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"This article originally appeared in the January 2013 issue of Architectural Digest.\n\nFor celebrated novelist Judy Blume, postwar America offers few nostalgic joys. \u201CI grew up in the 1950s, and I didn\u2019t like any part of it,\u201D she says. \u201CWe were expected to be happy girls from happy families\u2014to fit in, to be normal. We pretended everything was okay even when we knew it wasn\u2019t.\u201D Life\u2019s far-from-perfect realities were what Blume famously explored in her candid coming-of-age novels that shook up the \u201970s and \u201980s, such as Forever. . . and Are You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret. And so it amuses her that these days she wakes up in an Eisenhower-era house in Key West, Florida, that seems like the perfect place to bake a tuna casserole.\n\nSeveral years ago Blume and her husband, true-crime writer George Cooper, longtime Key West habitu\u00E9s, happened upon the low-slung 2,500-square-foot abode. For her, the terrazzo-floored dwelling set off those old alarms about stifled housewives. But the garden\u2014a wilderness of orchids and palms by Miami landscape architect Raymond Jungles\u2014won her over. So the couple snapped up the walled property, which also has a guest cottage. \u201CThe truth is, I\u2019m a houseaholic,\u201D says the author, who keeps a pied-\u00E0-terre in Manhattan and a home on Martha\u2019s Vineyard. \u201CI love to create a new nest.\u201D\n\nDespite Key West\u2019s picturesque architecture and artistic pedigree\u2014Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams are among its noted denizens\u2014the island has a shortage of decorators. Luckily everyone in the area seems to know everybody else, and it wasn\u2019t long before Blume met Malcolm James Kutner, a New York City designer and then Key West resident. As it happened, one of the island\u2019s unfussy captain\u2019s houses that Blume adores belonged to Kutner. \u201CIt was the polar opposite of Judy\u2019s place,\u201D the designer explains, \u201Cbut I think what I did there was just what she wanted to do here, which was to bring the occupants and the setting into a meaningful relationship.\u201D\n\nView Slideshow1 / 10A garden rich with palms and orchids borders the Florida living room of writer Judy Blume and her husband, George Cooper. Kuba-cloth pillows ornament the B&amp;amp;B Italia sectional sofa; the wall sculpture is by Susan Rodgers, and the circular table is by artist Cindy Wynn. The house was renovated by architect Thomas E. Pope and interior designer Malcolm James Kutner.\n\nIn the case of Blume and Cooper\u2019s white box, nestled in the shade of a sprawling banyan tree and wrapped around a swimming pool, this meant transforming it into an indoor-outdoor paradise where the thresholds can scarcely be felt. Architect Thomas E. Pope installed glass walls and sliding doors so the rooms could meld with the terraces and verdant landscape. Inside and out, Kutner arranged gently gleaming wood furniture\u2014a mix of Asian-style pieces and Indonesian and African antiques\u2014accented with strategically placed primitive sculptures. A nod to the home\u2019s streamlined personality is the living room\u2019s minimalist B&amp;amp;B Italia sectional sofa, which Kutner scattered with Kuba-cloth pillows.\n\nThe master bedroom, previously as dark as a grotto, opens to the pool on one side and a thicket of vegetation on the other. The views from the rattan bed are so comely, Blume says with a laugh, \u201Cyou never have to look at your partner.\u201D To create her husband\u2019s outdoor shower, she brought Jungles back on board, and he constructed a stacked-slate wall, overhung with shocking-pink bougainvillea, from which a waterfall spills forth on command for bathing. Directly opposite, but indoors, is the novelist\u2019s own glass-enclosed shower, and she has a straightforward response when asked about the voyeuristic placement: \u201CIt\u2019s sexy.\u201D\n\nA little nakedness has never vexed Blume, who recently recovered from breast cancer and blogged about her illness with characteristic frankness. Many days the author can be found in the guest cottage, where she has her office. \u201CThere are gardenias blooming outside, the smell of which takes me back to prom. It\u2019s my favorite space in the world to work in,\u201D she says. There she penned the screenplay for her film-director son Lawrence Blume\u2019s adaptation of her 1981 young-adult novel Tiger Eyes; the movie is expected to open in theaters this spring.\n\nAnother book is in the works, too. \u201CI can\u2019t tell yet whether it\u2019s for adults or for children,\u201D the writer says, somewhat mysteriously. That her original fans have grown up doesn\u2019t mean Blume has forgotten them; nor, it seems, have they forgotten her. \u201CKids come to my book signings,\u201D she says with a broad grin, \u201Cand they seem truly mystified by the fact that their parents are interested.\u201D\n\nRelated: See More Celebrity Homes in AD"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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