I’ll Take This: Castellated Georgian Folly

Seriously, who wouldn’t want this Georgian Folly?

It’s actually a three-bed, two-bath house! From the estate agent’s description:

Built in 1780 for Sir Edward Smythe, Baronet of Acton Burnell Hall, the folly became the venue for lavish musical soirees and entertaining his numerous house guests. It was designed by Joseph Bromfield, the fashionable Georgian architect, builder and plasterwork designer noted for his major works at Powis Castle and Attingham Park. Much of the original plasterwork to the magnificent music room, now used as an elegant drawing room, has been painstakingly restored to its former glory.The magnificent drawing room has a polished oak floor, Adam style fireplace and fine decorative plasterwork depicting scenes of harvest, music and war, ceiling roses and cornices.By the mid 19th Century the folly became a gamekeepers cottage and by the 1950’s had fallen into disrepair and was left empty. In 1984 the building was rescued by a local philanthropist and its restoration was taken forward by the current owners who bought it in 2001.

The kitchen, which is hexagonal, is combined with the dining room. It even has an Aga range!

From the hall a beautiful curved staircase with trellised cast iron work and mahogany hand rail is lit by a deep arched ogi window and rises to the first floor landing.

There are two bedrooms on the ground/first floor, and the master bedroom is on the first/second floor.

The property also included a garden pavilion which overlooks the surrounding hills.

This can be yours for a mere £750,000, which is about $1.25 million. It’s located near the villages of Much Wenlock and Church Stretton, and is in the village of Acton Burnell. More information is here.

Ladew Garden Festival Preview Party

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Preview Party for the Ladew Garden Festival. The actual Festival, modeled on the Trade Secrets Show in Connecticut, is Saturday, May 3 and I urge you to go!

One of the fabulous things about the Festival is that there are plantsmen from around the east coast who have flowers and plants that you don’t see anywhere else. Like this one.

Honestly, I was a little scared of this plant, which is some sort of maple! It looked like aliens in pods!

Camellias can only grow in the zone up to mid-Maryland, and we’re still waiting for them to bloom here. But this was terrific to see!

There were all sorts of amazing and beautiful plants on offer.

But it’s not just plants – there are garden ornaments from my friends at Pennoyer-Newman,

lots of pretty things from Halcyon House Antiques,

fun pieces from a new shop called Sprezzatura,

and a range of antiques from assorted dealers.

Tickets are $15 per person and are available at the door. There are tours of the house and the extensive gardens! Tell’em I sent you!

French Opulence: You’re Doing it Wrong!

When I saw this house just outside of Baltimore, listed as “French Opulence” my first thought was that the French would be spinning in their collective grave to see this attributed to them. It looks nothing like any French house I’ve ever seen.

Most French houses I know have graceful, elegant proportions. This one doesn’t. That balcony sticks out like hernia. The columns on the portico are too low for the depth. It looks like the the 2nd floor porch and its appendage are weighing the columns down.

The whole entrance looks like an addition because it completely blocks the two Palladian windows on the second floor and ruins the lines of the house.

Let’s go inside, shall we?

First, I think these front doors would look a whole lot better with some glass in them. The wood is just to heavy and dark.

I am not a big fan of cathedral ceilings and double-height rooms. They tend to feel cavernous, like you’re sitting in the bottom of a well.

Loooooook…. down there… furniture! (that’s my echo-y voice!)

I am also not a big fan of the “window treatments” in this room. I’d have left the top windows undone, and not curtained the bottom doors. In a room this tall, you don’t need to draw attention to the height. Also, the furniture seems out of scale for the size and height of the space.

This house reminds me of a very nice hotel with its matching sconces, matching tables and long hallways.

There are a lot of decorators who can successfully use a lot of pattern in a room, but this seems very jarring and not at all harmonious. If you took away one of the major elements, like the rug, it might work better.

Again, too many patterns in this room. And someone needs to explain to me what’s over the bed. The elements either need to be bigger, or closer together to make a unified assemblage.

I think that the bed’s missing something! There are at least a dozen pillows, but no skirt?

This room certainly sends a mixed message! That wall map of the world seems a bit out of place. And it’s a bit over-ottomaned, too.

Way too much happening in this room. Too much furniture. Too many patterns. Too much happening.

Why would you have a sun room with wicker furniture and then add a modern table?

There’s way too much furniture on this porch. It looks like it would be a maze to get from one end to the other. I think that the furniture needs to be airier. These kooboo chairs are too heavy and there are too many of them.

There was one thing I did like about this house. This.

The property was built in 1992 and is on the market for just over $2 million. Regardless of what I think of this house, someone is going to love it and make it their home. Email the agent, and my friend, Jake to see it, or check the listing here.

Read This Book

There’s a blog I’ve followed for several years now, Mon Avis, Mes Amis that it a brilliant combination of real life stories, a bit of fiction and a slice of life in a particular piece of England.

The writer, E.L. Smith took off for a year or so, and she was deeply missed by her readers and admirers. Now, it turns out that when she wasn’t writing the blog, she was crafting the most delicious book of short stories, spanning a century. Each one with a twist in the tale, or a little lesson learned. Ten Tales Told: A Century of Peculiarly British Short Stories is a quick read. Either take one story at a time and savour it, or gobble down all ten stories at one sitting like I did. Either way, you’ll not regret a minute spent reading this book. And in all likelihood, you will go back and re-read it and find more than you did on first reading.

The book is described thusly:

An eclectic, eccentric collection of ten stories, each set in a different decade, spanning the last century. Rich in colour and character, the stories examine betrayal of and by women in all its subtle forms.

The book can be ordered on Amazon for Kindle and it’s just a great read.

One of the best things was reading the acknowledgments and seeing the names of some of my favourite fellow bloggers, like ADG, Columnist and Toad, and some favourite commenters like Linda Pakravan and the Hattats.

Well done, ELS!