The first book by the interior designer who made his name as chief creative officer for Ralph Lauren—he brought us the legendary Polo Bar and the Madison Avenue flagship store’s immersive windows and retail environments, and now he shows us how to fashion our own homes to reflect his signature coolly casual and comfortable look.

While touring readers through four of his own homes, Paredes shares the key elements in his creative process, giving us access to the same tools he uses in every home to decorate rooms that feel modern even as they glamorize the past, to show us how an environment has real power to transform our very state of mind. Paredes is renowned for being a master of extrapolating an entire theme from one unique item, say transforming the stripe of a crisp Oxford shirt into a unique upholstery perfect for the seaside, or finding inspiration for a couch’s decorative fringe in a well-worn piece of leather ranch gear. He is said to have “perfect visual pitch,” creating vignettes and rooms with an energy that feels undeniably masculine and sophisticated thanks to dark wood, iron railings, rustic fabrics, an overall patina, and soft furnishings in soothing earth tones.