Book excerpt: What goes into a home? For Karim Rashid, the dynamic young product and interior design guru, a living room is accented with a combustible mixture of hot pinks and iridescent orange. The Connecticut home of David Easton, one of the reigning kings of traditional design, features a vast central space overlooking a classically proportioned garden. Holly Hunt, the hip young West Coast designer, has married an American sensibility with French country charm in her Parisian apartment. All of these homes are distinctive, and all show remarkable taste, which is hardly surprising given that their owners have the sharpest eyes in the Western Hemisphere. The 20 designers featured in American Designers' Houses" consider their homes part laboratory, part showroom, and entirely personal. In interviews that are akin to guided tours, the designers point out favorite objects, reminisce about their work and clients, and share design tips. By focusing on interior designers' own homes, this fascinating book captures their style in its purest and most personal expression, uncompromised by clients' demands, and will encourage readers to develop their own unique decorating style.