Book excerpt: Elegant and welcoming houses in bucolic settings by Charles Hilton, a leading traditional architect in Greenwich. This book presents nine spectacular houses, each responding to an equally spectacular site. They are the work of Charles Hilton, a leading traditional architect in Greenwich, Connecticut, whose firm has been honored with multiple regional and national awards including Palladio and Stanford White awards. As an architect, Hilton is committed to designing imaginative buildings that inspire and delight and to creating a humanistic architecture that embodies the aspirations of his clients. He works in traditional vocabularies--principally Georgian, Beaux-Arts and shingle style--with exquisite classical detailing, but his houses are also completely contemporary in incorporating state-of-the-art technology and sustainable design. As he observes, "Our clients rely on our creativity and ingenuity to create houses that honor tradition, while seamlessly integrating modern amenities essential for contemporary living." Hilton has practiced in Greenwich for more than thirty years, and he is completely fluent with its rich and diverse architectural heritage. This means that his houses, while meticulously detailed and impressive, are also beautifully integrated into the panoramic waterfronts, rolling lawns and rustic back-country landscapes that are characteristic of Greenwich and the surrounding countryside.