Retreats (ISBN 1586851039)

Dreamy but not as helpful as we wanted:
We have been searching for vacation home books as we plan our own, and this one, while handsome, was a bit of a disappointment. I love to sit and dream with great photos of retreats, but we couldn't relate to many of those shown here. Still, this is a nice little book. I highly recommend another new book called Second Home, which is large and colorful and mixes tours of real homes around the country (everything from oceanside homes and lake cottages to mountain cabins) with practical tips on finding the right location for us, and on building, decorating, remodeling, and so on. My husband and I keep grabbing Second Home away from each other as we go from picture to picture. (We found Second Home at Border's, but I now see that amazon stocks it. I don't know why it hasn't turned up on amazon's recommendations or "new and notable" lists yet.)

"Retreats" review:
I recently had a cabin built. If you can't stay away from yours, or think you wouldn't if you had one, this is THE book!

a fair book:
A great coffee table book but it dosen't include any plans for building a retreat yourself. It isn't a do-it yourself type of book but it is informative and has great pictures.

Inspiring, Very Well Done Book:
I have picked it up for the photos over and over again, and read it more than a few times. It's pretty darn cool. To be clear, it is not a DIY information sort of book (but I don't think the title even suggests that anyway). Neat dreamy title, neat dreamy pictures, neat dreamy book. I bought this when we were first thinking about building a cabin, and it was really inspiring. Great pictures of lots of kinds of retreats, and really cool stories about people who created them. Thanks to the author for including all kinds of camps ... from tiny sheepwagons to tar-paper shacks and from log cabins to treehouses.

Great but not what I was looking for:
Although the book and information is helpful and thoroughly useful, this is not what I was looking for. I am having a hard time finding - a social area - party area - for outdoors to build along side of the pool. We find we need an (approx 25 x 12) area for indoor/outdoor use when we entertain.