Opened in 1921 by Helen and Ed Power, the Nut Tree was, according to the press, a “culinary and curio oasis in a desert of endless roadway.” With furniture commissioned from Charles Eames and artwork by Wayne Thiebaud the restaurant was light years ahead of its Pacific Standard Time – every detail from the furniture the the dishware to the way the food was presented was art-directed by Don Birrell, the Nut Tree’s head designer from 1953 to 1990. ”We had a master plan for everything, from the design of the billboards to landscape architecture, interior design to the way food was arranged on the plate,” Birrell says. “We wanted to create a certain feeling, make people remember us.” Get the whole story »
This month sees the opening of DECODENCE: Legendary Interiors and Illustrious Travelers Aboard the SS Normandie. Given my passion for all things early twentieth century, it’s been a total joy to work on developing this project with the Seaport Museum!
For those of you who don’t pore over out-of-print decorative arts textbooks and google things like “Japanning techniques” and “lost Jean Henri Riesener pieces”, the SS Normandie was a magnificent ocean liner and the pride of the French Line in the 1930′s. Get the whole story »
I love old industrial cage lighting fixtures and fans. Just purchased a whole bunch for our redesign of the legendary Blue Parrot in East Hampton, set to reopen on Memorial Day weekend. Read more about the Parrot’s fabled history in this sad farewell by Forbes’ James Brady in 2005. After four years, The Blue Parrot reopens with a motley crew of former notorious patrons-turned-investors. So much fun to be able to work on this “Dirty Mexican” project from the ground up! Get the whole story »
Spent a good bit of time in a Turkish Hamam recently. While I’m quite partial to a dry sauna I have to say the Swedes lose this particular design face-off hands down. Modern or ancient, the Turkish Baths are pretty easy on the eyes.
Apparently, at one time the “backscrubbers” who worked in the baths were young boys who doubled as sex workers… and the punishment for a man entering the women’s bathing rooms was death. Slightly more civilized today, you can still get your rocks off looking at some of these arches. The Turks cut a mean ogee.
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I’m lovin’ George Nelson’s swag leg home desk. His whole swag collection is pretty sweet (more pics after the break) but this one is top of the pile.
Swaging – using pressure to taper and curve a metal tube – is a signature of the range that he designed for ease of transortation and construction. Apparently the legs come off quite easily for shipping but are incredible strong. You just gotta love these mid-century utilitarian minds. Never was some chrome tubing so soft on the eye.
I’m not a huge fan of his wall clocks or marshmallow sofa, but Nelson’s work for Herman Miller was forever perfect, especially the two other non-swag desks coming up below…
Available at the MoMA store and Sam Flax.
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Fantastic timely and mood-dependent necklace by Mark Pawson. It’s a big question under the candy-colored plastic letters. Really depends on the day I suppose…
Available HERE.
I can’t decide whether I love or hate these Japanese dome homes. Apparently they are quite eco-friendly, natural disaster-resistant, and egalitarian. I kind of like the sauna and watering hole executions…
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I keep a little of file of great rooms I’d like to sit around in for a while. Here are a few.
I first visited Chichén-Itzá about six years ago and cannot fathom why the entire United States is not obsessed with this major mystical and architectural wonder located a mere 1500 miles from downtown New York City. Perhaps it’s the Mayan blood I have running through my veins, but I’m pretty proud that while Europe was still in the midst of the Dark Ages, these amazing people had mapped the heavens, evolved the only true writing system native to the Americas, and became masters of mathematics. They invented the calendars we use today. Without metal tools, beasts of burden or even the wheel they were able to construct vast cities across a huge jungle landscape with an amazing degree of architectural perfection and variety. The Chichén Itzá complex is unbelievably extensive and includes ancient temples, pyramids, steambaths, sacred watering holes, a marketplace, and a mindblowing observatory. Their legacy in stone, which has survived in a spectacular fashion at places such as Chichén Itzá, (and Palenque, Tikal, Tulum, and Copan), lives on as do the seven million descendants of the classic Maya civilization – including me!
Given this insanely rich history, and its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it astounds me that most people I know have never heard of one of the greatest (and conveniently located) Pre-Columbian centers our hemisphere has ever known. So next time you are planning a long weekend in Cancun, rent a car and take a drive 150 miles down the coast, drop your bags off at the magical, sustainable, and impeccably green Hacienda Chichén, and educate yourself, man.
James Burden is known for little more than marrying Florence Sloane, the daughter of William D. Sloane, a rug and furniture magnate and a descendant of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. That marriage resulted in Adele’s father commissioning the James Burden Mansion for his daughter and her new husband, and giving New York City one of its more underexposed Beaux-Arts gems.
Daddy William Sloane also purchased an adjoining parcel and built a second mansion for his daughter Emily when she married her husband John Hammond. Andrew Carnegie lived in the mansion next door (now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.) Upon Mr. Burden’s death, Mrs. Burden remarried, leasing house to John Jacob Astor VI, who had been born in 1912, shortly after his mother, Madeleine Astor, was rescued from the sinking Titanic. In 1916, banking magnate Otto Kahn bought the corner lot and built the Otto Kahn mansion on it. Quite a Peyton Place. Get the whole story »
