18th Century Open House

Come with me on a Hogarthian journey. We're travelling to Spitalfields in London's East End, so ladies, raise your petticoats when you tiptoe across the cobblestones (you don't want that nasty ordure clinging to your dress) and gentlemen, please don't forget to give a ha'penny to the crossing sweeper.

We're standing outside 18 Folgate Street. Dennis Severs' House. Go ahead, lift the knocker. (Long beat.) That's strange, I told the family we'd be popping by. Let's go in anyway. No, please, after you.

(A bit of background: Artist Dennis Severs (1948-1999) spent his life transforming this formerly dilapidated Georgian house into a living time capsule now open to the public. Half-eaten food on tables, the sound of footsteps overhead and echoed conversations all create the illusion that a fictive family of Huguenot silk weavers is living all around you.)

Look at this room, would you? Those bones. Those details. That artful disarray. It's like a "World of Interiors" spread.

Love the panelling in this room. And the way that jade-colored seat cover pops against all those orangey-red hues. And the rough texture of that beige fabric -- is it a curtain? The edge of a sleeve? I can't tell. But it makes me want to design a billowy hemp blouse to wear with jeans, boots and a big wooden necklace.

That chilly English light creeping in from the window has me at "hello." Especially when tempered with the warmth of an unadorned candle. It's so "Tristram Shandy."

Love the assemblage of tiles on that kitchen wall. (Delft? Perhaps.) Wonder what they made for tea...Venison? Syllabub? Posset?

The right photograph can make the most untidy of rooms look utterly inviting. This is that photograph.

Grace Coddington needs to convince Anna to let her use this location, don't you think?

Mental note: Garlands are for more than just mantelpieces and bannisters.

Pea soup green, cobalt blue and orange. Who knew?
Can't speak.

Really, just can't speak.

Click here for a virtual tour of the house and information on opening times. Monday evenings require booking as they tour by candlelight -- how divine!

(Photo credits: LightLocations. And thank you to reader Linda who alerted me back in March to this incredible find.)

Cold At Heart

I'm half Celt, half Viking and, as such, my genetic heritage pretty much rules out any inherent attraction to heat. Give me a bout of inclement weather over a dose of sunshine any day. Layer me in wool and rubber, set me loose on the moors with a Kendal mint cake in my pocket (and a good pub within walking distance) and I'll wander over the heath until it's time for chestnut soup, Yorkshire pudding and a hot mug of lambswool.

So how did I survive the recent Hollywood summer? Easy. I stayed out of the sun, I read lots of English novels and when all else failed, I gazed at the watercolors of Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) -- his blustery landscapes always make me want to throw a sweater over my shoulders.

I think I just felt a drop of rain.

(Chalk Paths, Eric Ravilious, 1935 )

This next one almost makes me want to take up long-distance running again.

(Wiltshire Landscape, Eric Ravilious, 1937)

Speaking of which, did you know Eddie Izzard just completed 43 marathons in 49 days for Comic Relief? Love him. (Yes, 43 marathons. No, I'm not kidding.) You can watch his video diaries on YouTube and see an awful lot of routes that look just like this (only more cars).

Come on, can't you just see yourself with your nose pressed against that window while your train rambles past the giant chalk drawings of the South Downs? My attention would be torn between the view and the upholstery: that icy green-blue velvet against the navy and red is completely swoonworthy.

(Train Landscape, Eric Ravilious, 1938)

Brrr. Where's my sweater?

(My mother's handmade Norwegian sweater.

Purchased in the 1960's. Being worn now.)

I Vitelloni

Saturday morning, 7:30 am

I share a house with three crazy Italians, that's all there is to it.

The first one, Fellini, slunk in from the garden like a truculent teenager, pretending as though nothing was wrong. It was the first time he had stayed out on the town all night and evidently there were to be no apologies. After engaging in a staredown with me to prove he wasn't tired, he immediately fell asleep sitting up.

Moving into the kitchen, my second Italian was standing in the middle of the kitchen looking utterly dazed. I threw myself into action mode. Before you could say, "uno, due, tre," I had a moka pot filled with personality bubbling away on the stove.

Just as the true indication of royalty is the inability to sleep on a pea, the true Italian undergoes a transfiguration when orally infused with caffeine. Sure enough, within minutes, my uomo went from from grumpy to garrulous to outright giddy.

Espresso coursing through his veins, he proceeded to whip up a batch of my father's famous Norwegian pancakes with such focus and speed that I was rendered mute by his prowess.

We were just sitting down to a breakfast al fresco...

...when loud thumping on the stairs heralded the imminent arrival of the third ragazzo in the house. Without a word to either of us, he stomped outside and plopped down by the pool.

Me: Good morning, sunshine.

Silence.

Me: Are you hungry?

Silence.

Me: Daddy made pancakes.

Silence.

Anxious to prevent his sleepiness from mushrooming into churlishness, I realized I needed a game changer. Fast.

Me: Well, you're sitting awfully close to the pool and we're just about to eat breakfast, so be careful. I don't want you falling in. Do you hear me? Do. Not. Even. Think. Of. Accidentally. Falling. In. The. Pool. With. Your. Clothes. On.

And peace was restored to the land.

After all, pancakes eaten when wet taste much more delicious than pancakes eaten when dry.

And how was your weekend?

It Still Feels Like Yesterday

(via Huffington Post; click to enlarge)

This is the first photo I've found that shows where I was standing that day. (On the roof of that little orangey apartment tower to the right of the Empire State building.) We had just moved back to NYC that July and were were temporarily renting an apartment on 26th and 6th. I was six months pregnant. Piero was in Los Angeles for the Latin Grammy Awards and I slept in that morning, only waking up when the telephone rang. It was my sister in Michigan. "Turn on the television. What's happening?" she cried.

I took the elevator up to the roof and joined a group of people who were standing, shell-shocked, at the sight in front of them. Smoke billowed from the towers. I went back down to get my portable radio and when I came back up, the first tower had fallen. We listened to the reports of a plane hitting the Pentagon and another one crashing in Pennsylvania. The second tower fell. Fighter planes flew overhead. Looking down, all the cars coming from downtown were covered in debris. A tattooed construction worker next to me began to cry.

To to those who lost loved ones that day, to those who courageously volunteered with the recovery efforts and to those around the world who wept with us, my heart breaks again, remembering.

From The Home Of...

(via here)

Despite the constant presence of email in my life, I still consider hand-written correspondence to be one of life's most important small luxuries. Taking time to write a note, place a stamp on it and send it via the USPS has taken on a strange old-fashioned allure these days, and I am always touched when I receive a well-penned letter in my mailbox -- it feels like a small gift.

A few years ago, I splurged on a supply of Smythson die-stamped personalized correspondence cards and it proved to be one of the most rewarding purchases I've ever made. I chose a pale green-blue color called "Three Crowns" for the paper and had my name engraved in bright red ink. The envelopes were lined in matching red tissue for an extra little surprise upon opening.

Using such precious stationery had the surprising benefit of causing my thoughts to rise to the level of the paper they were written on. Before Smythson (B.S.), I sometimes wrote hastily and without forethought; after Smythson (A.S.), by the time I touched ultra fine point Sharpie to watermarked card, my handwriting was neat and my points were pithy.

So here's what I'm considering now: house stationery.

When we moved to our present home in 2007, we had this slate sign fashioned so our friends and neighbors would know they were always welcome to pop by for a pot (of tea) or a pint (of beer). After all, what's life without a bit of cheeky humor? I'm all for adding a bit of personality to your dwelling. (Live in a top-floor walk-up? Call it "Clouds." Basement studio? Dub it "Down Under.")

Seeking ideas for page layouts, I wondered what kind of house stationery Bloomsbury luminaries such as Virginia Woolf or Lady Ottoline Morrell chose for their personal use and if any examples of it still existed today. Believe it or not, after a brief search, I found them on the Smith College Library website.

I provide them here for inspiration...

1. I like the two-pronged header of Virginia Woolf's Hogarth House stationery...and doesn't it make you wish that telephone numbers still had word prefixes?

(Detail, letter from Virginia Woolf to Katherine Mansfield, 13 February 1921)

2. Here's Lytton Strachey's personal stationery. Love the font...of course, it helps if you get to use words like "Pangbourne" and "Tidmarsh."

(Detail, letter from Lytton Strachey to Virginia Woolf, 9 October 1922)

3. This version of Virginia Woolf's stationery from Monk's House uses an elegant italicised script. I like the "near Lewes, Sussex" part. I suppose I could put "near Hollywood, California" on mine.

(Detail, letter from Virginia Woolf to Robert Spirra, 27 February 1929)

4. This stationery from Lady Ottoline Morrell's country house was available in all the guest rooms and replete with information, including the nearest train station (a chic idea for New Yorkers and other city dwellers).

(Detail, letter from Lytton Strachey to Virginia Woolf, 17 July 1916;

written 0n Lady Ottoline Morrell's house stationery.)

5. I love, love, love the art direction for Lytton Strachey's Hampstead home. That slanted telephone number is so arresting.

(Detail, letter from Lytton Strachey to Virginia Woolf, 17 February 1909)

6. Apparently, Virginia did too. Here's her London townhouse stationery three years later.

(Detail, letter from Virginia Woolf to Lytton Strachey, 6 June 1912)

The Alt-Rock Aesthete

The influences of the Bloomsbury Group appear in the most unlikely of places. Who would have thought that a former Smashing Pumpkin would commission a painstaking reproduction of hand-stenciled paisley patterns from Charleston House on the walls of his East Village apartment? Yet guitarist James Iha did just that. 

And it's glorious.

(Photograph by Joanne Chan)

I love that given Iha's sturm und drang-fueled, goth-rock musical style, his design sensibility extends toward a muted palette, antique furniture and a sedate country-house vibe.

(Photograph by Joanne Chan)

Here's a photo of the original room in Charleston House, decorated in the 1920's by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Fabulous, no? The undulating pattern of apostrophe-shaped paisleys has a soft lyricism that still feels modern today. Even the curtain panels have a indie craft sensibility to them, and despite all the patterns on patterns, the room still reflects a sense of peace and tranquility. 

( Photograph by Alen MacWeeney from 

"Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden.")

If you admire the lushness of those muted hues but don't fancy the idea (and cost) of having it hand-stenciled, don't despair. I think Cole and Son's "Egerton" wallpaper, seen below, shares a strong emotional resonance to the work of Grant and Bell. 

(Photograph by Max Kim-Bee)

I used it in my own bathroom and find it imparts a gentle awakening on those mornings in which my brain feels like a slightly dented gourd.

(9/6/09)

LA Is Burning

I woke up this morning to find my car covered in tiny white particles. At first I thought the tree overhead must have rained down flower petals, but then I realized it was ash. 

(Downtown skyline, August 30, 2009;

Don Barletti via the Los Angeles Times)

This fire is Vesuvius-like.

(Los Angeles Crest fire, August 30, 2009;

Al Seib via the Los Angeles Times)

I live about ten miles away from the nearest blaze and so am not in harm's way, but it's still very frightening. At last count, eight separate fires were burning out of control.

(Watching the Station fire, August 30th, 2009

Wally Skalij, Los Angeles Times)

Spirals of thick smoke are rising as high as 20,000 feet into the air and are creating their own wind patterns. 

(Smoke at dusk, August 31, 2009; Hollywood Hills visible on left of photo; Francine Orr via the Los Angeles Times)

Walls of flame have reached over 100 feet. Over 122,000 acres have burned so far, and experts predict at least another week before the fires can be contained. 

(Station fire, August 30, 2009

Genaro Molina for the Los Angeles Times)

Over 3700 firefighters have been mobilized; tragically, two lost their lives on Sunday.

(La Crescenta fire, August 31, 2009;

Wally Skalij via the Los Angeles Times)

For the first time ever, a Boeing 747 was used to drop fire retardant on the blaze.

(Jet plane near La Canada Flintridge,

Irfan Khan via the Los Angeles Times)

The largest fire is burning in the Angeles Crest National Forest. My son Luca knows this area intimately; his summer camp stayed overnight there every Thursday. Looking over the photos snapped by his camp counselor, I wonder how much of it is still there.

(Angeles Crest Forest before the fire, August, 2009;

photograph by Andreas Wenger)

(Luca cliff-jumping in Angeles Crest Forest, July, 2009;

photograph by Andreas Wenger)

My thoughts go out to all those affected by this fire and to the tireless firefighters who spare no efforts in always doing their heroic best.