Design Destinations: Charleston

 

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.

 

The Southern Cosmopolitan Celebrates

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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?)

 

 

Take two they’re small . . .

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Southern Cosmopolitan Shops

 

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.

Design Destinations: Savannah Style (Part I)

 

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.

A Classical Journey with Ken Tate Architect

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New Orleans-based architect Ken Tate (kentatearchitect.com) combines a love of traditional architecture with the understanding that a building is not just a place but also a poem–a thing that reveals itself slowly, and in doing so invites those who experience it to experience themselves more deeply as well. I immediately recognized Tate as a kindred spirit when I discovered his work while writing The Southern Cosmopolitan, in which one of his houses is included. I was more than delighted when he returned the favor by asking me to write the introduction to his new book, A Classical  Journey: The Houses of Ken Tate (released this Spring by Images Publishing, imagespublishinggroup.com).

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Combining profiles of nine estates, the book begins with a forward by Tate entitled House as Poem, in which he writes, “All good houses are poems and all good poems convey truth in some manner. Like all good poems, good houses are transcendent. They point to something else–beauty, truth, love, even the divine.”

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However lofty these ideas may sound, I find that they resonate throughout all the houses featured in the book. Perhaps this is because Tate brings an intuitive, emotional, sensuous, and even playful approach to interpreting traditional styles–and asks us to do the same. He does what feels right, even if it means bending the rules and breaking the cannons. In a single house, he might combine elements that span several centuries of style instead of adhering rigidly to one period. This allows him to create a new house that tells an old story about how generations of inhabitants might have lived in it and changed it to suit their tastes or whims. A house Tate designed for a client in Mississippi describes one such narrative.

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Weaving his story, Ken explains: “The original structure was built by Norman French farmers during the late Renaissance…

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Then their eighteenth-century descendants remodeled it in the neoclassical style…

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In the late-nineteenth century, another generation restored the house and its gardens [in the picturesque style of Gertrude Jeckyll]. Once I knew this story, it informed the rest of the design.

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In an estate in the Kentucky horse country, Tate plays tricks with time in a different way. In four different buildings, he explores the different ways the pediment-over-portico form has found expression from its ancient roots through various neoclassical iterations.

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The first building you see when you approach the estate is a Jeffersonian-style house inspired by Palladian architecture. Brick pediments crown the central building and symmetrical wings and a freestanding portico shelters the entrance.

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While this building only hints at the Greek and Roman temples that inspired Andrea Palladio and generations of neoclassical architects, the robust form and proportions of the garden pavilion’s pediment-over-portico offer a much purer expression of classic Roman roots.

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If I had to select my favorite building on the estate, I would choose the folly-like fieldstone barn with a rustic cupola and a classical portico. “I wanted to use the temple form again, but had to find a compatible way to do so with such a lowly structure,” Tate explains. “I found myself thinking of St. Paul’s Covent Garden designed by Inigo Jones. Following his patron the Earl of Bedford’s desire for barn-like simplicity, he designed a massive portico employing Tuscan columns–the lowest and plainest order–to support a pediment with primitive timber outlookers…and boasted that the church was the handsomest barn in England.”

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A Classical Journey goes beyond neoclassical architecture, including houses in a variety of styles including a courtyard dwelling in Jackson, Mississippi, that captures the mystery and rough-hewn craftsmanship of Spanish estancias.

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Another house integrates two styles of architecture–the Norman vernacular of France and the classically inspired design of the Mediterranean villas of Italy and Spain.

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In contrast to the introverted walls and windows of the house’s public face, intended to provide privacy in a tightly-knit suburban streetscape, the rear facade includes a Mediterranean Renaissance-style loggia that reaches out to the landscape and invites it in.

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Throughout the book, Tate combines images of exteriors, interiors, and architectural details that reveal his fascination with and understanding of the language of traditional architecture–the materials, the craftsmanship, the design details, and the way these come together to create something that speaks–like a poem–to the mind, the senses, and the soul.

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A Classical Journey: The Houses of Ken Tate Architect can be found or ordered at your local bookstore, at amazon.com, and other online book resources.

March to Asheville

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If you’re tired of winter’s chill up North, March is the perfect time to head down to Asheville to steal a march on spring. And if spring seems to be coming too-much-too-soon down South (particularly for New Orleaneans, who will be needing fresh air to recover from Mardi Gras and the 85 degree/99 % humidity “spring” weather), Asheville is waiting for you. No matter where you’re coming from, here are my cool picks and hot tips on what to do in Asheville this March.

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Let me begin with a subject near and dear to my heart — the art on display until March 26th at Blue Spiral Gallery (bluespiral1.com) in the annual NewX3 exhibition introducing artists never before shown at the gallery. Naturally, my favorite artist whose work is displayed is my husband Thomas Sully (thomassully.com).

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Sully consciously quotes the dramatic light of late-19th century Luminism and updates aspects of the Romantic sublime, as seen in Elegy (above) and Peach Knob Snag (below), a scene visible from our porch.

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In the Buxton series (below), Sully uses an atmospheric, Tonalist palette to capture the otherworldy variations of texture and color in the maritime forests on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

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I love walking around the streets of downtown Asheville at night, particularly the always-hopping sidewalks of Lexington Avenue, Wall Street, and Battery Park (many of Asheville’s founding fathers came from New York City) where a diversity of delicious food is available at great restaurants by night and a collection of locally-owned boutiques (there is only one chain store downtown) open by day. Perhaps my favorite place to enjoy a stroll is the Grove Arcade on Battery Battery Park at Page Street (grovearcade.com).

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Two of my favorite Grove Arcade restaurants, both of which offer sidewalk dining for lunch and dinner, are Modesto (modestonc.com) and Chorizo (828-350-1332). After dinner, stop into the Battery Park Book Exchange (batteryparkbookexchange.com) in a corner of the arcade to browse through thousands of used and rare books in fifteen categories. Comfortable leather chairs invite relaxed perusing and on Friday and Saturday night, Classical guitar stylist James Barr (jamesbarrproductions.com) plays accoustic guitar in a range of genres from Bach and Broadway to the Beatles.

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Barr’s music is accompanied by champagne, sparkling wines, and fine wines from the Champagne Bar located in the bookstore. Please note that Barr is available for weddings and private parties (he played at Life magazine’s 50th anniversary bash in Radio City Music Hall!). Believe me, there is nothing like this experience for oenophiles, bibliophiles, and guitar-ophiles anywhere else in the nation. Trust Asheville to come up with another original idea. One of my favorite bumper stickers here exhorts readers to Keep Asheville Weird.

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Before dinner, or better yet, during your afternoon perambulation, go inside the Grove Arcade–a dizzying two-story atrium with spiral stairs leading to a mezzanine level, the total effect of which reminds me of a diminutive Grand Central Station…without the trains, of course. There are wonderful shops in the Great Hall selling anything from locally spun yarns and Blue Ridge Mountains crafts to couture clothing and shoes at The Jazzy Giraffe (thejazzygiraffe.com).

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It’s hard to list all the places to visit when you come to Asheville, but these are a few of my favorite downtown picks. One of the things that makes Asheville so great to visit and to live in is its vibrant downtown of restored buildings that recall the city’s history–particularly its zenith as a Jazz Age destination, as demonstrated by a dazzling array of Art Deco architecture. So, please take my advice and head for the hills this spring!

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And if you’re looking for a tour guide for your group–let me know. I might just be available!

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Connoisseurshop: Arcanum

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I recently visited Savannah after finishing a photo-shoot on nearby Spring Island for the book I am co-authoring with architect Jim Strickland and his firm Historical Concepts (www.historicalconcepts.com) entitled Architecture of Place. On a steamy Indian Summer day, graphic designer Eric Mueller and I took to the streets of Savannah for a whirlwind visit. Our first stop was Arcanum (912-236-6000), a decorative arts shop (featured in August’s Southern Living) filled choc-a-bloc with antique and modern furniture and accessories.

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The shop, run by Phillip Hunter and Sim Harvey, instantly stimulates the desire to decorate, whether on a grand scale or a tabletop one. Fortunately, Sim and Phillip are on-hand to offer a full range of decorating services. For those seeking to freshen up their tablescapes, contemporary bubble vases and traditional julep cups provide the perfect items for a “something old, something new” approach to accessorizing.

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If you’re looking for a chic piece of furniture to add a touch of sophistication to your interior, Phillip and Sim recommend a martini table just large enough to hold two cocktails. The shop offers a selection of these, including one designed by Phillip featuring a Greek key motif in a modern mode.

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On the massive end of the scale, a Directoire armoire promises to add style and storage to any room.

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Eric’s pick of the inventory was a pair of 16th century drawings boasting the largest price tag in the store.

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My choice was perhaps the most eccentric item in the shop–an ivory knife with a fox paw handle both creepy and fabulous at the same time. Please don’t spray paint my faux-fur coat PETA…this implement was made a long time ago. And I didn’t actually buy it.

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Whether your tastes run from the antique to the au courant and your budget from the petite to the grand, Arcanum has everything you need to satisfy your decorative taste. So head to Savannah and start shopping!

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Coming next…a tour of Savannah College of Art and Design buildings in Savannah–a study in creative and successful architectural repurposing.

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The Southern Cosmopolitan Travels

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Join me as I travel to East Hampton, New York, for an exhibition of Dominy furniture  and a Southern expatriate supper

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I recently spent the weekend at the East Hampton home of voracious and omnivorous collectors Glenn Purcell and Charles Keller. During the last several years, they have developed an obsession with furniture made in the 18th- and 19th centuries by East Hampton’s  Dominy family of cabinetmakers. While their late 19th-century Shingle Style house is usually filled with chairs, stands, and a dining room table made by the family, at the time of my visit the furniture had relocated to the East Hampton Historical Society’s Clinton Academy Museum (easthamptonhistory.org) for an exhibition entitled Dominy: The Federal and Empire Periods, 1790-1840, New Discoveries.

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Open from May 29th through June 27th, the exhibition was co-curated by Glenn and Charles and has already won the attention of The New York Times.  Arranged against a backdrop of  banners printed with pages from the hand-written Dominy ledgers, chairs, stands, beds, tables, mirrors and clocks demonstrate the family’s refined, and often restrained, approach to Federal and Empire styles.

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The exhibition reflects the co-curators’ relentless pursuit of the Dominy family’s handiwork, often guided by ledgers that indicate names of buyers, the descendants of whom often still own the pieces. Having developed a connoisseur’s eye for the furniture, Glenn and Charles also hunted pieces down in the homes of unsuspecting owners, in Long Island antiques stores, and even in a local yard sale (East Hampton yard sales are different).

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In between trips to the museum to install the exhibition during my weekend visit, Glenn and Charles took time to host a Southern expatriate style dinner (Glenn grew up in Newnan, Georgia, not far from my mother’s hometown of Milledgeville). While Glenn gave me a tour of East Hampton houses, Charles and my graphic designer Eric Mueller (who has ties to Tennessee) set a gorgeous table complete with plates ringed with the names of the thirteen colonies.

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On the rims of these plates, reproductions of those used by George and Martha Washington’s family, Georgia sits right next to New Hampshire. Late 19th-century wine glasses of glittering cut glass–a favorite element in Southern table settings–share the tablecloth with 1920s Murano glasses that bespeak Northern sophistication.

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In a second table setting (below)–so much to play with in these collectors’ house–Charles swapped the thirteen colonies plates for simple wedding band china, beloved in both the North and South. This table setting could have been at home anywhere up and down the Eastern seaboard, a fact which reveals a simple truth about historic Northern and Southern styles: they have more in common than you might think.

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I recently had a meeting with my editor at Rizzoli to discuss the contents of my next book, Houses with Charm: Simple Southern Style. She kept asking me, “What makes this Southern?” I explained that while there are definite distinctions between the architecture of the two regions, the decorative arts of the South and the North have much more in common. What makes them different, perhaps, is the way we use them.

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For example, the Southerner’s idea of perfection is thinly sliced Virginia ham served up with Henry Bain sauce, a Louisville, Kentucky favorite from the Pendennis Club. A bit like A-1 sauce, it is made with a base of English mango chutney (a reminder of the South’s Anglo-colonial roots) and sparked with a dash of Tabasco. While Southerners would choose iced tea with fresh mint as the ideal accompaniment for a salty ham luncheon, my Northern hosts preferred a rose sparkling wine in mid-20th century Murano glasses. But we all agreed that fresh peaches would be an ideal counterpoint–and table decoration–for a casual outdoor luncheon.  Cheers!

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The Home Within Us by Bobby McAlpine

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Heralded by Veranda magazine as “a landmark design book,”

The Home within Us: Romantic Houses, Evocative Rooms (Rizzoli)

is well on its way to becoming a best-selling design book.

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Written by architect and interior designer Bobby McAlpine with co-author Susan Sully,

this gorgeous book features work from across the South by McAlpine Tankersley Architecture and McAlpine Booth and Ferrier Interiors.

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What  Bobby McAlpine tells Susan Sully about the book:

The difference of this book lies partially in the work, but mostly in the writing you helped me with. It is spoken from a different branch of the tree–one that may never have been touched. It is the cravings of any artist to make a world that they recognize, excavating what’s inside of them and putting it out in front.

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Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as an English chapel of ease,

a Classical temple, and a country French carriage house,

featured dwellings and follies celebrate themes that lie at the heart of

McAlpine’s vision of home and sacred space.

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With the columns of a Classical temple combined with factory-sash windows,

this pavilion-style residence illustrates McAlpine’s love of combining the

ancient with the modern.

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A crystal conservatory suspended between baroque gables intended to

resemble ruins from a long-ago fire reveals McAlpine’s penchant

for juxtaposing the permanent with the vulnerable.

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Exemplifying McAlpine’s fascination with pathways and passages,

this tantalizingly circuitous stairway

winds upward through a tower, piecing the outer wall before

terminating in an open-air lounge with a dizzying view.

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In the book’s introduction, read about McAlpine’s vision of the home as a

curative place:

The world outside us issues an invitation to question reality,

and ultimately it forces us home.

Where is the place that mirrors our hearts?

Where are we when we feel held and protected and whispered to?

Where does the content of our intimate exchanges ring most true?

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Illustrating McAlpine’s vision of the spirit and materiality of home,

whether places for living or for pure folly, like this thatch-topped tower,

twenty-two dwellings are arranged in four sections:

Ancient Modern, The Way Within, Harmony of Opposites,

and Sanctuary for the Self.

Described as titillating, glamorous, glad, romantic, and humble,

these houses and McAlpine’s words about them will forever change the way

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10pxTo purchase an autographed copy of the book, go to capitolbook.com/MTA.htm

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Read more about this book, visit mcalpinetankersley.com/communique/ The newest issue of Communique, the firm’s beautiful new online magazine (to be released May 3rd) features several articles about the book including an interview with me, excerpted below.

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Having written extensively about the South in your many books, most recently in The Southern Cosmopolitan, can you speak about the “Southern-ness” of our work?

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As I always like to point out, Southern style is so much more complex than most people think.  The style palette draws from such a wide range, including both the formal and vernacular architecture of England, France, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and more.

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West Indian-inspired palette of Rainbow Row in Charleston

West Indian-inspired palette of Rainbow Row in Charleston


Creating up-to-date, appropriate interpretations of traditional styles is an overlooked aspect of the architecture of the South, where the first trans-Atlantic colonists found ways to modify that which they knew and loved to a new place, a new climate, a new way of life. McAlpine continues this tradition by marrying the old with the new in houses like this one, which combines contemporary elements including telephone pole columns with a West Indian style hip roof.

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Florida dwelling inspired by West Indian architectureMcAlpine-designed dwelling inspired by West Indian architecture

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Another important aspect of  Southern dwellings is an infusion of soul and mystery. The South is a place where the soul does not take second place to anything. It comes through in the reverence for the past and the beauty and truth it carries forward. It comes through in the kindness with which we interact with the world.

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Entertaining rooms in Hal Williamson's Natchez home

Entertaining rooms in Hal Williamson's Natchez home

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This soulful nature may come from the fact that the South remained an agrarian culture long after its trade-partners became manufacturers, so Southerners maintained a closer connection with nature, and family, and the old ways.  Some say it’s because we lost the Civil War, and, lacking means, we drew upon our inner resources and the comfort we found in what surrounded us—especially family, the beautiful land, and the old rooms and houses that revealed the hopes and dreams of our predecessors.

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McAlpine-designed interior inspired by a French carriage house
McAlpine-designed interior inspired by a French carriage house

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Because McAlpine works from this place, his houses speak to the senses, to the soul, to a collective past, and also to the present moment. This is what I call Southern style.

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