Desert Dreaming

Desert Dreaming celebrates the joys and challenges of desert living and the awe-inspiring home designs and landscapes that keep people coming back for more.

From earthen-based adobe building traditions to sleek modernism, the best desert-based design evolves in tandem with its surroundings. Featuring the four main designated deserts of North America (Chihuahuan, Mojave, Sonoran, and the Great Basin), Desert Dreaming pays tribute to embracing the joys and challenges of desert living while fostering connections to spaces and communities.

The book highlights homeowners, designers, and architects who have cultivated their own dwellings in harmony with particular places. Design advice from experts, in addition to sidebars about lifestyle subjects (think foraged desert perfumes and cocktails) enriches these insightful, inspiring stories.

Jessica Ritz is a Los Angeles–based freelance writer whose work covering architecture, design, food, art, culture, and travel has appeared in outlets such as Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal, Travel + Leisure, Dwell, Wallpaper*, Luxe, Palm Springs Life, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, T Magazine, C Magazine, Santa Barbara Magazine, California Home + Design, Artnet, Metropolis, and Sunset. She has a B.A. in art and architectural history from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and an M.A. in urban planning from UCLA, and was previously an historic preservation consultant. You can find her on Instagram at @jessnritz and jessnritz.com.

11.5 in H | 9.5 in W | 0.06 lb Wt

ISBN: 9781423668985

On Sale Date: Oct 6, 2026