Building rural

I am really enjoying Adam Nicholson's Sissinghurst An Unfinished History. Well written with a bit about Vita, a bit about garden history, alot about environmentalism in the realm of historic preservation and alot about the reality of our world agriculturally and how drastic we have let it change in the last two centuries.

building the inspiration

We visited the project we are working on in Brooklyn on Park Avenue-I thought I would divulge the source for the siding idea. The second picture is a warehouse here in Belfast and I looked at it alot last summer and when Erin and Owen (client/collaborators) were working on what the building should be clad in I thought of this image......I loved that the blue is tone on tone with the sky........The siding is meant to be a gentle envelope with all the action and life of the building going on inside.

Building Grant

Many of you know that I have been absorbed in a project about Ulysses S. Grant and all things in the decorative arts within his realm.....Well oddly enough in Natchez this weekend I found myself in another place that Grant spent. Rosalie on the Natchez bluff was chosen by Grant to be the Union headquarters after the fall of Vicksburg.
Its also the headquarters of the largest collection of John Belter furniture- which evidently was carefully wrapped and put in the attic by a thoughtful Union general during the occupation. The house is mostly great because of stories like this. I would like to write a biography of Grant through the buildings where he kept counsel.

Word building

Remodelista had some great examples of words on decorative objects. I am huge fan ever since we put a Nietzche quote in subway tile letters on a famous playwrite's tub surround. I saw this image of Elsie De Wolf's Villa Trianon and if you look closely the pillows have words, phrases on them... Some very witty french phrase I am sure.

Story building

When Maira Kalman does a NYT blog post all the world rejoices. I ,of course, am tickled that I posted this very room this week from New York's City Hall

Building messages

Those of you that know Little Building Cafe know how I love a painted building. This building in Belfast, Maine was my inspiration. This was the towns fuel company but now (with a new tiny paint job ) is the information center for the town......


Please note post will be hit and miss-internet is a sometimes thing up here and so are my thoughts...

Simple Building

This is the little farm where we spend every summer. The barn was built by my brother in law and Caleb + many other hands. When we got married here 16 years ago my brother in law Jared meet Annaly Bennett an architecture school chum and they got married. The little house was built by Jared as present for his bride. The barn has a working shop and we stay up in the top floor, we cook in the little house and eat dinner in the front of the barn. There is lake down the road where we swim(and maybe this year take the canoe) and the guys get the sauna going some time in August. It's a beautiful place on earth.

Building Bohemia

I have been struggling with a paper trying to communicate that the 19th and 20th century Artist House is the perfect example of the Modernist Manifesto. Formal boundaries of the domestic are broken down, the decor is an expression of travels and experience rather than riches and work and life are blended into one. How academic of me to not put the three examples together visually. These are the parlor of Olana-1891,The Bloomsbury group's Charleston circa 1920 and finally the Eames House-1949. Is that the same rug!????

Hotel/Motel

This is a little homage to great interior design. When I was little I liked nothing better than staying at Hotel/Motel on the way to Savannah for summer family vacation. Today here in Starkville, they are dedicating the room where Johnny Cash stayed, Room 22 at the University Hotel on Highway 82, prior to getting arrested for picking flowers. I am so sorry I missed it. Well, lots of music tomorrow. www.pardonjohnnycash.com

Favorite Building 2

My all time favorite building is Le Corbusier's Unite Marseille. It's one of the buildings he got a bad rap for...But with this building, when you go inside you understand that Corb for all his faults was a very sensitive designer OR had enough sense to let his sensitive designers go for it. The interior apartments are double height units with wonderful details like giant teak doors that open out to the ocean, black board slate sliding partitions for the children's rooms and small hyper efficient kitchens plotted and planned by Corbs best designer Charlotte Perriand. The building itself houses a hotel, kindergarten and grocery store. This building was very well made and its owners and tenants love their homes, therefore it is very well maintained and has a ten year wait list. www.marseille-citeradieuse.org

Favorite Building 1

I got my secret grocery store copy of Martha Stewart today and felt it was worth my while when there was a article about the Gropius House in Lincoln Mass. I love this building. Mostly because of the stories about the Gropius family living there and how it affected the architecture. The dining room was designed only to accommodate four people -after running the Bauhaus and Harvard School of Design-he had had enough of hosting parties for masses of architects. And notice the staircase on the outside of the master/library suite-one always needs a quick get away from great architecture.