Jenna Lyons’ House: Redux

There was a great article in the NY Times about the new owners of the infamous Jenna Lyons house in Brooklyn, which has been the subject of much adoration and blogging. The new family who own it are in themselves a bit quirky. She is the owner of the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn, and he was formerly with the band Depeche Mode.

The house is filled with light and has lovely high ceilings.

Pieces were sourced from architectural salvagers and traditional retail shops.

Many of the pieces have that “cabinet of curiosities” feeling, which is only natural given the house’s occupants.

The powder-room walls are hand-embroidered silk from Fromental in England.

The upstairs sitting room has hand-painted silk wallpaper from Fromental, and an Aubusson rug.

And there’s a bathroom just off the sitting room. Gorgeous, but I am not sure how much I’d like that!

The preserved butterflies are by the Morbid Anatomy Museum’s taxidermist-in-residence.

Of course, there are some Day of the Dead mementos scattered about!

Fascinating house! Read more here.

The Downstairs Loo

As you may remember, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with the downstairs bath in my house. It’s pretty small, but it does have a walk-in shower and it’s the bathroom that gets used the most. I tried papering a bit of it with pages of old books, but they make it smell musty, which makes me crazy. I also thought about some large-scaled papers a few weeks ago, here.

On the way to High Point, I stopped in Richmond, Virginia at a place called Diversity Thrift. It’s about 15,000 square feet of everything. It’s gotten very high marks for its vast and ever-changing inventory. As I poked around, I stumbled across a bin of wallpapers, many of them unopened in their rolls. The name Nina Campbell caught my eye and so I grabbed the roll of paper.

To my surprise, it was exactly what I have been searching for! It’s a pale colour, an interesting print and it will match the shower curtain wonderfully. Even better, it was dirt cheap.

So I grabbed all three rolls and stuck them in my cart. When I finally got around to checking the price, I could only find it in pounds…£52 a roll, in fact! With today’s exchange rate, that’s about $87 per roll!

The print is called Woodsford, and is named after a castle in Dorset, England, which is owned by the Landmark Trust. The house has one of the largest expanses of thatched roof in England. It’s available for rent and sleeps eight!

The pattern is silhouettes of trees, similar to the Arbres de Matisse which Billy Baldwin used to great effect.

It also comes in a fabric. The pillow on the right is the same colourway as the paper I found. Here are some images from the catalogue.

I think I got a great deal and now I am excited to paper the small bathroom!

Oh, I also picked up a great blue & white tea pot, some books for the trip and a bag of crystal stoppers for decanters. I always find decanters without stoppers, and resist buying them, so now I have a selection from which to choose!

High Point: The Road Home

I have to say that I am so happy to be home from High Point. I almost chucked it all and left on Sunday afternoon, but I had an obligation to fulfill and it would have bothered me not to do so.

When I drove down to High Point, I took the fast route – I-95 and I-85, but I realized that I missed driving the slower route, the one that skirts around the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains south of Charlottesville, Virginia. I know the route well, as I have friends whose family owned a winery about 50 miles south of Charlottesville and I went there frequently for several years.

Some places along the road have long swooping curves that follow the creeks that come down from the hills. In other places, you have the mountains rising up on either side of you.

The clouds played across the still leafless hills,

and here and there, you could tell that spring was on its way… several weeks late.

I always love getting my first glimpse of the Blue RIdge mountains, which are the eastern-most part of the Appalachians.

The six-hour long drive gave me a good chance to clear my mind, reflect on the past few days, and settle back down. Thanks so much to everyone for the kind comments and e-mails. It has meant everything to me.

I have hundreds of images to edit, and so I will probably pick up the High Point recaps later in the week.

High Point: Day 2

Day two was much better than day one! Except that it was chucking down rain and chilly. But chilly is relative. I am still having camera issues, so I will just zip through my schedule with some other pix.

First up was personal favourite, William Yeoward! Although he’s most well-known for his crystal-ware, he’s got a line of furniture.

His accessories and staging are always fabulous!

From there it was a short hop to Lillian August, which always has the most gorgeous floral arrangements as well as stunning furniture.The colours in their collections are bright and rich and just gorgeous.

Next, I popped back across the street to C.R. Laine.

They are always so innovative and use pattern and colour to their best effect.

Thibaut was my last scheduled stop of the day, and it was another showroom full of bright colours and patterns!

The day filled with colour was the perfect antidote to the grey skies and chilly temps.

High Point: Day 1

Day 1 at High Point wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. It started off wonderfully with a visit to the Williamsburg group. If you’re thinking the old dull muted colours of yesteryear, think again! (Click here for a story I wrote a few months ago.)

After that, I headed over to meet up with some friends to see Barry Dixon’s new line of furniture in conjunction with C2 paints.

As I stood in the parking lot, looking in my phone for the building number in broad daylight, I was mugged. Two people drove up in a truck, one got out and tried to grab my bag. I struggled a bit, the bag ripped and all of my things went flying! So all they got was a half of a canvas handbag, and maybe some Kleenex. I am fine, although I did fall down and scrape my knees and break the fingernails on one hand, but that’s all small.

Unfortunately, one of the casualties was my camera, which can still take pictures, but it’s cracked and I can’t download anything. So until I get back to Baltimore, no pix of my own.

After that adventure, I did manage to see Barry’s new line, which is gorgeous! And then I headed over to W. Schillig one of my sponsors. They make the most beautiful and sleek leather sofas.

From there, it was over to see the folks at HGTV who now have their own lines of fabrics, paints, floor coverings and furniture.

Then I headed to a party for Thom Filicia’s new line of paints with Farrow & Ball.

The evening ended up with a great cocktail party given by Architectural Digest where I saw lots of blog friends.

Monday holds lots of new adventures, but hopefully, it’s a lot calmer!

The Medals

I thought I’d share two pictures from the party, so that you could see the medals in situ. I wore one of them and lent the other to my friend Tracey to wear. Everyone admired them, and if anyone thought we were being irreverent, they didn’t mention it. Funnily, some other people wore medals. A local newspaper columnist wore an old city medal from the early 1900’s and our friend Eric wore his son’s swimming medal… first place, no less!

It was a great and grand party,given by the Baltimore Architecture Foundation to raise money for scholarships for architecture students at the local historically black university, Morgan State University.

Black Tie With Medals

What do you do when you receive an invitation stating that the attire for the evening is “Black Tie with Medals”? If you’re like me, you throw the idea out into the winds, or put it on Facebook, and see what happens, fully expecting to get back a lot of wise-cracks. Or, an unexpected offer from a super-creative friend to whip up some medals for you!

My school friend, Andrea, who’s the creative genius behind Bosom Buddy Bags, offered to whip up some medals for me to wear. Andrea and BBB have been making my handbags for a few years now, and everywhere I go, people rave about them. The company’s signature motif is a bee, because of their name, and because they’re just busy bees making the bags.

A few days ago, Andrea re-iterated her offer of the medals, so I sent her a picture of my dress, which is black, with an olive-y green taffeta skirt. She got busy, and when she e-mailed me the images of the medals she’d created, I literally had tears in my eyes because the designs were so perfect, and because she’s so wonderful to do this for me.

The first medal has an amazing background with loads of leaves, acorns, scrolls, a crown and center motif of her signature bee. She even thought to add a tiny green stone to echo the skirt of my dress! It’s on a gold chain with an olive green ribbon so I can adjust the length.

The second medal has a little more gravitas.

It’s on a black grosgrain ribbon with a center stone in the green of my skirt. It’s also adjustable, so I can wear it more like a choker.

It’s supposed to be chilly for the party (naturally!), so I am going to wear a beautiful cream brocade opera coat I was given a few months ago. It’s a stunning piece. If all goes well, I might manage to look pretty decent for the party, medals and all.  Thanks for all of your help, Andrea!!!

One Man’s Folly: The Party and The Book.

First, thanks so much to Bunny Williams and John Rosselli for hosting this amazing party to celebrate one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen: One Man's Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood. Second, thanks to Jonathan for including me and for my copy of this stunning book!

And third, I didn’t take one single picture during the party! I am way too short and the crowd was huge! This image and the three below are from the New York Social Diary’s coverage of the party, and if you know exactly where to look, you can see Boy, of Reggie Darling fame. And that’s Furlow Gatewood in the bottom left in the loden jacket.

This was a very personal party, to the point of Furlow having made the pimento cheese and the cheese straws himself. I also had a chance to meet and speak with Julia Reed, and if you don’t follow her writing in Garden & Gun magazine, you need to do so right away. She’s a great writer and is HILARIOUS!

The whole three-hour train trip back to Baltimore after the party was spent reading One Man's Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood. The foreword and afterword are both beautifully and personally written by Bunny Williams, who, along with her husband, John Rosselli, are great friends of Furlow’s.

The images in this book are stunning. There is not a bad picture in the lot (although mine of them aren’t great). From the peacocks to the carefully chosen collections, this is such a unique place.

Furlow Gatewood was using architectural salvage for his houses years before anyone else, and he collected pieces from everywhere and everything. He often built houses and rooms around a certain piece.

Every single page has a beautiful image or two, or three. The photographers, Paul Costello and Rodney Collins did such a magnificent job on the hundreds of pictures.

And Julia Reed’s text is funny and personal. She’s got such a way with words, and understands the Southern persona. She gets the whole mix of high and low, like the china pieces mixed with a Dash & Albert indoor/outdoor rug.

I can’t recommend this book enough. It is destined to become a classic, much like Furlow Gatewood himself.

The book will be published on April 22, 2014, but you can click to pre-order One Man's Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood.