Gregory Peck mixed drinks behind a green leather bar. Jayne Mansfield bathed in a gold heart-shaped tub. James Dean's room would fit in perfectly on The Selby. If you need a dose of style inspiration, you might do well to peek at Architectural Digest's reel of golden age stars at home. More

Recently, designers, architects, and anyone and everyone who loves Midcentury design headed out to Palm Springs for the many parties, lectures, and home tours being offered during the annual Modernism event. The Dry Falls estate was one of the many homes on tour representing Midcentury architecture. More

If you would like to be temporarily transported out of the doldrums of winter, then let me introduce you to Lotusland. While I haven't been there in person, I became acquainted with this spectacular garden last year in the Martha Stewart Living March issue, and it has been on my list of gardens to visit ever since. Lotusland is 37 acres with 17 gardens, all nestled in California's swank Montecito. While the grounds are quite impressive, to truly understand the gardens, you should first become acquainted with the garden's creator, Madame Ganna Walska. More

Photographer Thomas Jorion has visited and recorded abandoned buildings around the world, including these astonishing villas in Northern Italy. The crumbling frescoes, elaborate tilework, grand staircases and peeling wallpaper give a glimpse into a decadent past. More

We all want to be comfortable, and it seems like a fair assumption that people in the past wanted the same thing. But some recent cultural historians paint a different picture, arguing that there's nothing natural about it.

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Today's Favorite Thing comes from Lisa Bono. Her husband Jeff's Favorite Thing will be posted Wednesday. More

When Sarah Sams emailed me from Golden, Colorado with a story about her grandmother's goldfish, I wished I could jump on a plane and fly to meet her. Instead, she volunteered to be our first reader-submitted video guinea pig, and her kind neighbor shot and edited this video. Big thanks to both of them - and we hope it inspires you to do the same! We'd love to feature a one-minute video of your Favorite Thing on the site! More

While it's undeniably important to take pleasure in the beautiful and the sentimental, I also love indulging from time to time in homewares that make me laugh. Injecting a space with quirkiness, mirth, and whimsy is an easy way to make it feel inviting and carefree, and what better way to poke fun than with a dose of historical wit? More

The shoulder-enforcing wire coat hanger that we use today was originally invented by O.A. North in 1869, as an offshoot of a coat hook. Through the years, with improvements such as cardboard tubes to reduce wrinkling and wooden, plastic and even (my personal favorite) velvet-flocked versions, the clothes hanger that started out as a simple, twisted piece of wire has blossomed into a piece of household design that we couldn't live without.

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As we move into a new year, it's a great time to think back not only on the last year but also on all those years and decades and centuries that preceded it. A huge part of how we think about and use our homes comes from the past, so here's a compendium of some of our favorite history-related posts from 2012, selected to commemorate the designers we love, the time periods that inspire us, and some of the legacies that we probably take for granted. More