Happy Weekend!

It's spelling bee time at Grey Gardens; Stay warm, everyone!

Belmont Mansion

The Belmont mansion, now home to the Order of the Eastern Star's International Temple, is located on an unusual triangular piece of land at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue here in the Dupont circle neighborhood of DC. I've always been fascinated by this building because of it's unusual footprint. a photograph from when the mansion was completed in 1909the mansion seen in the 1920s, behind an old firebell

The mansion was built in the Beaux arts style for Perry Belmont by the French architect Ernest Sanson who did the most grand mansions in France of the time period. Horace Trumbauer was the state side representative who was also the architect of the Elms in Newport, RI that I blogged about last year (you can read the post HERE, it is my favorite mansion in Newport).

the gated entry todaya side view along 18th streetone of the rear rounded corners

The odd shaped lot was $90,000 (a lot for land alone back then!) and the house cost $1.5 MILLION to build and was completed in 1909. The interiors are extremely ornate to this day, so I'm not really surprised at the cost. The home was the headquarters for this past year's Dupont Circle house tour so I was able to see some of the interiors.

the ground floor entrythe grand stairway to the piano nobile

Belmont was a congressman from New York and later became the ambassador to Spain. The house was used to entertain while he was in DC for the winter season. In 1925 Belmont sold the house to the Masons for just $100,000 as he was a member. What a deal as it barely covers the cost of the land!

The plans are fascinating in the way that Sanson dealt with the odd shaped lot. The entry is at the tip of the triangle, making for a very grand entry (a true beaux-arts ideal). Much of the front of the interior is open creating a grand hall and staircase, leading up to the piano nobile and public rooms (technically the '2nd floor'). What is unusual in this plan though, is that the bedrooms for the family are all located on the ground floor - unheard of in those days! The servants rooms are all up in the mansard roof (hidden by a parapet) on the 3rd floor. The main floor

The ground floor plan which has the family and guest bedrooms.

Pics courtesy of NCinDC on flickr

The Mercer Museum

I've already blogged about Fonthill and Mercer Tiles, so now I thought I would show you the showcase of Henry Mercer. Built shortly after his home, Fonthill, he started work on a museum to house his numerous collections of art, tools and Americana. It is a museum, essentially, to the 'hand-made' everyday items that industrialization was pulling us away from. Before we had cars, stereos, ipods and mass-produced clothing and furniture, society had the items displayed here.The building is even more striking than his house. Constructed between 1913 and 1916, the museum reaches 7 stories. An open center atrium was designed to suspend large items and float them for guests to view. Small rooms and alcoves are off the main space with smaller exhibits. Where to look?! Interesting things everywhere! You could spend days here.Of course the building is built entirely of reinforced concrete, same as his other projects and contains over 50,000 artifacts!! The building was created a National Historic Landmark in 1985.

So much to see that it's hard to take it all in!!Here is a fireplace in the museum covered with the famous Mercer tiles.Unlike his home, these windows are framed RIGHT into the concrete, not into wood!

Again -you can visit the museum's website ONLINE. If you are ever in the Philedelphia area, you must visit! It's also a daytrip from NYC as a 2 1/2 hour drive.

In the Pittsburgh Post Gazette!

MacKenzie Carpenter wrote a really interesting article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (my home town!) about some of my favorite bloggers (including me) and the fate of the shelter magazines. Check it out online if you get a chance HERE. One small correction though, I'm actually 28, not 27!

Thanks to the very sweet Heather at Habitually Chic for recommending me to MacKenzie!

ANOTHER dinner.....

Are you sick of these table settings yet? It's just fun for me to share! I had a small, informal movie night & dinner last night for a friend (hi Alex and her mom!). As it was a workday with very little time to get ready, I just used the crockpot for the meal and set the table in just 5 minutes when I got home. I try to keep the silver and china all handy, so it can be taken out at a moment's notice. It just makes even a simple dinner an OCCASION!I bought these new gold thread & linen placemats at pottery barn today ( 75% off!) to make the table less formal than a tablecloth. The same antique irish linen napkins as usual, grandmother's silver, my minton dinner plates and my favorite (use it daily) cuckoo pattery by wedgewood for the salad plate. I think it came together nicely! Instead of candles, I just used my small alabaster lamp (sort of like an old fashioned dinner club!).

We watched the Venus Beauty Institute -a WONDERFULLY fun French movie from 1999 that you should all check out (starring Nathalie Baye and Audrey Tautou). I wish you could all have been there!

Fonthill - a dream house realized

Last week I wrote about Mercer Tiles (read the post HERE) and thought I would share a bit about Fonthill, the home of Henry Mercer (renaissance man!). Fonthill was built between 1908 and 1912 as a realization of Mercer's dream. It took 8 workers and a horse named Lucy to finish the house of reinforced concrete. You can see the arts & crafts movement very strongly in the design. It is stepping away from industrialization and towards a simpler time when everything was made by hand. If you came upon this house, you would think you had stepped into the english countryside and found a home that was built and added upon for generations. It has 44 rooms, 18 fireplaces, 32 stairwells and over 200 windows; Big dream house!

What other type of house would you expect from a gifted tile-maker, archeologist, academic & writer, collector of primitive building tools and architect who was a pioneer in the field of reinforced concrete construction (thats a mouthful!)

As it is concrete in a far from friendly climate, you can see the patchwork that is neccesary to keep the house in one piece due to the freeze and thaw cycles; I think this just adds to the charm though. I love the red painted window frames, don't you? They add so much!

If you were to build your dream house, what would it look like, like Fonthill perhaps?

Visit Fonthill's official website HERE.