Category Archives: Chateau et maison: architecture

La Poste: Lodging in Land of the Midnight Sun

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The Hotel Union Øye stands as magnificent as its mountain backdrop, in Øye Norway.
A room with a green theme and a high-loft eiderdown on the bed.
A view through the door of a room with a midnight blue theme.
Among all the reasons pictured above that I'd love to stay here, this mountainside perspective might be the best.
La Poste is an occasional feature where I share a bit of great design from my email box. Don't miss the complete dispatch from Remodelista on this grand old hotel.

 

Shadow and light: the grand patina

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Putting on the patina...

The Inn at Hudson was built in 1906, a jewel of Dutch-Jacobean style. It was once a nursing home. These days, guests come by choice.

These aren't chocolate bars. They're just what the say: soap made from the milk of goats. Of note: The goat milk in Fancy Black Soap is rich in alpha hydroxy acids -- one of the few proven treatments to prevent or diminish the lines of aging.
The quiet before dinner: Thanksgiving at the Marché St. Georges in Vancouver. Candlelight and crystal.

Fabric used to dress the walls is from Les Indiennes, along the spectral walk up the stairs.

Props to the Remodelista newsletter and the Noir app. It's very good at transforming an image's personality -- lots of fun.

à bientôt...Tatie

 

Storybook Germany, when only a cliché will do

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The drive across southern Germany is like thumbing through a storybook. Very cliché, but I fail to find a better way to describe it. Not sure where the photo above was shot, obviously through the passenger-side window.
From the Black Forest,, we drove down to Lake Constance, or the Bodensee. There, we stayed in Meersburg, a 15th century town that spills down a steep hill to the lakeside strand.
The hotel Baern, above at night, was probably the prettiest place we stayed in Germany. (Thanks again to Karen Brown and her outstanding travel guides.)
As I live and breathe, the hotel building was in a dream I once had. Has that ever happened to you?
Details, above, of the regional painted furniture that filled our room.
Views of Meersburg, atop the hill.
Down the hill and along the lake, I sensed a Côte d'Azur feel. Not the Cannes Film Festival or Monte Carlo Casino feel, but something else. A mental shift of gears.
Silhouettes of Meersburg at dusk, along the lake.
The road into Bavaria, framed by the Alps, took us to the mountain village of Ettal. One of the best parts: my husband driving and singing "The Happy Wanderer," with his "rücksack on his back!"
From top, clockwise: The porch of the Post Hotel, where we stayed in Ettal; dome of the cathedral at Ettal, from inside; the view outside of the cathedral dome; ancient buildings at the foot the Austrian Alps, in Innsbruck.
Detail of Innsbruck. I couldn't get this close to Austria without going for the coffee, the pastry and a few yards of traditional dirndl fabric. I'll make Zoë what her mommy called "Austrio dresses" when she was little and I made them for her. Details as they develop.   More of the cathedral at Ettal, which is right up there with the Duomo in Florence and Nôtre Dame de Paris, among the most beautiful churches I've had the good fortune to visit. The Ettaler beer made at the monastery brewery exceeded all expectations. From Ettal, we drove to Münich and the flight home. To make the most of a visit to Germany, be a Happy Wanderer, and do it by car.   à bientôt...Tatie    

A forest, black and deep

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As the high-speed TGV train slides out of the Gare de l'Est, Paris seems to slip through your fingers. By the time the train reaches its stride, Paris is gone, until the next time. The road ahead, though, held great promise of places we'd never been. After hopping off the TGV at Strasbourg and picking up a car, we soon were navigating a steady climb into the Black Forest of westernmost Germany.
We descended into a valley, banked by steep meadows that rose to the edge of the woods. The dark evergreens rose skyward like spires. The trunks stood so thick that the forest did, indeed, look black and impenetrable.
At the top of the valley is Oberwolfach-Walke, where we stopped for three restful days, at the Gasthof Hirschen. The flowers spilled over along every balcony, at our beautiful inn and everywhere else in this valley rimmed by the forest.
To my husband's delight, deer hunting is honored throughout the area. The silhouette of a great stag highlights the inn's traditional ironwork sign, and a stew of red deer graces the menu. Our stay in Oberwolfach was a nice transition from the intensity of Paris. à bientôt...Tatie

A note: Travel writer Karen Brown has yet to fail me with her recommendations for lodging across rural Europe. For more than 20 years, I've used the hotels and inns in her travel guides to determine my stops along the way. They always seem to be the highlight of every visit.

A village in the middle of Paris

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Discovering a village within a city is one of those things that feels like you've walked through Alice's looking glass. It's unreal. You feel like you ought to pinch yourself, but you don't want it to go away.
So it is in the rue de Mouskaïa quarter, in the northeast part of Paris. In perfect rows, the tiny pedestrian walkways run in either direction along steep paths. They're lined with pristine, provincial-looking houses -- like you'd find in a small town in Burgundy or along the Rhône River valley.
The delight is in the detail.
There are deeply pigmented colors, none the same. Color-washed walls are offset by nicely tended roses, like the old garden variety above.
These marine blue shutters draw the eye to the lovely old russet drapery inside.
French design, city or country, has a healthy respect for sunny yellows.
Ivy and other greenery abounds up and down these cobblestone rabbit paths.
Each pathway is called a villa, like the Villa Renaissance here. Always amazing to see palm-like growth in the middle of Paris.
Off the cuff, I'd date these residences to the early part of the last century, reaching into the Art Deco years. I noticed several glass awning-type structures over doors, bringing to mind the Art Nouveau entrances at many Paris Métro stations.
Again, marine blue shutters catch the eye, leading you to the Art Deco brickwork.
The craftsmanship of masonry, brickwork and stonework bring out the character of subtle tones like these. The metal pipe fence in the foreground rings with Art Deco lines.
A furtive peek into a back garden makes it hard to believe you aren't in the country.
There's a little mystery, too. Is that a real cutwork linen window shade, or is it a bit of trompe l'oeil trickery?
Are you really in Paris, after all? This bit of swank could just as easily be in the Hollywood Hills. You almost expect the LA coroner to come along, followed by morgue attendants in white coats, to take the body away.

Ok. Safe to pinch yourself now. à bientôt...Tatie

 

A note: The Camera Bag app gets credit for improving my photography in this post. Various filters bring out richness of color or nuance that I failed to capture. Camera Bag is just one of many great apps that are a lot of fun to play with.

 

Mon Paris cheri

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Paris is probably the most photographed city in the world, so I will not throw a lot of the usual ones at you and call them special just because I shot them. Instead, let me share a few images of little things I like about this place.
The day-for-night view, above, of the Panthéon captures the awe of awakening in the middle of the night to see it from your hotel room. That was once my experience, from the Hotel des Grands Hommes, across the street.
In the Panthéon quarter, around dusk, along the way to dinner are the finer details: an ochre-washed building with a gated courtyard, left corner above; the chalky 19th century façade of an ordinary apartment building, middle right; a green public fountain called a "fontaine Wallace," lower right corner. Nearby is the Place de la Contrescarpe, in a neighborhood where Ernest Hemingway lived. The writer left his mark all over Paris, it seems. Sometimes I wonder if places just make up a connection with him to attract American tourists. Contrescarpe has its share of tourists, though it does lack the plastic Eiffel Tower and T-shirt feel. At Delmas, a restaurant café, our table just inside gives us a nice vantage on the Place, lower left. If there's a better way to finish a meal than an espresso and a crème brûlée, top right corner, I haven't found it.
Back to the Hotel du Panthéon (sister to the Grands Hommes next door), at center above. The cocktail sitting area, top center, is low-key elegance. Aged-in-the-wood tones mark the staircase and its fabric-covered walls, at left. Our sweet room featured French country fabrics in rich crimsons (I NEVER use red in describing anything good) and Provence yellows, from the bed's headboard and the wall covering, at right, to the dust ruffle, bottom center. Our hotel and our neighborhood were a delight. I am sad to say, however, that this, my 19th visit to a city I love, was virtually ruined. Delta saw fit to lose our luggage. My bag was delivered four days after we arrived, the night before we left Paris for Germany; we have no clue where my husband's is. We wore the same clothes for several days and, fortunately, had toothbrushes and medications with us. Unfortunately, we wasted stressful hours on the phone every day with baggage people and spent money we had not budgeted when we finally bought several changes of clothes. This is not to dump my drama on you. It is a cautionary tale. DO NOT CHECK LUGGAGE. Not overseas, not in the United States! certainly not on Delta. Carry-on sized luggage plus the secondary bag allowed on board (backpack, tote bag, large purse, etc.) are ample to carry all you need. If you think otherwise, you have an inflated view of your own importance. Next time, I'll share a delightful side adventure in Paris that even dirty clothes couldn't ruin! à bientôt...Tatie  

La Poste: Colorless, cooling seaside white

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There is white hot, which is what we're feeling outdoors these days, then there is white cool. Think of whitewashed houses you imagine perched on cliffs above the Mediterranean or Aegean.
Is there anything that offers a better retreat from the sweltering summer than fresh linens, a white stone floor and a few good books ...
Or a shower with marble cool beneath your bare feet and water running between your toes?
On their sun-bleached private jetty along the Amalfi Coast, guests at a Sorrento hotel find restful splashes of blue.
On a tiny Greek isle, this cool and inviting entryway leads into a vacation villa, that happens to be for rent.
The cloud blue bath, left, must feel like an airy grotto. At right, a breezy passageway joins the villa to its neighbor.
The villa's white stone and stucco kitchen is set off by robin's egg green. A kitchen like this is the right place to prepare icy salads and chilled seafood.
An old-world chandelier lends a crystal sparkle to suppers at the villa's hand-hewn dining table.
à bientôt...Tatie
La Poste is an occasional feature where I share the best of what I find in my inbox or on blogs about pretty things and places. These images are courtesy of my old favorite newsletter, Remodelista Daily. Hope you've enjoyed them as much as I have.

Secret canals?

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Dreamy little canals abound, and not just in Venice. The quiet corners and walkways along the canals of Brugges in Belgium, above and below, can carry your imagination along for hours.
 
 
 
 
Canals can capture you in unexpected places, like Copenhagen, above, or Paris, below. Copenhagen is a seafaring town, so you might expect to see a row of multicolored houses with boats parked out front.
 
Canal St. Martin, above, seems hushed on its face, even though it has grown popular among Parisians in recent years. I'll report my findings when I take a look for myself in September.
 
 
In Washington, down behind all the fuss of Georgetown's M Street, runs the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, once plied by barges pulled by mules tramping along the towpath. It's an autumn kind of place, all shaded in browns and yellows and Colonial façades. If any town needs an honest haven, it's the Capital.
 
 
Not to take away from the better-known canals of Amsterdam, above, and Venice below. To be led along by waterways, past tall buildings like pretty spinsters, is to know Amsterdam intimately.
 
 
The miniature bridges of Venice shroud her canals with lace-like ironwork and finely crafted masonry. From one to the next, a visitor follows an unspoken path into the heart of a city one never quite understands.
 
In The Swimmer, John Cheever's title character sets out to swim "the river" of friends' swimming pools that run across his bedroom community. Likewise, an ambitious traveller might set out to walk along the river of canals that run through old cities across Western civilization. What a voyage that would be.
 
à bientôt...Tatie

 

La Poste: Time to get fresh

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Eggs as seed planters Here we are again, yearning  for spring and finding glints of light and life amid the rich brown of sleeping earth. Like eggshells as fresh-looking seed starter pots. Remodelista included some rich, sleepy browns in its 28 February files, in a couple of totally unrelated items.
  Aged tin ceiling tiles grow fresh against a clean white wall The brown of the ancient pressed tin fleur de lys ceiling tiles grow fresh, sitting above washed white tile walls, at Iris Café in Brooklyn Heights.
  Fresh restored bricks stand up to the baroque detail of old frames I find restored bricks and brick walls to have a clean, fresh feel. The wall above, also at Iris Café, stands up well to the baroque detailing of old picture frames.
  Seed frames amid stones and bricks of a Victorian yard Meanwhile, back outside, the bricks and stones of a Victorian yard in Cornwall, England are made fresh by white cold frames sporting tender sprouts. Speaking of sprouts, stay tuned. Something fresh and fancy coming soon! à bientôt...Tatie

(La Poste is a frequent feature where I share some little bit of design or creativity found in my email inbox.)     

La Poste: Black. White. A pinch of Poirot?

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Catching up on Remodelista newsletters, I picked up a little black and white goodness to share. Special touch: I saved the images with the Silver filter in my CameraBag app. This espresso machine took on a rich noir feel.


The façades of a couple of elegant Paris hotels look like deco-era photos, but both were only recently photographed. Sunlight throws a creamy finish on the masonry.





A couple of entryways, above and below, each beckon with a bit of mystery.


More intrigue: Tapers, like intricately turned wood, stand tall in mercury glass and tarnished silver candlesticks below. Framed by a battered old whitewashed door, a question seems to hang in the air.


I just may stick with a black and white palette in my craftwork this year. Ideas welcome. à bientôt...Tatie


La Poste is an occasional feature that showcases design and craftmanship from newsletters and blogs that I enjoy.


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