'Living Artfully' is Downton Abbey during the Mad Men era, a slick and stylish book about the life, workings and staff of the three main estates of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Strongly evocative of the lifestyle magazines of the 50s and 60s, it is structured in the form of a year-long calendar, with the properties, each with their own aesthetic and feel, used at different seasons: Hillwood in Washington, DC during the spring and autumn, Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks of New York during the summer, Mar-A-Lago, Florida during the winter. Marjorie Merriweather Post was one of America's most stylish and powerful women, a director of Post Cereals, philanthropist, patriot and internationalist, with a keen interest in art. Living Artfully contains a wide array of photographs, period journals, and ephemera from the archives at Hillwood. Especially fascinating are the rare and intimate glimpses provided by the staff, including interviews with surviving members like Earle Loy, Mrs. Post's former Head Gardener, now aged 91.
