Wythe on the Waterfront...

Fancy some home-made ice-cream in your hotel room bar fridge? No problem for the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg. In fact add Marlow & Sons granola to that. There is even a house butcher. Sound amazing enough? Just another major dosage of cool in the borough. Additionally, the farm-to-table restaurant Reynards, has an open-air kitchen centered around a wood-fired oven and grill. And naturally, say-no-more with regard to that floor...

Read more at TheNYTimes

R.E.M.

Oh my. CANNOT sleep at the moment. And I appear to be immune to natural sleep aids. But, perhaps this setting could do the trick...

Via here

Gaia

I often drive into the most blighted neighborhoods of Baltimore in the hope of spotting a work of art by Gaia. A few weeks ago, I almost rear-ended the Jeep in front of me when I caught sight of a rooster cradling the head of John the Baptist...

 Photo by Craig Strydom and via here

Gentleman-ly...

I can find absolutely no fault in this room whatsoever. Sheer masculine perfection...

Via here

Aesop, Greenwich Village

With walls made of felt and a spectacular sink salvaged from Bethlehem Steel’s 140-year-old plant in Pennsylvania, the Greenwich Village Aesop is a master class in the economy of design... 

Photos: Juliana Sohn for Aesop (via here)

Compatible

The perfect mix of time-honored and contemporary...

Image via here

Don't try this at home...

Photo via Tumblr

Ham House

John Evelyn, diarist, 27 August 1678:

After dinner I walked to Ham, which is inferior to few of the best villas in Italy itselfe.

The house is furnishd like a great Prince's.

Just one in a series of grand houses and palaces alongside the River Thames - the utterly magnificent Ham House is a seventeenth century treasure trove. Here is just a minute sampling...

The Green Closet miniatures and cabinet pictures

Queen Elizabeth I (Nicholas Hilliard)

Looking into 'The Green Closet'

Read more here and here

Glass House II

Love the glass cloches too...

Via here

Glass House

What an apartment this would make...

Photo via here

Our House at the end of our Street (Finale)

After months of cleaning, packing and prep, Settlement Day was finally upon us (Settlement Day, like D-Day, is being written in caps due to the monumentality of occasion in my head). We arrived at the empty house only to find that our names had been removed from the mailbox by the mailman. "Indignant" is an understatement, but then it dawned on me. "Let it go. Relinquish the reins. Cede. Surrender and yield" (battle terminology courtesy of the above-mentioned D-Day analogy).

So hard.

I had a tome planned for the final posting on this particular house... but it became so maudlin, sentimental, I thought I would spare you. However, I do feel like I have lost a limb.

It has been said that...

You never really leave a place or person you love, part of them you take with you, leaving a part of yourself behind.

While working on...

A final posting about our house in Baltimore, I found an image of what has to be one of my favorite rooms of all time: in Hugo Guinness' Brooklyn home...

Vogue Living

With walls like these...

Who needs furniture...

Via Yatzer (Palazzo Martelli, Firenze, 2008 | photo © Massimo Listri)

Giant Heads

Couldn't resist. Les Géants du Nord (Giants of the North) by Robert Doisneau...

Storage

Via Anthropologie (and beautifully styled as always)...

Our House at the end of our Street (XI)

I realized when reading my post from yesterday... that it erred slightly on the side of being random (given the image and the writing didn't quite correlate). Put it down to zero sleep and beside-myself-anxiety about the impending box 'n pack. Well, the packers arrived this morning in the teeniest truck I have ever seen... literally out of a scene from Noddy. I thought Big-ears may emerge and as I was about to simply faint in front of the foreman, he assured me that today was all about packing and wrapping. Tomorrow would focus on LOADING and then the mother of all trucks would dwarf the road. 

Alrighty then... as I ingest my 17th Advil to alleviate a packing-tape-being-pulled-and-snapped-induced migraine... and pour myself a G&T.

Couldn't have been nicer. Back again tomorrow.

Earnestly contemplating tissue paper for yet ANOTHER breakable

Not the clearest image, but look... boxes with legs and the red carpet.

This is the last night in our dear old dame (house). While she isn't photo-worthy this evening (will post the last few pics next week), here is a GORGEOUS vintage image of my Mount Vernon...

Not sure of the origin or date of this photograph (possibly via The Library of Congress)

Musings

On a rainy night...

Via here

Repetition

In a rather spectacular fashion...

Via here

Babylonstoren, South Africa (Encore)

Ever-evolving, this marvelous escape-from-reality in the Cape has added more sensory and culinary experiences and even managed to eclipse its previous perfection....

Greenhouse/conservatory that doubles as a teahouse

The Wine Tasting Space

Cheese Shop

Charcuterie Shop

Via Yatzer

Crated

Sorry to be so monosyllabic at the start of this week... a rather 'cray-cray' weekend of packing, sorting, crying and 'well-I-never-ing'. Promise to be a little more verbose in posts to come, once those moving vans have left...

Via here 

1. Paris, France: Statue of Liberty in Paris crated for shipment to the United States. 1887.

2. The Colossal Head of Bavaria in the Nave of the Crystal Palace by Philip Henry Delamotte. 1854

Going Dutch

As seen in Elle Decor (Amsterdam). Photographed by Paul Barbera...

Via Desire To Inspire and Paul Barbera

Ven House

The conservatory in Jasper Conran’s country estate, Ven House in Milborne Port, Somerset - as featured in The World of Interiors. Sigh...

Via here

Our House at the end of our Street (X)

Casual Thursday. A practically impromptu spring lunch. Just before everyone arrived, I snapped a few pics. In the background, are two of the panels that make up the gorgeous triptych given to me by the extraordinary David Wiesand. These depict the E. Sachse & Co. lithograph of Mount Vernon Place and the Washington Monument (circa 1850) - in the Baltimore neighborhood I have been living in for the past seven years. What a wonderful reminder they will be of my talented friend, and my beloved 'hood'...