arching curve.

n. New Orleans
A narrow house with one story in front and two in the rear. See Regional Note at beignet.
 sofa under an Indian mirror framed in shell and ebony; playing Parks's grand piano while gazing at the East River; or soaking in Waters's dolphin-footed cub surrounded by oak, inlaid in·laid  
v.
Past tense and past participle of inlay.

adj.
1. Set into a surface in a decorative pattern: a mahogany dresser with an inlaid teak design.

2.
 marble and mirrors with recessed lighting overhead.

Adams calls Gordon Chambers's 1860s Italianate brownstone brownstone, red to brown variety of sandstone. Its unusual color is caused in some instances by the presence of red iron oxide which acts as a cement, binding the sand grains together.  "a modern masterpiece." Chambers hired interior designer Henry Mitchell to blend neoclassical ne·o·clas·si·cism also Ne·o·clas·si·cism  
n.
A revival of classical aesthetics and forms, especially:
a. A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form,
 furniture and treasures from trips around the world. His open dining room features a marble counter with gas burners, a grill and translucent glass. To reach the lily pool in his garden, visitors pass a wall displaying awards and photos from his work as a Grammy-winning composer and former music editor at Essence.

Another treat in Adams's book is the sneak peek into the shared home of design divas Cheryl Riley and Courtney Sloane. Each woman has won acclaim for interior and furniture designs, some of which have been featured in the Cooper-Hewitt. Their garden apartment in Chelsea reflects their playful personalities and talent, from the Mexican wooden crocodile and ram skull in front of the fireplace to the vibrant artwork, leather and corduroy corduroy, a cut filling-pile fabric with lengthwise ridges, or wales, that may vary from fine (pinwale) to wide. Extra filling yarns float over a number of warp yarns that form either a plain-weave or twill-weave ground.  sofa, African textile-covered chairs and custom mirrors.

Yanick Rice Lamb, who teaches journalism at Howard University, is coauthor of the forthcoming biography of tennis legend Althea Gibson, Born to Win.

STYLE AND GRACE: AFRICAN AMERICANS AT HOME by Michael Henry Adams Bulfinch Press, September 2003 $35.00, ISBN ISBN
abbr.
International Standard Book Number


ISBN International Standard Book Number

ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 
 0-821-22847-1
COPYRIGHT 2004 Cox, Matthews & Associates
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2004, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:Style and Grace: African Americans at Home
Author:Lamb, Yanick Rice
Publication:Black Issues Book Review
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Jan 1, 2004
Words:411
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