Open House

Bloomed

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:31:38 +0000

We were lucky enough to just stay in a country estate in Italy (actually the word “estate” feels far too formal yet “farm house” not worthy of the property’s whimsical elegance) whose extensive gardens were as uniquely personal and mesmerizing as the decorated rooms within the compound. Normally people reserve the use of boxwood hedges articulate the borders of their property but here within the entry gates their formal yet cheerful rows served both as lawn, maze and usher, as you walked between buildings in a kind of punch-drunk joy. The hedges also contained the outbursts of vegetation that grew with an unbridled boldness and swung and swayed at every level of your body: above the head, clusters of Hollyhocks as tall as basketball players blushing in pale pinks and maroon reds; at waist length, massive bushes of white Clair Martin roses and always tickling your ankles, lavender and rosemary so dense they could defy the sharpest of clippers. And all around, just within reach: slender trunks brimming with plum, fig and apricot trees, bearing perfectly formed fruit not only ripe for the picking but worthy to grace the cover of any magazine-food or fashion. I walked around and around the paths the way I do in rooms that pull my focus and invite me to linger and question its every content. And while it didn’t belong to me in any way, I felt an emotional connection deeper than just admiration for its owner who had created it so artfully and without pretension. I wanted to somehow lie down and allow the garden to grow around and through me- become another hedge and feel the dance of snow fall when it finally came, or the sure push when the thousand of peonies rose out in May in colors impossible to perfectly capture. The night before we left I watched my host prepare a dinner for ten with a calm and intent usually reserved for children who are finger painting. He had over the course of several days, been producing for us already artful loaves of homemade breads, cheese from his cows, tarts and quiches with crusts which resembled more frescoe than dough without end. Yet there was barely a trace of any preparation or clean up commotion whenever we came into his kitchen before or after. We weren’t to help on either end because as he told us, “cooking was deeply personal.” So I stayed outside, wishing I could see how he did it, but knowing even the act of watching him would be like asking a painter how they capture a sunset without it bearing the marks of a Hallmark card. As I walked past to swim, I saw him setting the outdoor table: his four dogs were lazing on the surrounding benches under a thick trellis of grape vines. The tablecloth was faded. If one of my boys dropped a plate, I knew it could be replaced and forgotten. The cushions to the white iron chairs we’d sit at were dark with mildew and looked perfectly at home. (Why was I always so worried when mine did the same?) He stepped out and clipped a violet artichoke flower and some roses that blossomed just within the door frame, put them into a milk pitcher and placed it in the center table. And then he went back inside. This was all that was needed for tonight. And all that ever would be.

Tree Hugger

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:58:05 +0000

We’re taking down a tree today. Not because we have to due to it’s health but because it stands in the way of our new addition.
Experts said the tree would most likely die in a few years and that it wasn’t an “important tree” but anyone could see it was tall and verdantly majestic despite it’s species and supposed health issues. I swallowed the “unimportant tree” line to myself like a bitter pill as I left this morning prepared- actually, almost hoping- to have it all gone upon my return, to erase in a few minutes what must have taken decades to create. The faster my indulgence was taken care of, the less I’d pay the price for it. I didn’t even want a stump as a knotty reminder of my selfishness.
But a few hours later the tree was still all there. The tree guy needed more equipment and was returning shortly. “Even the experts have underestimated me!” the tree seemed to admonish, limbs crossed at her trunk. I felt despair settling in with raw vegence.
Who were we to take this tree down: one who had so determidley survived harsh winter storms and patiently endured neglectful owners for all these years until we arrived. She must have breathed a sigh of relief when she saw us come along and begin to primp and restore the property. I felt like we had played a harsh trick with the reveal now her demise. I ran into my car and like a true coward, drove away trying not to imagine how the tree must think this a day like any other and yet this was its last. “It’s like the Giving Tree!” I sobbed aloud to myself, thinking of the Shel Silverstein classic about the tree who gave up its glory in order to delight it’s owner until only a stump remained. I pulled over and called my husband who was still at home. No answer. I pictured dozens of buzz saws hungrily tearing thru tree limbs blocking out the sounds of my ring. After about 20 tries he finally picked up.
“Is it still there?” I cried. “Take a picture of whatever is left. We need to document its existance.”
There must have been something in my tone because he immediately emailed me three perspectives of the tree. I stared at the images on my phone feeling more like a hypocrite than a tree hugger.
I later warned the kids as we pulled up the driveway from camp that the tree most likely would now be gone.
The tree was still there but all it’s branches had been removed, surely in preparation for tomorrow’s felling.
I ran out of the car and put my arms around the great trunk- one whose wide width didn’t allow me to- another reminder of its wise age.
“Could we all just say something to the tree?” I asked. My kids rolled their eyes but they didn’t move away either so I started: “I will never take another tree for granted,” I told it. “I am so sorry. We just don’t have a garage or enough space…” I stopped myself, feeling pathetic. My youngest then gently put his hand on it’s trunk. A vision of he and his friends zooming past the tree during many snowy sledding days flashed in my head. Spring it had been home base to dozen of baseball and summer, tag games. And now…the sun was setting on another day.
“Thanks,” he told it, “for all the awesome Home Frees.”

Child’s Play

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:37:14 +0000

The other day I visited a photographer friend named Pieter -who has had much success shooting homes around the world for top shelter magazines- at his own apartment. He lives and works on the penthouse floor of an old building bordering Gramercy Park. As you past the old fashioned elegance of the gated park and are let in to Pieter’s dusty lobby via a fuzzy buzzer, you feel you might run into Edith Wharton as easily as Andy Warhol. After taking the rickety elevator as high as you can go, you walk the final flight of stairs up to the tippety top floor where only he lives- a rare feat in real estate not to mention life. There are no topiaries or grand art to welcome and usher you in. Rather dozens of children’s art decorate the staircase walls- the artist being his young son.
Let’s just say he always has me at hello at this point. For this both grand and homey place is as much a child’s imaginative domain as his father’s. Inside the first thing you see in the loft-like space is a floor to ceiling oil portrait of a man holding his son, held aloft by an enormous wooden easal. The painting is curious in its English manor grandeur and yet distinctly modern in the way its male subjects peer contentedly at the viewer with no mother, sisters or horses in sight. You know this father in this painting is devoted to this child. They need nothing else in the world except each other and yet, they seem receptive to whatever the future holds for them.
A giant table runs along the center of the room like a lifeline- closer inspection reveals it’s actually two identical antique tables pushed together. Pieter was only going to buy one until his father encouraged him to get the pair before he had this apartment. And now here they are in a space that wouldn’t be half as elegant nor as efficient without them. I love stories like that. This is a place where everything you point at has a tale attached to it, whether belonging to parent or child.
One side of the table is Pieter’s enormous computer screen: this area it signals, is about work. The rest of the expansive surface is as ready for dinner parties or play dates. Up here, it feels like any gathering is a celebration for multi generations. From the back wall are floor to ceiling bookshelves, filled with years of Pieter’s pictures of other people’s homes. I think of the thousands of lives captured and shelved here and wonder what has become of them? Children jumping on sofas are now older, posed pets perhaps gone, marriages even dissolved. Many of these places have new occupants now, equally eager to have Pieter shoot their furniture and family placement. It is all a never ending process of creation being captured. A winding staircase brings you down to his son’s room- one featured in my new book “Room for Children”- where Pieter has wallpapered a real-life scaled photograph - taken from his own bedroom when he lived at the Maharani of Deogarh’s palace outside India, around the crib. It’s like a layer from Pieter’s history is cocooning his son’s current life.
Outside on the spectacular terrace, there are so many iconic building tops to gaze at but Pieter immediately points out the nearby turret where the actress Margaret Hamilton used to live. “My son loves to tell people the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz lives there,” he says. I look at the gothic spire and close my eyes for a moment, dazzled by all the possibilities of knowing such a thing as a child. Back inside on the counter I spy a guide to Greece where they’ll be traveling his summer. How can they want to leave this space for one minute, I wonder. On a low slung marble coffee table- in the center sitting area, are careful clusters and contraptions his son has made from Lego. One can see them busily creating- in one medium or the other- the entire afternoon here, as the light pours in through the expansive windows. I eye the grey velvet sofa in front of the coffee table enviously: it has Merchant Ivory feel to it with a dash of Tim Burton. I asked Pieter where he found it, praying it’s from Design Within Reach or from some easily found vendor. “Oh I made it,” he answers humbly. Of course. Child’s play.

Don’t Fence Me In

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 21:02:48 +0000

Last week I stopped by our former neighbor’s house to return a video. It felt very old fashioned: returning a video in person and making a visit out of it. This couple- George and Kay- are in their 70s, and as vibrant as can be. He is probably the world’s most prominent animal conservationist and she the amazing woman who makes all the ships and trains leave on time as George tends to visit countries the way most of us do supermarkets. The video was a recent National Geographic special on George. It was fun to see him on screen saving animals in places like China, Brazil, Tibet, Alaska and then the next day live and in person in his potting shed where he was repairing the roof himself. When we used to live next door I always knew George was home from one his trips because he’d be out pushing a hand mower for hours at a time with the elegant intensity of a poet composing a sonnet. At first I wondered why didn’t he have someone else do it? Then I realized, he did it because it instantly connected him back to his own soil. It literally grounded him.
Their house- a converted tobacco barn which used to be part of our original property- has not changed since they moved into it back in the 70s. When we first arrived in Roxbury, we looked at their back lawn which seamlessly bordered ours and wondered if the lack of fencing would make for bad neighbors. And then we met Kay. She strode over bearing flowers from her garden. As time passed, we reaped the joyful benefits of the clear view of her lovely roses and flox bending in the wind.
Kay became like a second grand mother. If I was a few minutes late coming home for the school bus- which deposited my boys smack in front of our side by side mailboxes- I’d call her panicked. “Do not worry,” she’d always say. “I will be there.” She could see our yard from hers and I slept peacefully knowing that she had spent many a winter night along with George out in the field somewhere far, far away. With my own husband working night shifts and two little boys sleeping down the hall, I would often calm myself by thinking: “Kay has been here for over thirty years and she’d didn’t even have a generator. If she could do it, so can I.” The women raised two boys in Africa. They had lion cubs for pets. I was truly a pathetic excuse for a corresponding country girl but Kay never let on.
One night she telephoned in earnest, urging us come over and witness a plant she had in her living room that bloomed only once a year. It was one of the few times I ever saw her entertain. Despite the fact that she was a wonderful conversationalist, she always seem to prefer the company of her dogs. Unless it was my sons’ birthday parties and then she always accepted the invitation. My boys loved all the animal pictures and memorabilia around the house and how the plants were allowed to grow wherever they felt like it. Here there was no surface too precious for a child- or animal- to touch or sit upon.
My sons always hurried friends over to show off George’s cement imprint of “Big Foot” which George claims was found just after the famous footage of the beast running away from the camera. As many times as he was interrupted by the scurry of urgent foot steps, George told the story afresh to lots of wide young eyes bent eagerly upwards.
Sitting down now and chatting with Kay, I saw nothing had changed except the plants had grown up in even crazier twists. She pushed off some dog blankets on the sofa to make room for me. Instead of looking at my watch and thinking about the next thing I had to do, I sat and stayed. I knew visits like this wouldn’t happen much anymore. Yes, she was only 15 minutes away from our new house but neighbors enjoy a special privileges that get lost no matter how strong the bond once distance is inserted into the equation. The black poodle who sauntered up wasn’t Deliah, Kay’s original beloved dog, but her daughter. Kay walked me out to the garden and showed me the careful grave they had planted with flowers on top. “These will eventually cover Deliah nicely,” she told me simply. From here, I could see the swing set where my boys used to play. The new owners had chosen to keep it. Now I was on the other side of the meadow looking back at my life and it was all I could do not to gulp back the tears. Time was passing so fast.
When we showed potential buyers our house many always asked why we hadn’t ever erected as fence between our land and Kay and George’s.
I didn’t knew where to begin. The sight of Kay picking tomatoes in anticipation of George’s arrival home? George looking up from his lawn mower to throw a hearty wave in my boys’ direction? Or the time I apologized when we bought a drum set for one son and an electric guitar for the other. “Are you kidding me?” Kay said, when I promised her we wouldn’t be too loud. “We love it!”
Why hadn’t we built a fence? If they only knew.

Born Free

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:25:53 +0000

Watching the new “Babies” documentary I wasn’t just struck by the united cuteness of the four babies we traced over a year’s course- from Mongolia, Africa, Japan and San Francisco respectively- but by their vastly different habitats and how their acceptance to their natural environments- be it hut or glass skyscraper- bucks our belief that as parents, we must provide a germ-free, highly-entertaining shelter only unto which they will thrive. The babies in South Africa had nary a book, toy or even a piece of furniture in sight. The women, who ruled their roost with a milky breast and and a merry laugh, never seemed to move from their seated spots outside. With their huts as their chair backs and the uncovered ground as their cushions, they chatted with each other while the babies tottled over, nursed and romped in the dirt in front of them. The babies often used their siblings as jungle gyms. Embraced dog’s licking tongues in lieu of stuffed animals. No Goodnight Moon here or baby bumpers. At one point a baby, looking for some entertainment, finds an animal bone and with a Georgia O’Keefe intensity, holds it up to the sky before happily gnawing on it.
The Mongolian baby’s domed hut- while small- was strangely beautiful inside with an Oriental carpet laid across the floor and rose patterned silky fabrics draped across the rudimentary walls as if the parents, knowing their baby would lack for playthings, would have beauty to entertain its eye. The baby was more or less free to roam at will- often he’d survey his farm- with herds of cows deftly stepping over his little diape-rless body- with the pride of a king observing his opulent kingdom.
Robert Novogratz from Sixx design- and father of seven children- has upped his brood and moved them from one fabulously renovated Manhattan house to another. If any kids in the world have been exposed to great design and style, it is the Novogratzs. Basketball courts on roof tops, bowling alleys in basements, they’ve seen it all. One time the family had to rent a rather dumpy place while waiting for their new pad to be finished. The saving grace for the kids was an old gum ball machine in the lobby. Novogratz writes that the kids still talk about that magical time at the apartment because of that gum ball machine.
One year, just before Memorial Day weekend, we heard from a real estate agent that someone very much wanted to rent our lake house for the entire summer. They would pay us enough that it merited looking at whatever inventory was left on the lake to rent ourselves. There’s was one left: a moldy, dark, WASP-y cottage, surrounded by gloomy pine trees on the outside and acres of green shag carpeting, shaggier furniture and appliances from the Carter administration within. Eric and I looked at each other and shook our heads. It wasn’t worth leaving our sunny haven across the water. Above our heads we could hear the boys merrily running to and from the bed rooms that housed creaky bunk beds tucked under slanted ceilings with peeling paint. “Time to go!” we called.
They ran down the crooked little staircase and breathlessly asked: “We’re already leaving?” We explained. “But why?!” they cried, “This place is great!!!”

First Love

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:13:20 +0000

You never forget your first love. In my case, a cosy one bedroom cottage in West Hollywood on a oversized plot of back yard that felt more like a jungle, (especially to this East Coast girl) plush with banana and jacaranda trees. Tucked away in its back parameter, the bonus addition of a little studio with a plenty of dreamy light to conjure up screenplays that never saw the dark of afternoon matinees. The house - our house, once- was always there in my mind- easily plucked whenever anyone referenced it. But it was set in broad strokes: its curious blue exterior (did we choose that hue or inherited it from the previous owners?) and the daily sounds: the squish our obsessive neighbor made as her clogs crushed already too-green grass whenever she went out to water it.
But here now were minute details of each Hansel and Gretel sized room I had long forgotten. I had photographed every corner with the calculated distance of a real estate agent. But the documentation was out of pure pride. This was our first house that we actually owned— pre-children— and we had all the time (although sadly, not budget) to fuss and arrange the few good pieces around we had to perfection. When I came across these prints (during the Herculean task of scanning) I at first refused to take the trip down memory lane: I preferred to stay curbside and simply appreciate its exterior image at the top of the photo pile, complete with our cat Miles sleeping soundly out front. I simply didn’t have the energy to tour its rooms again- this time as a mere house guest. It felt too long ago. But slowly, I entered. Shot after shot, I observed the remote selves we once were and what habits and tastes we had: we both drunk coffee back then. We like dried flowers. Oh, that wedding present. It was all there. And yet it wasn’t. Still too far away. At the bottom of the stack was a picture of me on the first night we celebrated occupancy in the house. There I am at the rickety gray picnic table, (which the previous owners were more than happy to leave behind) proudly staring in to the camera Eric held, a dinner of lobster and corn on the cob resplendent before me. It was just us. I look so ready to take over the life of this house. When we sold it, 5 years later the woman who would claim it - when she thought I was out of ear shot- pointed at the same table when she toured with her decorator and ordered: ” And that’s got to go.” I remember now when I babysat the pre teen daughter of my boss one afternoon. He was an extremely busy movie agent and my job once she was out of school was to entertain her for a few hours. So once I took her to our house because we had seen every movie and she hated shopping. I felt very self conscious, sitting at that picnic table- its surface stained from the crushed walnuts the squirrels hurled down from above- eating take-out sandwiches while parrots squawked and darted in groups under the giant banana leaves. The week before I had been at her Beverly Hills home- a massively scaled affair filled with grand furniture that deserved its own agent. Staff scurried quietly in the background and I thought of my noisy parrots back home like a flock of unruly children.
She had wanted a tour of my house and it took about five minutes. I then returned her to her father’s office, feeling strangely inadequate. “That’s what LA will do to you,” said a friend on the phone that night from Manhattan.
A month later, after I left my job to pursue writing full time, I found a note fluttering on our front door. It was from my boss- I immediately recognized his familiar confident scrawl: “Susanna, I heard so much about the house from Jessica, we wanted to stop by and say hi.” I wondered what he had thought, driving up our little block, crowded with quaint homes and driveways just big enough to hold a Jetta. (His own driveway was a good minute of uphill pursuit and his garage held cars for every occasion.) What had she told him? Maybe her memory and his expectation were an exact match, but I doubted it. I folded the note into my pocket, knowing I’d most likely never see them again. And then, I instinctively reached out and patted my house.

Last Stand

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:14:59 +0000

It was the old truck that finally got me. I was fine moving out of our old house to move permanently to the lake. Its rooms were empty now. I noticed UPS was already leaving packages to the new owners as though I had never been there. Enough time had passed that I was able to thoughtfully process leaving behind a place where my boys had spent much of their childhoods: the 200 hundred year old trees that had dutifully served as their bases for endless rounds of baseball games, the brook we had discovered our first week after clearing the overgrown vines above it, only to spend the next ten years jumping across it’s merry waters. On the last day, I took a picture of my big boys producly standing in front of the treehouse my husband had so lovingly built by hand as soon as he came home from night shifts working at the hospital. I didn’t event cry. We were now in a new place we loved. We still were all together. Life was good.
After one last ride on the zip line my son said ” This house has been such a great home. It’s been so good to us.” (Leave it to a child to sum up a moment more eloquantly than an adult ever could.)
But it was the sight of that forlorn black pick up truck awaiting to be picked up by the public radio donation center that suddenly ripped thru me like a lightening storm. That truck was bought long ago for a song- Eric needed it for endless trips of clearing brush on the property as well as trips to the dump (and of course he just wanted a pick up truck). The local garage guy warned him it wouldn’t last more than a few weeks but here we are years later and it still does. I remember the boys- so little- sitting cozily in its back cab- cramming Saturday morning donuts into ther mouths with pretend tool belts while Eric blasted an old Johnny Cash casette because the radio never worked. I know more family days are ahead but these magical ones of young family life are undeniably now passed.
I never cared for the truck much then. I’d secretly wipe down its chaotic interior and try to doll it up but there was no fighting it. It was the boys’ zone and I eventually succumbed to its inevitable presence. Now the idea that it will soon be no more than scrap metal is suddenly and irrevocably breaking my heart.

What If?…

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:20:02 +0000

When is an entry hall not an entry hall? When it’s a living room. Or laundry room. Or wait, maybe a library? My husband and I have successul and succinctly embarked on many a renovation- some small, others large- for both ourselves and others. So now why when we need it the most are we at the biggest loss to figure it out? As we circle round our existing floor plan again and again playing the “What If” game, I keep thinking we are trapped in some weird existential parlor game, rather than a basic renovation of our home. It’s major merging of left and right brain sides. The masculine laser focus of “let’s go out and do this thing” merged with the feminine: “But wait! Where do I keep the wrapping paper?” (Not too sound too Candy Spelling but I do have needs.) As soon as we envision one configuraiton, another one shimmers through with a fresh set of pros and cons. Eric frets over roof lines. I over that there isn’t a proper mud room. Five minutes later, we have three mud rooms and no pantry. And on and on it goes. “You keep obsessing about a white round table in the entry way!” he says. “Well you keep talking about where the bartender is going to stand at the Christmas party!” I counter. “And we have’t even had one in five years!”
I know these are pretty problems to have but still…it doesn’t help to think that as soon as they are solved and their finite solutions etched onto detailed drawings, the trucks will roll in and the noise and chaos will begin.

Miniature Dreams

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 01:06:35 +0000

At a shoot today, I spied an enormous old dollhouse an antiques dealer had propped in his window as a way to display his smaller wares. With items like wooden hands, vases and even a wooden decoy duck decorating its peeled and neglected rooms, the once grand house now resembled something Tim Burton would play with, more than Nancy Allen, the previous owner who had jubilantly scrawled her name across the house’s backside however many years ago. I wonder if Nancy is still alive and if she remembers her playhouse’s former incarnation with the same vivid detail I can recall of my own doll house. Mine wasn’t half as large and grand (metal, with painted rooms that pre-dictated the furnishings that belonged there) but I do remember one day, after a particularily busy “housekeeping” session with my dolls and meager furnishings, proudly etching my name on the floor of the kitchen in marker.
I don’t remember my dollhouse causing me to dream to be an ideal “homemaker,” (I wanted actually to be a top advertising executive with a house in the South of France) which I’m sure was the intention of many a toy manufactuer back then. (Why didn’t they think to make hospitals or office buildings where we girls could play doctor, vet or CEO?) My best friend Holly’s fancier wood doll house spurred some envy but at the end of the day, I was happy shuttling my little family from one predictable room to the next.
Today, looking into Nancy’s barren rooms, where cobwebs now shared space with strange collectibles, I felt a pang of nostalgia, not just for wearing pig tails but for how easy it was to think that’s all life was. You got a house, you filled it with a husband, two children and some furniture.
I look around my real home and family now with much love and appreciation and hope Nancy can say the same for the way her life turned out. For some reason when I close my eyes tonight I feel like I will envision her house. Not as it is. But as it was. Scrubbed and ready for imaginary visitors. Little fingers making sure everything is perfect. And a signature, declaring it was.

Invisible Guests

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:39:23 +0000

There’s something about staying in a stranger’s vacation abode when you yourself are on vacation. As impersonal and theme-appropriate the decor may be (for skiing: the prerequesite Navajo pillow, brown leather and Western art) I can’t help but wonder what the real owners are like and what the decor is where they currently are. (If at the beach then: perhaps loads of wicker, blue and white plaid and white coral on the fireplace mantel).
It’s hard not to have imaginary dialogues with these people about certain choices that have been made whether they be small (”Pillows embroidered with gold pine cones: are you sure about that?”) or large (don’t you want your master bedroom to face the montain as opposed to the hot tub?) but at the end of the day, you can either let the fact that the bathroom has a green shag bath mat throw you, or forge on and appreciate that you’re in a beautiful spot, framed-photographs-of-elk-be-damned.
As I haughtily make little notes around the ski condo, I can’t help but think that so too, have renters done the same of my home, when we vacated it for a summer. (”Did she really need that faux ocelot throw on the family room sofa?!”) and that they are as powerless to see their changes ever imlemented, as I am now. In a few more days, more strangers will replace me in these same rooms and perhaps laud the very details I find fault with. It’s our perogative as renters after all: to take hold of a place temporarily and suspend belief that it is yours.