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“Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than a novelist,” Edith Wharton once declared. Indeed, Wharton, whose birthday we celebrate today, was as much a designer and tastemaker during her life as she was a writer. In fact, her first published book, The Decoration of Houses, was a design manual, and so many of her novels glow with beautiful descriptions of design, atmosphere, and costume that could only have come from a knowledgeable hand.

Wharton built her estate, The Mount, in 1902, and if you ask us, its rolling green gardens certainly do her claim justice. So, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth, we’ve collected fifteen gorgeous authors’ homes and estates — though none, perhaps, are as gorgeous as hers. Click through to check out our list, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your own favorite writers’ homes in the comments.

Edith Wharton’s estate, The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts