Spring Inspiration at High Point Market

Friday, May 18th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

 

 

Spring Market Week at High Point, North Carolina, began with a mountain storm carrying the green scent of Appalachian spring and gusts of cold wind that made me wish for the winter clothes I’d packed away. Though soggy, the season-shifting storm was a perfect reflection of the themes introduced by several taste-making designers. Characterized by freshness, irrepressible creativity, and occasional spring flower tones, their lines put new spins on the classic styles of the past.

 

 

 

 

 

The first showroom I visited was John-Richard, where Florence de Dampierre launched her new line of furniture, fabrics, and accessories, which she describes as “Fresh, French, and Chic.” At her showroom’s entrance, tweaked Tuilerie-style topiaries stood on a console table with marbleized column legs and pumped-up lion’s paw feet.

 

 

 

 

Within the rooms, a squared-off armchair in cobalt blue, also with lion’s paw feet, shared space with a whimsical corner chair with purple upholstery, silver-leaf flourishes, and hints of Louis-XVI lines.

 

 

Among my favorite tabletop pieces were tangerine glazed bowls and trays and celadon green candlesticks shaped, according to your fancy, like branches of coral or upside-down antlers. For more informtion about the line, visit http://www.johnrichard.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another big launch was the Mr. & Mrs. Howard line, co-created by Phoebe and Jim Howard. Manufactured by Sherrill Furniture, the collection reflects the couple’s timeless sense style. The line includes upholstered pieces with classic shapes and updated silhouettes, a romantic turned-wood four-poster bed, side- and coffee tables inspired by Asian, art deco, and modern styles, and more.

 

 

One of the most elegant spaces in the show room, which was designed by Jim, is an oval dining room with a gleaming rosewood pedestal table surrounded by high-backed chairs with tapering legs and cream upholstery. The overall effect skewed equally modern and traditional. View the line at http://www.sherrillfurniture.com/

 

 

 

 

The next stop was Suzanne Kasler’s showroom at Hickory Chair. Suzanne’s love affair with clear colors and clean-lined furniture, whether classic or modern, shone in several vignettes. But sheer springtime exuberance burst loose in a room decorated entirely in white and pink. White rams-head shields posed above painted French-style beds crowned by hangings of rose-colored fabric with a bold foliated pattern, designed by Kasler for Lee Joffa.

 

 

 

 

 

Versatile accent pieces including mirrored cabinets and console tables added glitter to the room. And unabashedly romantic gilded footstools and chairs with quatrefoil backs begged for a place in the boudoir of my dreams. Visit www.hickorychair.com/Furniture/c500055-Suzanne-Kasler.aspx to view the line.

 

Bobby McAlpine was at market for a few days, too, showing his upholstered pieces at MacCrae Designs and case goods at Lee Industries. McAlpine describes his two lines as having “Definite historical reference, reverence—and irreverence in execution.”

 

 

 

 

 

Sexy, sophisticated, familiar, and iconoclastic, his collections are filled with pieces that can be used together in understated modern settings or alone as accents in more traditional homes. To see more, visit http://www.macraedesigns.com/mh_new_collections.html andhttp://leeindustries.com/ProductShowThumbs.asp?Category=159033157016201016181186182193058146086.

 

 

Another noteworthy visit was to Bunny Williams’ BeeLine and the Mirror Image Home showroom next door. Williams launched new collections of mirrors both at Beeline and in a licensed line from Mirror Image.

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by traditions from Neoclassical to Asian, as well as modern design, the new collections include a handsome octagonal mirror, an elegant gilt-and-gesso mirror with Palladian lines, and the stylized Asian Ohm mirror, lacquered in red or grey (all three from BeeLine). VIew at http://bunnywilliams.com/beeline_cat/mirrors/ and http://www.mirrorimagehome.com/home/bunny_williams.html

 

 

 

As the skies darkened, the warm incandescence of the Currey & Co. showroom was irresistible. Within, pendant lights strung with Indian sari-pink beads and blue-baubled chandeliers shone down on floor and table lamps in both traditional and modern styles, including two by Ronda Carman. http://www.curreycodealers.com/

 

 

 

 

Bold, bright, fun, serene, serious, and exuberant, this year’s Market Week inspired the desire to go home and do some spring cleaning, getting rid of a little—but not all—of the old and adding something new.

 

 

 

Filed under: decorative objects, furniture, Uncategorized

Coming Home

Wednesday, Mar 28th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

 

Last year, I had the honor to co-author a book with Jim Strickland and the architects of Historical Concepts [http://www.historicalconcepts.com]  entitled Coming Home: The Southern Vernacular House, released by Rizzoli International Publications this March.

 

 

 

Historical Concepts has been designing houses–and even whole towns–inspired by the beauty, charm, and traditional craftsmanship of the old South for decades. While the firm also creates more formal residences paying homage to the region's Classical traditions, this book focuses on designs that take cues from the South's rural cottages, modest plantation homes, and small towns. If you are not already familiar with Historical Concepts' work, this is your opportunity to enter their world and come home to the heart of Southern style.

 

 

 

Porches, most people would agree, are the quintessential expression of Southern style. Strickland has a great deal to say about porches, like just how deep they need to be to encourage the perfect mood of relaxed conviviality or how they should be sited in relation to the setting to accommodate the most serene solitude.

 

 

 

Deep, well-shaded, and affording a view framed by fluted columns of live oak trees and Spanish moss, this porch in Riceboro, Georgia, is iconic in both style and ambiance.

 

 

 

Inspired by a porch Strickland discovered while strolling the streets of Brunswick, Georgia, this porch is both airy and secluded. Residents of the Palmetto Bluff cottage can close the louvered shutters to enjoy a quiet nap or open them to converse with neighbors who pass by. The porch's pierced slats recall the whimsical design of Key West cottages.

 

 

 

 

Authentic materials and traditional craftsmanship are two factors that endow a new house with the character and atmosphere of an older one. In the entrance hall of a Federal-style house on Spring Island, South Carolina, (http://www.springisland.com) buttboard walls reflect the surrounding Lowcountry's vernacular style and preference for readily available materials like pine and cypress. Historically accurate in style and craftsmanship, the stair rail was constructed from blocks of heart pine that local woodworkers cut, shaped, and rasped exactly as their predecessors did in the early days of nearby Beaufort.

 

 

 

This barn-style guesthouse on Spring Island is constructed of salvaged barn wood, some of it more than two-hundred years old. Many of the old oak boards were so hard that pilot holes had to be drilled before nails could be driven into them.

 

 

Exposed rafter tails, plain porch posts, and simple railings contribute to the unprentious charm of this Lowcountry cottage-style dwelling on Spring Island (www.springisland.com).

 

 

 

One of the things that interests Strickland and his team of architects is the way old Southern buildings were often adapted for new uses as time passed and lifestyles changed. This house is designed to resemble a barn that was repurposed for family living. Massive barn doors slide to reveal an open-air passageway wide enough for a wagon to have waited while bales of hay were tossed down from lofts above.

 

 

 

 

With a cement floor and sloping roof, the house's dining room resembles an open-air space enclosed when the "barn" was, in its fictional history, transformed into a dwelling.

 

 

 

While most of the houses in the book are new residences inspired by traditional ones, others are older dwellings rehabiliated and expanded for modern living. One of my favorites is a 1914 farm house that was moved, keeping as much as possible of the original material intact, and expanded so subtly that it's hard to imagine it ever stood elsewhere in any different form. In the central stairhall that opens to both the front and back of the house, Historical Concepts went to great lengths to replicate the original steep, narrow staircase that was beyond repair.

 

 

 

In bedrooms added beneath the roof's gables, new beadboard walls and trim matching original materials found elsewhere in the house create a vintage look.

 

 

 

One of Historical Concepts' most famous designs, the chapel at Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, (http://www.palmettobluff.com) is a loving homage to the past and a beloved place in the present. With its humble tin roof and modest size, the chapel also has a quiet dignity and sense of stature. Located on the edge of the May River, it has triple hung gothic-style windows that open to the breezes and the view. Pocket sceens keep insects out and antique ceiling fans make it comfortable within. Although equipped with air conditioning, this chapel is at its best when the windows are open, the fans are whirring, and people are filling its pews and spilling out to the surrounding lawn during concerts and weddings.

 

 

With 224 pages featuring fifteen projects ranging from a cozy log house to a spacious Greek Revival raised cottage, Coming Home is a beautiful reminder of the simple wisdom and incomparable comfort of the Southern vernacular house. 

To celebrate the book's release, there will a book-signing at Boxwoods in Atlanta from 11-3 on Friday, March 30th [http://www.boxwoodsonline.com], a lecture at the Atlanta Symphony Showhouse on Wednesday, May 9th at 11:30 [http://decoratorsshowhouse.org/index.php?id=special_events, and a lecture at University of Miami on April 3rd at 6 (http://www.miami.edu).

Photo credits: Emily Jenkins Followill, Joshua Savage Gibson, Richard Leo Johnson, and Susan Sully

 

Filed under: architecture, books, building materials and hardware

Open your eyes and think of England

Monday, Mar 26th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

 

 

The Southern Cosmopolitan invites you to

 

…indulge your Anglophilia by visiting http://www.onelondonone.blogspot.com

 "an address for those with an interest in England past and present and a passion for daily life during the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras."
 
 

 

…take a peek at The Look of Love exhibition of eye portrait miniatures currently at the Birmingham Museum of Art 

www.artsbma.org/exhibitions/look-of-love

 

 

The exhibition is accompanied by a full color, hardbound catalogue edited by the curator, Dr. Graham C. Boettcher, that includes on essay by Elle Shushan on the history and role of lover’s eyes in the Georgian and early Victorian periods. Novelist and biographer Jo Manning also offers five fictional vignettes imagining the circumstances surrounding the creation of these extraordinary objects. Order from www.artsbma.org.

 

…discover the work of contemporary portrait miniaturist and landscape artist Thomas Sully III

 

portrait miniature, watercolor on mammoth ivory

 

portrait miniature, watercolor on mammoth ivory

 

portrait miniature, watercolor on mammoth ivory

 
 

portrait miniature, watercolor on mammoth ivory

 

For more images, visit http://www.thomassully.com

For an interviewwith the artist, visit http://www.onelondonone.blogspot.com

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: antiques, art, museums

Blowing Rock

Sunday, Mar 4th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

Elliott Daingerfield:

Art, Nature, and Architecture in Blowing Rock, North Carolina

 

Any Southerner with a grain of sense knows that Blowing Rock, North Carolina, is one of the best places to be come June, July, and August. Atop the Eastern Continental Divide at an elevation of nearly 3,600 feet, it swims among blue waves of mountain ridges and bathes in cool breezes all summer long. With a quaint downtown and winding lanes lined with pretty gardens and late 19th- and early 20th century summer cottages, this Blue Ridge Mountain retreat is also the perfect destination for those in search of Southern charm. 

 

Historic postcard, Collection David Harwood

 

This year, the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum (www.blowingrockmuseum.org) provided a compelling reason to visit the town mid-winter with the presentation of the exhibition Elliott Daingerfield: Art and Life in North Carolina. The inaugural exhibition in the museum's handsome new facility, the show will remain open through March 31st of this year. Curated by J. Richard Gruber, Director Emeritus of the Odgen Museum of Southern Art, the exhibition is worthy of any of the finest museums of American art in the country. Its subject is Elliott Daingerfield, a painter who found success in both New York City and North Carolina at the turn of the 19th century. A follower and friend of George Inness, the artist created paintings rich with the palpable atmopshere and mysterious light of Tonalism. Also an admirer of the French Barbizon school of landscape painting, Daingerfield earned the name The American Millet for painting milkmaids, farmers, and other agrarian figures within the context of Appalachia. 

 

 

Home and Harvest, 1894, oil on board, 11 x 14" BRAHM Collection, gift of LaMont & CoraAnn Hudson

 

Home and Harvest depicts two of Daingerfield's favorite subjects: the agrarian life of North Carolina and the region's clear, everchanging light. In this painting, the artist captures the golden warmth of the late afternoon sun as it illuminates carefully stacked piles of autumn harvest and a rustic mountain cabin.

 

 

The Drover, 1895, Oil on canvas, 32 x 22", private collection

 

 

In The Drover, whorling mist engulfs a cattle drover and an errant cow. The swirls of fog, airborne whip about to crack above the drover's head, and yearning neck of the beast create a graceful composition for a painting that depicts a rugged way of life.

 

 

On Ben Greene's Hill, 1890, Oil on canvas, 9.25 x 15.25", collection Ginny & Dave Stevens

 

Daingerfield depicts the Blue Ridge Mountain landscape with brighter light  and more highly toned color in On Ben Greene's Hill. With rapid brushwork and touches of impasto, the artist conveys the mercurial beauty of a summer day in the countryside surrounding Blowing Rock. 

 

 

Landscape with Mountains, n.d., oil on canvas, 9 x 12", BRAHM, gift of Mariam Cannon Hayes

 

Some of my favorite paintings in the show are the smallest, including this richly chromatic, passionately painted sunset entitled Landscape with Mountains. A pantheist of sorts, Daingerfield experienced his surroundings on both a sensual level and a spiritual one. This perspective infuses his work with a depth of feeling and emotion not always present in landscape painting–and invites the viewer not just to look, but to be touched, opened, and perhaps even transformed.

 

Landscape, n.d., oil on canvas, 29 x 36", Bill Brooks and Dean Bullis Collection

 

 

Among the most entrancing paintings in the show is this landscape embued with the mysterious beauty of a moonlit night. In it, the rising moon silvers the surface of a mountain stream and the edges of windswept clouds. The winding stream draws the viewer deep into the painting's heart, where the moon's ethereal light illuminates the surrounding darkness–a suggestion perhaps of the belief in eternal, universal love that sustained Daingerfield through dark times.

 

 

Edgewood Cottage c. 1890, Elliott Daingerfield Estate

 

 

It's rare to have an opportunity to view an artist's work within the immediate context in which it was made.  As soon as viewers leave this exhibition, they begin to recognize Daingerfield's vision and touch wherever they look. Edgewood Cottage, the artist's first home and studio, built in 1890, stands just a few steps from the museum. Inspired by Appalachian-style architecture, the cottage provided modest living quarters for Daingerfield and his first wife, who died in childbirth.

 

 

Windwood Porch, c. 1910, oil on board, 6.75 x 8", BRAHM, Gift of LaMont & CoraAnn Hudson

 

Across town from the musem, It's possible to steal a glimpse of Windwood, now a private home. Here, Daingerfield lived with his second wife and two daughters. Bult in 1900, this house combines elements of the Colonial Revival, Arts-and-Craft, and Shingle styles. With a generously proportioned porch, portico, and garden, it invited the Daingerfield family and their friends to live in close communion with nature.

 

 

Westglow, c.1917, Elliott Daingerfield Estate

 

 

Reflecting the artist's success, Daingerfield's final home, named Westglow, is the grandest of the three. Inspired by a VIrginia house admired by the artist and designed in the Colonial Revival style by New York architect Richard H. Smythe, the 1917 house brings together the artist's Southern roots and Northeastern experience. A temple-like portico overlooking a deep gorge to the sublime form of Grandfather Mountain pays homage to an even deeper duality, uniting Daingerfield's ability to marry outward observation with a deeply spiritual vision. Now a luxury resort, the house offers guests and diners the opportunity to stand on the portico and admire the same view that inspired Daingerfield.

 

 

Westglow, c. 1920, CSSP/Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA

 

 

The Daingerfield exhibition will move to the Cameron Art Museum (cameronartmuseum.com) in Wilmington, NC, later this year and new shows celebrating local art and culture will come to BRAHM. However, the landscape surrounding Blowing Rock will continue to offer visitors a perpetual invitation to experience its natural beauty. A trip to The Blowing Rock, which juts over 1,500 feet above the Johns River gorge and is subject to unusually strong wind currents, offers a close encounter with the power and majesty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And the sight of Grandfather Mountain, a massive, strangely shaped formation that stands out against the rolling mountain views, is mysterious and immutable. 

 

 

Historic Postcard, Collection David Harwood

 

 

 

Grandfather Mountain in the Mist, n.d., oil on canvas, 23.5 x 27.5", Collection Bill Brooks & Dean Bullis

 

 

For those who can't make the trip to Blowing Rock or Wilmington, North Carolina, there is an excellent catalog for the exhibition including color images of many of the paintings as well as historic photographs of Blowing Rock, Daingerfield's houses, and the artist and his family. Written by J. Richard Gruber, it has a comprehensive, illuminating, and sensitive text. Entitled Elliott Daingerfield: Art an Life in North Carolina, it can be ordered from BRAHM by calling 828-295-9099, ext. 3001. For more information about BRAHM, forthcoming exhibitions, and the new museum building, visit blowingrockmuseum.org.

 

 

Filed under: architecture, art, books, museums, travel

The Art of Looking Closely

Tuesday, Feb 14th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

Charleston, Up Close and Personal

 

Strolling along Church, Meeting, and King Streets and the maze of lanes that meander between them in Charleston, South Carolina, it’s hard not to trip on the uneven sidewalks. A dozen Doric columns spanning a double porch, several tons of handmade bricks forming a Federal façade, scores of camellias or azaleas in bloom—big, bold, beautiful gestures abound, dazzling even those who rarely give architecture or horticulture a thought.

 

In the presence of such overwhelming beauty, it’s easy to surrender to the grand impression, losing sight of the small moments that comprise it. But if you train your eyes to look closely, the rewards, though wrapped in small packages, are huge. Discoveries of an antique garden ornament, a carved tassel on a mantel, or a spray of Lady Banks roses are close encounters that bring Charleston’s past and present into sharp focus. In October 2012, I’ll take a small group of people to Charleston, where we’ll visit the city’s finest houses, gardens, and plantations, and practice this awareness of their glories, large and small. Click the Tours page on the right side of this website for the details.

 

 

Every room in the Nathaniel Russell House, a museum property of Historic Charleston Foundation built in 1808 and restored ten years ago, is a showstopper. Despite the graceful grandeur of its free-flying staircase, the stair hall is just a precursor to the extravagance of the oval dining room that opens off it. The room’s luminous blue wallpaper, Charleston-made mahogany furniture, and brightly gilded mirrors and picture frames create a vivid reminder of how glamorous interior design was during the early 19th century’s Adamesque and Federal periods.

 

 

When I first saw the dining room post-restoration, I stood agog as I took in its daring Federal splendor. Only after several minutes did I noticed a handsome detail—a narrow, dark wallpaper border with a pattern of red and gold interlocking rings that edged the walls. Zipping around doors, windows, and the mantelpiece, the border adds a dynamic, high style effect. Fashioned for the house during the restoration, its design was inspired by a popular Federal motif.

 

This motif is also found on a set of chairs belonging to the Russell family that are displayed in the even more opulent drawing room above.

 

The garden of Marty Whaley Adams Cornwell is one of the most celebrated in the city, made internationally famous in 1998 with the publication of her mother’s best-selling book, Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden. Designed in the 1940s by Loutrel Briggs, Charleston’s foremost 20th-century landscape architect, the garden is simultaneously formal, naturalistic, and unrestrainedly romantic. Within the long narrow space, colorful flowerbeds edge a rectangular lawn, boxwoods and camellias border a grassy circle with a round reflecting pool, and hydrangeas form a bower around a raised brick terrace.

 

 

Like an Impressionist painting, the garden shimmers with movement and color—but this is a painting you actually can walk right in to, if invited. In fact, the garden irresistibly draws you inside, down a narrow walk to its sunny lawns, shady terrace, and tiny woodland path beneath the rear wall. Depending upon the season, lavish plantings of tulips, camellias, or hydrangeas create whole banks of color. But the garden is also filled with small details—tendrils of ivy dangling from Classical urns that are painted green, white Chinese lanterns punctuating the dark boxwoods behind them, and a hidden sculpture of a fox. Within the elegance of Briggs’ design, these personal touches add charm that reflects the personalities of the women behind the garden.

 

 

There’s no denying that the gardens of Middleton Place are filled with grand gestures climaxing in a majestic terraced lawn that descends to manmade lakes shaped like butterfly wings. Established in 1741 by Henry Middleton, they reveal an astonishing overlay of formal French garden design onto the primal lowcountry landscape. Intersecting gravel allées terminate at the banks of the Ashley River and pruned boxwoods, rectangular parterres, and geometric beds contrast sharply with the sprawling limbs of ancient oaks that stand nearby.

 

It’s difficult to decide what is more breathtaking—an allée lined with hundreds of varieties of camellias and sasanquas cultivated in the late 18th century by Middleton’s son, also named Henry, or the fiery banks of azaleas planted fifty years later by William Middleton. But the garden is also filled with quiet moments that invite you to pause and admire the topiary precision favored 250 years ago by the first Henry Middleton or a single lovely camellia blossom identical to those that delighted his son.

 

 

The intricate decoration of neoclassical mantels that make elegant statements in many of Charleston’s early 19th-century houses deserve equally close inspection and  admiration. Diminutive  urns, delicate garlands, and  moldings comprised of microscopic egg-and-dart, dentil, and beaded motifs delight the eye and astonish the mind.

 

 

 

Revealing the hand of the artisan and the vision of the gardener, such details indoors and out express Charleston’s spirit as much as the grandest Federal facade—and far more intimately.

I invite you to join my tour of Charleston in October 2012.

For details, click on Tours page at right,

email susan@southerncosmopolitan.com,

or call 843-906-3521.

 

 

 

 

 




Filed under: antiques, architecture, decorative objects, furniture, gardens, interior design, travel, Uncategorized

Design Destinations: Charleston

Friday, Jan 13th, 2012 by Southernista | 0 Comments

 

Join me for an insider’s tour of Charleston, South Carolina, this October

As the author of two books about Charleston architecture and interior design, I have entrée into houses, gardens, and private collections that remain closed to most visitors. In this four-night, three-day trip (Monday, October 15 through Friday, October 19, 2012), I will take my guests behind closed doors and garden gates into the heart of historic Charleston. For more information, send me an email at susan@southerncosmopolitan.com or call me at 843-906-3521.

 

 

Limited to 18 guests, the first of my new Southern Cosmopolitours will offer an intimate and luxurious experience. I will take guests on house-spotting expeditions down the streets and crooked alleys of the historic district south of Broad Street, sharing my love and knowledge of the city’s houses and gardens.

 

Guests will have time to talk to the homeowners and gardeners who have lovingly tended their historic properties. At the city’s best historic house museums, guides will customize their tours to our interests.

 

With tours of historic houses and gardens, visits to a private antiques collection and antiques shops where dealers will share their expertise, and an excursion to the region’s most historic plantations, this tour will offer an opportunity to experience Charleston’s rich architectural and design tradition in depth.

 

 

 

Group dinners in the main dining rooms of my favorite restaurants will allow us to experience the buzz of the city and enjoy people watching. And the concierge at the 4-star Charleston Place hotel where we will stay will take care of all our personal needs.


Here’s a sneak peek at our itinerary:

Monday, October 15
Welcome Day

 

 

 

 

 

Tour of a Georgian home and garden, followed by a champagne reception
Short walking tour through the French Quarter district
Welcome dinner at High Cotton

Tuesday, October 16
House and Garden Day

 

 

 

 

Tours of private gardens and homes
Tour of the Nathaniel Russell House (a museum property of Historic Charleston Foundation)
Free time for lunch, shopping, and individual touring of downtown Charleston
Twilight stroll South of Broad led by Susan Sully

 

Wednesday, October 17
Antiques Day

 

 

 

 

Tour of the largest private collection of Charleston-made furniture and decorative objects in America
Tour of King Street antiques dealers with meet-the-dealer chats to learn more about collecting and decorating with antiques
Free time for lunch, more shopping, and dinner

Thursday, October 18
Plantations Day

 

 

 

 

 

Connoisseurs Tour of Drayton Hall Plantation
Lunch at Middleton Place
Tour of the house museum at Middleton Place
Tour of the Gardens at Middleton Place led by Susan Sully
Free afternoon
Farewell dinner at Slightly North of Broad

 

Friday, October 18
Departure

For more information contact susan@southerncosmopolitan.com or call 843-906-3521.

 

Filed under: antiques, architecture, decorative objects, furniture, gardens, interior design, shopping, travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Southern Cosmopolitan Celebrates

Wednesday, Dec 14th, 2011 by Southernista | 0 Comments

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Let your angel out of the closet and sing for the holidays!

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This angelic choirboy resides atop an antique wardrobe in the dressing room of an early twentieth-century Colonial revival house in Montgomery, Alabama. The vinyl-coated chorister was a gift from food author Mark Leslie (Beyond the Pasta: Recipes, Language and Life with an Italian Family) to his partner and real-life chorister, Richard Norris of McAlpine Tankersley Architecture. Before long, he will grace the pages of my forthcoming book, Houses with Charm: Simple Southern Style. Although Houses with Charm won’t be out in time for Christmas, there are a host of other books I recommend for holiday giving which, though Southern by author or subject, will delight anyone interested in a manner of living that is inviting, romantic, creatively traditional, and on occasion, even eccentric and over-the-top.

 

 

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This year, two of the South’s leading architecture and design visionaries, Ken Tate and Bobby McAlpine, published books (I confess to have co-authored both of them…but recommend them purely on the strength of their beauty and originality). In recognition of their outstanding talents, both architects are included among Architectural Digest’s exclusive AD100 list. With beautiful photographs of houses ranging in style from ancient to modern, the books also feature texts that offer insight into how architecture and design can be inspired by both the soul’s intuition and the mind’s insight. McAlpine’s The Home within Us and Tate’s A Classical Journey are for those whose love of buildings comes from both the sensual eye and the spiritual one.

 

 

 

 

Suzanne Kasler’s eponymous book,  subtitled Inspired Interiors, reveals this Atlanta-based interior designer’s approach to several styles of design that I cannot help but associate with the South, even though they find ample expression beyond it. Chapters on Luxurious Ease, Sophisticated Simplicity, and Classic Elegance reveal Kasler’s talent for balancing high style with a refreshingly honest understanding of the way we live at home. Sections including Architectural Elements, Color and Light, and Objects and Details offer concrete examples of how this leading designer creates interiors for the city, the country, and at the beach.

 

 

 

It’s hard to walk down the street of any Southern city or town and not suddenly find oneself rooted to the sidewalk gazing at the white columns of a majestic Greek Revival edifice. My love affair with Southern architecture began just this way when I wandered the streets of my mother’s hometown,  Milledgeville, Georgia, as a child. Architect Ken Tate says of Roger Kennedy’s Greek Revival America, “If you can have only one book in your library on this subject, this is the one you must have.”  Back in print and in an updated form for the first time since 1995, the book features beautiful photographs of churches, banks, government buildings, and residences, including their interiors.

 

 

Stealing Magnolias: Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard by Debra Shriver offers an intimate exchange with this most magical and mysterious of American cities. Written by a high-powered New York media executive who was born and raised in the South, it celebrates what’s best about this city with the yearning, passion, and understanding that only an expatriate Southerner can muster. Oversized pages filled with gorgeous photographs and an engaging text on subjects including architecture and design, Mardi Gras, entertaining, and cuisine make this book one that you can return to again and again–just like the city it describes.

 



 

Susan Mason’s Silver Service, Elegant Savannah Cuisine is an excellent addition to the library of anyone who hankers after Southern classics like Savannah Red Rice (also popular in Charleson and beyond), Red Velvet Cake, and Fried Green Tomatoes. While most of the recipes are traditional, they are personalized and kitchen-tested by Mason, who is one of Savannah’s foremost caterers. The book also features recipes she has devised for her discerning clientele, including creative spins on Southern favorites, including a  Tomato-Avocado Ribbon Salad (a savory take on the once ubiquitous jellied salad) and a mouthwatering Seafood and Artichoke Casserole. These recipes, combined with tips for beautiful entertaining, provide all the inspiration and ideas you need for throwing holiday parties, Southern style.

 

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And if I didn’t recommend my own recent books, The Southern Cottage and The Southern Cosmopolitan, my publicist would fire me! Featuring sophisticated houses in the South’s most cultivated cities, including Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans, and country retreats in the  mountains and along the shore, these books celebrate Southern style at its most refined and most relaxed. Representing the yin and yang of the region’s tastes and lifestyles, they are best given as a set! (How’s that, publicist?)

 

 

Filed under: architecture, books, entertaining, interior design, shopping

Take two they’re small . . .

Friday, Dec 2nd, 2011 by Susan Sully | 0 Comments

 

 

When I lectured on my book The Southern Cosmopolitan for the Cincinnati Art & Antiques Festival this fall, I highlighted several antiques from the exhibiting dealers. In addition to focusing on the exotic objects on display (see The Southern Cosmopolitan Shops, below), I also shared a few finds that demonstrate the “More is Better” approach to design.

 

 

My attention was first drawn to a collection of Japanese woodblock prints of irises offered by Jayne Thompson Antiques in Harrodsburg, Kentucky [www.jaynethompsonantiques.com]. Finished by hand in watercolor, these 19th century multiple editions on rice paper are also each one-of-a-kind objéts-d’art. While Asian in style, the series reminded me of the English and American floral prints so popular in the South. Considered individually, each print’s lush gradations of hue could easily serve as the sole inspiration for a room’s color scheme. The impact of so many beautiful variations of a theme was irresistible.

 

 

This collection of fifty framed 1864 prints produced by Blaisot in Paris, offered (and sold) by American Eagle Antiques and Design [586-663-8259] also caught my eye . Reprints of 1650 engravings by Luigi Ceroni after original miniatures by Jean Petitot from the same period, they include portraits of 17th century European luminaries. Each individual piece is a strong character portrayal. Together, they form a striking and handsome presentation.

 

 

Thomas Sully, watercolor on ivory, 2006

 

This is not to say that a single small object cannot have as much impact as a large display of related artworks. As demonstrated by this portrait miniature in watercolor on wooly mammoth ivory of an English bull dog painted by Thomas Sully [www.thomassully.com], less can be more. Thanks to an intimacy of scale that invites those who see them to pick them up, look more closely, and enter into a kind of conversation with the subject, portrait miniatures create a strong and personal presence in a room.

 

 

Beautiful rooms should have gestures both large and small. The display of an entire collection of related objects creates an immediate impression that points to the owner’s tastes and interests and can establish the overall aesthetic at work. The presence of small pieces with intense personal meaning or exquisite artistry offer more intimate experiences that add depth and character to their setting.

 

I have discovered that philanthropic antiques shows like the recent Cincinnati Art and Antiques show or upcoming shows including the Jacksonville Art and Antiques Show (running from December 1 to 4), Thomasville Antiques Show in Georgia (February 23-26) and Charleston International Antiques Show (March 23-25) offer some of the best opportunities to shop for both while also supporting not-for-profit causes and small antiques dealers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Southern Cosmopolitan Shops

Thursday, Oct 27th, 2011 by Susan Sully | 0 Comments

 

I recently gave a lecture on my book The Southern Cosmopolitan for the Cincinnati Art & Antiques Festival. Beforehand, I prowled the aisles of the  show with show manager Charlie Miller, scanning for objects expressing the South’s enduring passion for the past, fascination with the foreign, and trend-savvy tastes to include in my lecture. While the region is widely recognized as one beguiled by history, outsiders–and even many Southerners–don’t always think of it as a place with exotic tastes or cutting edge style. That’s why I particularly enjoyed selecting items that illustrate these lesser known aspects of Southern style.

 

Roseate Spoonbill, John Jay Audubon, from Arader Gallery

 

The popularity of the Birds of America engravings by French-American John Jay Audubon (1785-1851) in cultivated homes on both sides of the Atlantic is a perfect example of both  the allure of the exotic and the power of fashion in and beyond the South. Although Audubon created the original drawings for his famous work in America, he had to go to England–where the American birds had New World cachet–to find a market (and an engraver). It was only after they became the height of style in England (even King George IV collected them) that they won popularity back in America, where they soon graced Georgian-style drawing rooms like this one in Charleston, South Carolina, featured in my book Charleston: Architecture and Interiors.

 

Branford-Horry House, Charleston, 1755

 

While living in New Orleans, Louisiana, I encountered this wonderful selection of Audubon engravings in the center hall of a Garden District Greek Revival house featured in The Southern Cosmopolitan.

 

 

 

The Cincinnati Antiques Festival stall of Arader Galleries [www.aradergalleries.com] featured several original engravings from the 1827-38 Havell Edition of Birds of America, including the Roseate Spoonbill above and this wonderfully vibrant Purple Heron with its young. I found myself longing to hang the latter in a room decorated in shades of lapis lazuli and taupe.

 

Purple Heron, John Jay Audubon, from Arader Galleries

 

Although I have yet to encounter Palissy ware in a Southern home, this fanciful French pottery has enjoyed popularity off and on since the 16th century, when it was developed by French Huguenot potter Bernard Palissy. Robust and naturalistic, Palissy’s designs depicted snakes, lizards, fish, crustaceans, and water flora in vibrant color and high relief. The potter’s techniques were lost to the ages, but rediscovered by a new generation of French potters in the 19th century. These exotic, not-for-the-faint-of-heart objects began to grace the mantels and tables of polite society once again, and popularity spread to England, where earthenware pottery was also in fashion. Mintons Ltd launched a line of it at the Great Exhibition of 1851 under the name Palissy ware, which soon became known as Victorian majolica.

 

Platter, c. 1860, Victor Barbizet

 

A Pallisy ware platter like the above by Victor Barbizet (c. 1860) would be right at home in a sugar plantation alongside a steamy Louisiana bayou seething with snakes and turtles–especially if it’s owners were of French descent. It was one of several that held me in thrall when I entered the stall of French dealers Philippe Meunier and Jean Alonso-Defrocourt [contact: majolica75@wanadoo.fr or 917-334-7982].

 

Lizard on a Rock, c. 1860, Joseph Landais

 

This very rare piece by Joseph Landais, measuring 7 x 3-1/2 inches, is small but commanding. Although its style is rustic, its purpose is the same as the more refined figures designed by Sevres, Meissen, Darby, and Chelsea in the eighteenth century, all of which found their way into refined Southern homes.

 

Kandler-Meissen, German 18th century porcelain

 

 

Chelsea, English 18th century porcelain

 

Intended to amuse, and impress even the most jaded 19th-century Southern cosmopolitans, they still have the same power to fascinate and delight today.

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Design Destinations: Savannah Style (Part I)

Tuesday, Oct 11th, 2011 by Susan Sully | 0 Comments

 

I first visited Savannah one April nearly twenty years ago with my husband Thomas for our first wedding anniversary. I still remember waking up and walking through the courtyard of our inn, the Eliza Thompson House [elizathompsonhouse.com]and being charmed by cascades of Lady Banksia roses, the sound of bells, and the scent of spring. About a decade  later, I nestled into the second-floor carriage house apartment of Celia Dunn of Celia Dunn Sotheby’s International Realty [celiadunnsir.com] for two months while researching and directing the photography of my book, Savannah Style: Mystery and Manners. Last week, I spent five days there while scouting and shooting for my new book, Houses with Charm: Simple Southern Style, and found that my passion for the city has only grown with time.

 

Books at The Paris Market on Broughton Street

 

Beautiful, historic, and romantic, Savannah is populated by fascinating (not to mention occasionally eccentric) people and its streets are lined with shops, cafes, and museums to satisfy just about every taste. Upon arriving in Savannah last week, I was honored by a dinner party hosted by Alexandra Trujillo de Taylor, a Savannah tastemaker and designer of interiors, jewelry, and more who goes by the moniker of HRH Duchess of State [duchessofstate.com].

 

 

The party was held at her home near Victory Drive, an avenue lined with massive old oaks and equally majestic Colonial and Mediterranean Revival houses. Having earned her title in recognition of the lavish entertainments she gave when in residence on Savannah’s State Street, the Duchess set a beautiful table with a brilliant late-summer/early autumn burst of sunflowers down its center. While the flowers were arranged in bubble vases complementing the stainless-steel table’s modern style, the meal was served on beautiful antique Delft porcelain.

 

 

The Duchess brought this same blending of post-industrial chic and European elegance to the atelier she designed in the nearby Starland Dairy complex for the gifted chocolatier Adam Turoni [chocolatat.com]. When we visited Adam (a maker of fine wholesale chocolates whose atelier is open by appointment only), he offered me a superlative morsel of chocolate raspberry ganache that made me long for more.

 

 

 

 

After two days photographing the Savannah home of Connecticut-based interior design Lynn Morgan [lynnmorgandesign.com] and her husband Jeff, I took a break to enjoy lunch at the Zeum Cafe in the Jepson Center.

 

 

One of the Telfair museums, the luminous building designed by Moshe Safdie houses a fine collection of contemporary art and international traveling exhibitions. One of the things I love about the Jepson is the juxtaposition of the modern architecture with the old trees, lush greenery, and nineteenth-century architecture of Telfair Square.

 

 

 

 

The day ended with a photoshoot at Arcanum [www.arcanumsavannah.com], one of my favorite shops in the city. There, the Canada-based staff of Dabble magazine [dabblemag.com] set up a portrait of me surrounded with antiques and contemporary objéts, all decked out in jewelry designed by HRH The Duchess of State. Although the photograph won’t be revealed (even to me) until it appears in the online style, food, and travel magazine next year, here are pictures of the semi-precious jewels I purloined for the shoot.

 

 

I enjoyed so many other aesthetic adventures during my scant five days in Savannah that I can’t fit them all into one post … so watch for future Savannah chronicles. In the meantime, keep Savannah on your travel radar. If you haven’t ever been — or haven’t been in a while — it’s time to go.  If you want to join me on a future tour, send me an email  at southerncosmopolitan.com and I’ll keep you posted about my next guided tour of this Southern design destination.

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