it's the kelly and rich show starring kelly

It's that time of the week again!  That's right, it's "Fall Down the Real Estate Rabbit Hole" time!  Woo!  The New York Times will soon be slipping behind the good ole paywall, so I'm taking advantage of my free access in the meantime.  It's not that I don't like the NYT enough to pay for it, it's more that if you mention the word "subscription" near my wallet or checkbook they let out the most horrific screams.  And I don't need that noise in my life.

So.  It's time for another conversation with The Rich Person Who Lives in Kelly's Head.  Alright, Rich Person--can I call you Rich?  No?  Too bad.  Alright Rich, here's house number one:

A lovely little historic Craftsman in Birmingham, Ala.  It's a pretty gray color, it has a nice big porch, it was built in 1929 and still retains much of its original built-ins--and I know you like some original built-ins, Rich--all to the tune of $170k.

No?  Really?  What's that?  You don't know anyone in Birmingham or the entire state of Alabama for that matter and it's going to take a lot more than a big red door to entice you?  Oh, well what if I showed you THIS photo:

Is it?  Are we?  YES THAT'S RIGHT PEOPLE WE'RE SOLD.

Now, this next one's something of a humdinger.  It's a three-story house built to resemble a grain silo!  What's a grain silo, you ask?  Ugh, come on Rich, your wealthy naiveté is showing.  A grain silo is a large cylindrical building where grain is stored, you ignoramus.  So are you ready for this?  Cylindrical house.  Go:

What do you mean you've seen better?  What other cylindrical houses have you seen?  Okay, there was that one cool German one I showed you once, but this is different, it looks like a grain silo!  Plus it's in the Catskills, it's near a ski resort, it's an easy drive to New York City, and--oh right--360 degree views from the bedroom, all for $163k.

Are we arguing now?  Fine, we're arguing now.  What have you got for me?  Okay, you don't know anyone in the Catskills, if you wanted to move to NYC you'd just move to NYC, and you lived close to a ski resort for a year and never went skiing once.  Is that all?  Right, of course, the difficulty of decorating curved spaces.  Are you done NOW?  Because I have to show you THIS:

Are we sold?  WE'RE SOLD!  I knew I could count on your creepy love of mid-20th Century ranges, Rich!*

*I knew this because I share it.  Because Rich is a person who lives in my head.  This is a post about real estate cleverly framed within a conversation with an imaginary person (a different version of me) who has money (lots of it).

Oh God, I've gone mad, haven't I?

an abandoned men's club gets a new, neo-gilded age life

This started out as a door of the day.  I stumbled across and fell in love with the above photo on tumblr, then, determined to find its source (call it my latent grad student tendencies, but I hate posting anything lacking proper attribution--plus the artist always deserves the credit) I ran it through TinEye (a reverse image search engine and ohmygoodness my new favourite thing), which took me to this incredible house tour and I fell in love all over again.

The Harmony Club was built in 1909 by a prominent Jewish businessman in Selma, Alabama and established as a social club.  It spent the 20th Century as a men's club, serving as a meeting place for the local Elks chapter before being boarded up in the 1960s.  In 1999, it was bought by David Hurlbut, a man who describes his aesthetic as "neo-Gilded Age steampunk," which is the most incredible thing I've ever heard.  It was a shambles when he moved in, and I love how he's carefully maintained the original elements, going so far as attempting to preserve the flaking paint on the walls rather than painting over it outright.  The result is cavernous, yet somehow cozy.

The place still has its social club moments.  The third floor ball room is used for movie nights and an annual Beaux-Arts Ball (and doesn't that sound like the best time?). "A lot of people call us the Studio 54 of Selma,” Hurlbut says.  Awesome.

Original article on Yatzer, and the NYT.  Photos by Robert Rausch for the Times.

door of the day

Snagged from the NYT tour of an 18th Century house.  This dutch door is original to it.  Best of all?  It retains the original hardware!

land's end's glory days

It's with no small amount of heartbreak that I've been following along with the story of the demise of Land's End, the Long Island estate which supposedly inspired Daisy Buchanan's East Egg home.  To be fair, though I have a soft spot in my heart for The Great Gatsby, I view the demise of just about any residential grand dame with heartbreak.  And as it was designed by Stanford White, who was arguably the most famous American architect at the turn of the 20th Century (certainly in New York), this lady has a serious grand dame pedigree.

Built in 1911, Land's End played host to parties in the 20s and 30s which saw the likes of Winston Churchill, Ethel Barrymore, the Marx Brothers, and, of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald himself as guests.  It was clearly once an estate to be envied, and having only the photos of its decay to recommend it has been tragic.  To add insult to injury, the property has been purchased by a developer who plans to populate it with multi-million dollar McMansions.  Just what the world needs more of.

I'd love to see photos of the place from its heyday, but honestly, these few, from a publication issued sometime in the 70s or early 80s, are infinitely preferable to those of its decay.  So look, and enjoy, and try not to imagine the look on poor Jay Gatsby's face on the day of its demolition, standing in West Egg, watching it crumble.

puppy love

How adorable is this hearth, with its painted puppy andirons?  It's from the home of Sara Hicks Malone in Nashville.  I LOVE that she faced them towards each other--since they're a two lab family, it's perfect!  Also great: her yellow doors.

old homes

I love this post on abby try again about old homes and the stories they tell.

I don't believe in ghosts per se, but I love the idea of what may have gone on before you. This abandoned home above seems full of stories. I'm sure it was grand in it's day, the ornate gingerbread and hefty size tells us that, but there is damage from a fire and years of neglect. What happened here?

image from abbey

one château, coming up

In one of my classes yesterday we discussed the School of Fontainebleau and saw an image of earthenware tiles from the Château de Chenonceau, which just happens to be my favourite flavor of château. When my mother and I were in France, we toured the castles of the Loire Valley, and both of us fell in love with Chenonceau. We wanted to move in, right then and there. I settled for a small watercolor of it. The Château has a fascinating history. It was a mill, then a palace, then the home of a king's mistress, then his widow. The duel ownership is reflected in the Château's two very different gardens, one supposedly the work of Diane, and the other of Catherine.

Beautiful, beautiful place. If you're ever in the Loire, be sure to drop in!

photo from here

Whalehead Club

Hello, I'm back! I'm still (reluctantly) recovering from my vacation, but I've just been dying to talk about the Whalehead Club, so you'll have to excuse the long informative post. Lovers of Art Nouveau, take note! Located in Corolla, NC, it's just north of my family's annual beach retreat. I am astonished that I'd managed to go so many years without knowing of the treasures this place holds.

By the time this house, originally called Corolla Island, was built by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Collings Knight, Jr. in 1922, Art Nouveau had been out of fashion for 20 years. The Knights must have loved it, however, as its graceful patterns are present throughout the house. The place is amazingly intact considering that the Knights passed away in the 40s and the house was subsequently sold (for a pittance, at that).

The exterior architectural details, many of which predate the house and were probably taken from a previous residence of Mrs. Knight, are in great condition, to say nothing of the amazing interior. The glass and bronze of the light fixtures in the dining room and entry are Tiffany and original. Most of the dining room furniture is original, as well (only one of the below chairs is, the rest are reproductions).

But oh, oh, just look at this clock! I apologize for the shoddy photo quality, I couldn't use a flash. This, as well as several other pieces from the house's library, was design by Louis Majorelle, a fantastic Art Nouveau cabinet maker.


Here are all of my photos from the Whalehead Club. There are lots more on Flickr, as well. Hope you enjoyed my burst of nerdiness!

new Beijing

The family we visited with.

When I was in China in 2005, our group toured some of old Beijing in rickshaws. We visited with a family at a siheyuan, or courtyard house, that had been in their family for generations and generations; the house itself dated back several hundred years. They no longer had the resources to keep it up, so the side chambers which had belonged to other family members were closed up and falling apart. Despite the lovliness of the visit, it was so incredibly sad to see that home in that state.

Not my photo, but much as I recall the state of hutong housing.

That family was a lucky one, however. Under Mao, many siheyuans were redeveloped into group housing lacking the basic amenities, and many remain that way, housing four families in spaces meant for one. These have no indoor plumbing, just centrally located public bathrooms (which leave much to be desired, believe me). In the years leading up to next month's Olympics, the Chinese government razed old Beijing hutong neighborhoods left and right in an effort to spruce up their city.

A home built in the Qing Dynasty, partially razed to make room for a new Transportation Ministry Building.

The New York Times has an article today about foreigners buying and renovating old siheyuans in Beijing, and the results are more Chinese than Beijing's newest building projects.Even with the modern updates, the homes retain the peaceful, closed-in feel of traditional siheyuan living, down to the interiors and detailing.

I love China and traditional Chinese art and architecture. It's good to see that there are people trying to maintain those traditions, since the government is plainly uninterested in doing so.

All photos save the top one by Shiho Fukada and taken from these two articles.

love, love

Love that floor in this house.
AT

I think there's a cipher in your cabinet!

More lovely things from the New York Times, this one the greatest apartment I've ever seen. When the new owners of this 5th Avenue apartment decided to hire architectural designer Eric Clough to renovate, they had no idea they were getting more than just a relocated front door.

It began when Mr. Klinsky threw in his two cents, a vague request that a poem he had written for and about his family be lodged in a wall somewhere, Ms. Sherry said, “put in a bottle and hidden away as if it were a time capsule.”

That got Mr. Clough, who is the sort of person who has a brainstorm on a daily basis, thinking about children and inspiration and how the latter strikes the former. “I’d just read something about Einstein being inspired by a compass he’d been given as a child,” he said. The Einstein story set Mr. Clough off, and he began to ponder ways to spark a child’s mind. “I was thinking that maybe there could be a game or a scavenger hunt embedded in the apartment — that was the beginning,” he said.

The apartment is quite attractive and perfectly functional in all the typical ways, and its added features remained largely unnoticed by its inhabitants for quite some time after they moved in, in May of 2006. Then one night four months later, Cavan Klinsky, who is now 11, had a friend over. The boy was lying on the floor in Cavan’s bedroom, staring at dozens of letters that had been cut into the radiator grille. They seemed random — FDYDQ, for example. But all of a sudden the friend leapt up with a shriek, Ms. Sherry said, having realized that they were actually a cipher (a Caesar Shift cipher, to be precise), and that Cavan’s name was the first word.

In any case, the finale involved, in part, removing decorative door knockers from two hallway panels, which fit together to make a crank, which in turn opened hidden panels in a credenza in the dining room, which displayed multiple keys and keyholes, which, when the correct ones were used, yielded drawers containing acrylic letters and a table-size cloth imprinted with the beginnings of a crossword puzzle, the answers to which led to one of the rectangular panels lining the tiny den, which concealed a chamfered magnetic cube, which could be used to open the 24 remaining panels, revealing, in large type, the poem written by Mr. Klinsky. (There is other stuff in there, too, but a more detailed explanation might drive a reader crazy.)

Read the full article here, and view all of the photos here. Also, check out Eric Clough's company, 212box.

gem in the city

Places like this inevitably make me smile. A small carriage house, surrounded by taller buildings in New York's Gramercy Park area. Why has this little house, estimated to date from the 1880s, managed to survive? It isn't terribly historically significant (excepting a former resident related to Winston Churchill), simply historical. Still, it's been a house for a long time, and it continues to be so.

It turns out that the carriage house is a gathering spot for Argentines living in or visiting the city. On weekends, Mr. Maximino sets up a grill in a narrow walkway beside the house and barbecues steaks bought at an Argentine butcher in Queens. Much Argentine wine is drunk. A female acquaintance of Mr. Pepa’s has been known to stand on the coffee table and blow saxophone to samba records. “We’re trying to tone it down,” Mr. Maximino said, “because the neighbors complain.”

I'm looking forward to more from the New York Times' new "occasional series of articles offering inside looks at homes that stand out in the landscape of New York and other cities."

via AT

funky old homes

I love it when someone takes a space and does something completely different than what you expected with it. I don't mean taking a formal dining room in a grand Georgia plantation and outfitting it with a moon bounce (which, you must admit would be unexpected, yet also awesome). I'm talking about having a gorgeous old barn in the English countryside (see above), and decorating it with the following:

That is one warm, funky space and I want it.

That's the Buddhist symbol for "Ohm" on the ceiling, y'all. It's like a bedroom that waltzed straight out of my imagination. Yum, yum. And on the subject of fun old houses (also articles from the New York Times--found the above on AT), here are a few photos from an article my lovely Peter V sent me about a home in Pennsylvania. Not as cozy, but just as unexpected. Plus, it reminds me strikingly at times of my great aunt's home in Tobaccoville, NC.