Nesting in my apartment

I've had a lot of changes in my apartment recently which is strange because aren't we meant to nest in preparation for winter and not spring? Regardless I thought I'd share some of these upgrades as they're really quite exciting for me!

A few months ago I purchased this antique armchair from an estate sale which had last been upholstered in the early 1960s.  While the fabric was nice in its own way (an embroidered silk) it was not quite to my taste and rather dirty.

Upon the recommendation of my friend Michele from the blog My Notting Hill I checked out Haute Fabrics in Ballston, Virginia (a DC suburb). There I found this lovely hand printed linen with a subtle paisley fabric that I just loved. I also found Urban Castle Interior Solutions who proved to be an excellent upholsterer after my last one had sadly retired. I worried it would perhaps be a little bland but I have such a random assortment of things that I love in this room that I thought the neutral tones would tie everything together.

At the same time I purchased this lovely Safavieh rug which really anchors the space. This is my living room in a 1 bedroom apartment so I really LIVE in here!

Now I have a comfy chair in which to read and relax which anchors this corner of the room- just what I always wanted! Now I just have to start looking for the perfect sofa to replace my underscaled loveseat (so no comments about that!).
I received no compensation for this post -just sharing some excellent resources! Picture quality is lacking because these were taken with my phone.

Exciting News: Kips Bay 2014

Exciting news has just been released about the 2014 Kips Bay showhouse. Not only will it be held within one of the 1884 Villard Houses by the famed architectural firm of McKim, Meade, and White but the list of designers selected is stellar!  Much of the rest of the building is the New York Palace hotel which looks stunning (in case you need someplace to stay while visiting the showhouse!)

The list of talented designers with links to their websites are as follows:
Carrier & Company Interiors Ltd.
Christopher Peacock
Cullman & Kravis Inc.
Darryl Carter, Inc.
Edward Lobrano Interior Design, Inc.
Ingrao Inc.
John Douglas Eason Interiors
Juan Montoya Design
Kirsten Kelli, LLC
Mark Hampton LLC
Markham Roberts Inc.
Martyn Lawrence Bullard
Matthew Quinn
Mendelson Group, Inc.
Meyer Davis Studio, Inc
ODADA (Orlando Diaz-Azcuy Design Associates)
Robin Sacks Decorative Painting
SPAN Architecture
Vincente Wolf Associates
Villalobos Desio
William T. Georgis Architect
Young Huh, LLC

Stay tuned for more details and a history of the structure. The house will be open to the public May 1 until May 29th - I'll see you there!

David Mayernik lecture in Georgetown

Join the Washington Mid-Atlantic chapter of the ICAA in welcoming David Mayernik, architecture professor at Notre Dame, author, urban planner, artist, and architect,  to Georgetown to discuss his latest book The Challenge of Emulation in Art and Architecture. I've been told by his former students that he is a charismatic and inspirational speaker!

Emulation in the classical tradition was a challenging middle ground between imitating and inventing.  The disappearance of emulation fissured artistic production in the later 18th century into either copying the past or continually seeking novelty, approaches confirmed in the 19th century and mostly taken for granted today. Mayernik will show instead how emulation operated for artists and architects of the Renaissance and Baroque, and will describe his own process of emulation as an argument for its recovery today.

Find details on the event scheduled for Thursday March 13, 2014 on the website HERE. Hope to see you there!

Classic style doesn't date

 As you well know I'm a firm believer that classic style doesn't date.  An example of this is a room by talented designers Tom Fox and Joe Nahem from the 1980s when they decorated the dining room of the Castles on the Sound showhouse (featured in the book Interior Visions).

Working with the great bones of the space, mahogany paneling and a stone fireplace surround, they re-envisioned the formal dining room for everyday use TODAY (or at least 1980s today). Beautiful classic furniture, art, and objects create a space that anyone would be happy using in 1980 or 2014. How many times have you redecorated your own living or dining room since 1980 and at what cost? Do we need any more reason to shun the overtly trendy and revel in classic style

Public spaces of the Biltmore hotel, Arizona

The Arizona Biltmore is not only a hotel as I've mentioned but a huge resort regularly used for conferences, weddings, and other events. Many of these spaces are original to the hotel and in the main building and I thought I'd share them with you here today!

One of the first rooms one comes upon while entering the hotel is the Aztec Room which was designed as a lounge and theater in the original to the 1929 hotel.

Featuring a spectacular gold leaf ceiling, 2 fireplaces, garden access, and a curtained stage, no wonder this is so popular for weddings!

One of the 2 unusual fireplaces in the Aztec Room.

The Gold Room off the lobby was originally designed as the main dining room and also features a stunning gold leafed ceiling.

Much larger than the Aztec room it also features french doors out to a terrace.

I love the unusual shape to these windows!

This beautiful wood and metal screen was near the entry.

Two enormous murals featuring Native American scenes add color to the room flanking the wall of glass.

As you can see the room is enormous!

Upon entering the hotel you don't enter directly into the main 2 story lobby but rather a discrete anteroom which features an unusual water feature built of the textile blocks. Here you can see how some of the textile blocks are actually glass and provide ambient light.

Also in the lobby is a stained glass window designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1927 (Saguaro Forms and Cactus) and donated to the hotel by his wife after his death.

One of numerous hotels is named after the architect who inspired the design, Wright's.

This pleasant sunny space was at one point the hotel's sun lounge or conservatory. It also features a gold leafed ceiling and pleasant garden views as well as an enormous terrace.

This pretty little garden is the view from the restaurant.

And rising above the restaurant is the hotel itself. Notice the unusual pierced roof overhang above.

The hotel has become a campus and the outbuildings which host conferences, apartments, and other guest rooms are designed in the same Wright'ian style incorporating his textile blocks. As you can see despite the warm weather the trees do loose their leaves which surprised me!  This brings to an end my sharing of the Biltmore Hotel but I will be bringing you Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West shortly!

Window boxes

What do you think of window boxes? In most cases they're left derelict and forlorn -nude of any planting. In some cases I've seen them planted with horrible plastic flowers! However in Quebec City I came across these delightful planters full of creeping red (live) flowers -aren't these charming? Just something to remind us all that spring is on the way!

Santos Museum of Economic Botany

Sometimes museums which might sound rather dull (to design aficionados such as myself) can be held in the most astonishingly beautiful buildings. Such is the case with the Santos Museum of Economic Botany at the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide, Australia which my penpal recently sent to me.

This little classical gem of a building from 1879 was just extensively and sensitively renovated. The structure wasn't built as the Greek temple it resembles but rather as the science museum it remains.

The ceiling is a good example of how the Victorians were able to meld together decorative detailing with highly detailed and rather commercial looking steel structure. I love the gilded mechanical vent. If you can't hide it -make a feature of it!

The collections themselves are just as decorative as the building - these rather amazing Victorian models of mushrooms above are entirely made of wax! I remember even as a child going to the Buhl Planetarium in Pittsburgh which at the time was the science museum (now the Children's museum of Pittsburgh) and being more interested in the beautiful building than in the exhibits themselves. Design inspiration can come from the most surprising places, no?

Arizona Biltmore cottages

Nestled in the garden courtyard of the Arizona Biltmore hotel are a number of textile block cottages.  These date to the original construction of the hotel in 1929 and believe it or not, were designated for guest's children and nannies to keep them from under foot. Today they are the most desirable addresses within the resort.

The lush grounds are as perfect as a golf course and in fact hold a number of putting greens within their bounds. Each cottage is different and of varying sizes but I especially liked this low slung version above.

I overheard a guest excitedly telling some friends how the hotel had placed him in one of these cottages as the rooms were all full in order to fulfill his reservation. He had a living room, dining room, kitchen, and 2 bedrooms at his disposal (as opposed to one rather standard sized hotel room, no matter how luxurious)!

Those were some lucky nannies! Like the hotel itself the roofs of these bungalows function as terraces.

 The original cantilevered copper awnings are rather spectacular.

 As it is a garden in the midst of a desert water features are to be found everywhere.

 This lush greenery wouldn't be out of place in Beverly Hills or Greenwich.

A number of the larger cottages are actually split into separate units, accessed at different points to remain private.

 I love the textile blocks with copper detailing which are a great foil to the lush vegetation.

Don't forget to visit the cottage court if you find yourself at the Arizona Biltmore!

Hidden from view

I came across this identical row of townhouses on a side street in Georgetown recently which I had never noticed before. They're fairly nondescript row-houses of the type to be found all over the city but it's interesting to see how they have changed in the past century. All have been painted and one in particular has a sort of 'Grey Gardens' vibe to it. While I think this is rather wonderful in its way I'm sure the neighbors don't think so! While I work on lengthier posts while life continually gets in the way, what do you think of this type of 'garden' or lack of gardening?

Arizona Biltmore Hotel

Sitting here in snow and ice it's hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago I was in paradise or at least the closest thing in winter: Phoenix, Arizona! One of the most well known sites in Phoenix is the Arizona Biltmore Hotel resort.

While many believe that Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect of the Biltmore Hotel it was actually Albert Chase McArthur, a mentee of Wrights and formerly in his employ. Frank Lloyd Wright consulted on the design for 4 months in 1928 which included his textile blocks. The hotel opened in 1929.

Wright developed these concrete textile blocks 6 years earlier for use in Los Angeles. Concrete blocks are formed with decorative patterns which give these buildings their distinctive appearance.

Oddly enough Wright did not get his way for once in design matters; the blocks here were designed as rectangles rather than Wright's squares by McArthur's insistence.

The grounds are exquisitely manicured as you can see in these pictures. The hotel sits in a desert but you'd never know it by the amount of surrounding green.

To take advantage of these grounds and the glorious winter weather all of the roofs function as patios for the rooms offering views of the grounds and in some cases the mountains beyond.

 The copper detailing mimics the textile block pattern.

Across the main entrance one can see the Wrigley mansion perched on a hill which is now owned by the resort and used as a private club.

 Some of these large roofs have nearly enough room to play a game of football!

The views are breathtaking. As you can see in some of the photos the resort has expanded from the main building over the years to include other wings and buildings - all designed in the same Wright-ian Prairie style.

Replicas of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Sprites" from his Midway Gardens project in Chicago (1915) dot the grounds as do many other Wrightian references.

 Can you imagine spending an entire winter here as people were wont to do in the 1930s & 40s?

 The textile blocks are a great backdrop to the vegetation.

 While visiting don't miss the fabulous swimming pool where Marilyn Monroe was often photographed.

 No detail is overlooked at the resort, not even the gate to the pool area!

In more recent history Senator John McCain conceded defeat for the Presidency of the United States on the hotel grounds in a newscast ( November 4, 2008) - yet another reason to enjoy the resort!

Inside the spaces are cool and dark. Other than the 2 story lobby spaces ceiling heights are low. Don't forget that although Phoenix can be delightful in the winter the hot summers are brutal and the building responds to that architecturally. Air conditioning was installed in the 1960s enabling the hotel to operate year round.

 These unusual columns surround the lobby, seen here from the second floor.

I loved the art deco mailbox still in use in the lobby.

The stairs throughout the hotel are open and airy. I wonder if the metal railings were added to the textile block guardrail later for code purposes (36" height) or were original?

Detail of the interesting stairs.

The textile blocks are used in many different ways. In some areas they are used as a sort of window with embedded glass (above), in other places they function as light fixtures, while on the exterior they make up the shell of the building.

I'll be bringing you more photos of the grounds of the Arizona Biltmore in future posts as well as my previously promised post on Taliesin West!