New Year’s Resolution #1: Get Organized
Bard attacks messy situations non-judgementally; your secrets are safe with her.
“Organizing,“ says Johanna Bard of Milan, “is not necessarily about throwing things out.“ Bard, whose company, Your Hudson Valley Organizer, is dedicated to helping its clients reclaim their time, space, and energy, belongs to the National Association of Professional Organizers, which routinely holds conferences in far-flung cities to discuss how best to tackle a mess. The sort of sorry fact she picks up at these meetings: the average person spends 55 minutes a day (about two weeks a year) looking for things they know they have but cannot find—not just the keys, the sunglasses, the electric bill, but the right lid for the leftover container. “At the last one I attended, there were 900 people in the room who all think the same way,“ marvels Bard. “Only eleven were men.“
Bard claims her organizational skills stem from having grown up in a chaotic household. As a child, she realized that her sense of equilibrium depended on keeping her own space in order. Many of her clients are facing major life changes that threaten their equilibrium, too—the loss of a loved one, a move to a nursing home, or even just to a much smaller house; a passage that, according to Bard, is not so much “down-sizing” as “right-sizing.“ “My goal is to relieve stress and worry,“ she says. People get very attached to their possessions. And it’s sometimes difficult for family members to muster the requisite balance of objectivity and empathy. “It’s not helpful when a family member just wants to bring in the dumpster,“ she says. “Sure, it’s important to be realistic, but it’s just as important to honor the elder’s position in the family as the memory holder.“ Helping to decide what memorabilia is to be kept and what must go takes tact.
While much of an organizer’s job is finding a home within the home for things, Bard cautions against buying storage pieces—hanging files, plastic bins, metal shelving, and other container-store nine-day wonders—before the mess is at least semi-sorted out. “In a garage or a basement we first find zones for things: tools that need to be hung up, flammable liquids, then we look around to see if we have the right storage equipment. I do my best to use what they already have.“ Once it’s all finished, there are usually three piles left. “The client is responsible for the trash. And I’ll take one carload to a charity. Whatever we’ve decided to get rid of leaves the house when I do.“ And the third pile? Things the client can’t decide should stay or go. “We put those in a box and date them for six months later. If an object is still in the box when that date arrives, out it goes.“
Bard offers free classes to groups of (usually) women. “I’ll give a Clean Out Your Junk Drawer Night at someone’s house,“ she says. “And I’ll actually ask them to bring their junk drawers. Or I’ll ask each to sweep all the papers off her desk into a brown paper bag and bring it. Then I’ll tell them how they might get it all organized. It’s embarrassing, but it’s fun, too, and it gives them a sense of relief.“
People have different learning styles and Bard tries to adapt to them. “I was working with a clown magician,“ she says. “I was in her basement, and I picked up something and asked, ‘What’s this?‘ She said, ‘It’s some magic I need to learn.‘“ So Bard replied, “That’s what we are going to mark the box, ‘Magic to Be Learned.‘ It’s not what I might have called it, but it pushes the right button for her.“
The rates cited on Bard’s website have been reduced from $60 to $45 per hour, with a nine-hour minimum.. “To help people along in this economy,“ she says.
Your Hudson Valley Organizer
845.901.2445
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 12/17/08 at 09:49 PM • Permalink
A French Twist on American Country Style
French Chic: The Art of Decorating Houses (Rizzolli; $50) doesn’t sound like a coffee-table book with a lot of relevance for people decorating Hudson Valley or New England houses. But the author, Florence de Dampierre, just happens to live in an 18th century clapboard house with Federal-and-Colonial details on historic North Street in Litchfield, which is as Yankee as it gets. And in her own life and professional decorating projects, she has adapted what she considers French style for an all-American way of life. De Dampierre, who has written previous books on the decorative arts (Chairs: A History and The Best of Painted Furniture), is clever enough to know that pictures of her home may not be enough evidence to convince some people of the relevance of French style in a rural American context. Thus, she cites a long list of American taste-makers who were Francophiles from Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to Edith Wharton and Jacqueline Kennedy, who wanted to turn the White House into an “American Versailles.“
French Chic is reminiscent of Bunny William’s best-selling An Affair With A House with its intimate look at every corner of de Dampierre’s Connecticut house—from the recherché billiard room to the pool house to the herb garden. It even includes pictures of table settings for dinner and lunch parties as well as recipes for gâteau au chocolat de ma grandmère and soupe de betteraves. For all its practical tips, the book is really about inspiration—the je ne sais quoi of style. De Dampierre quotes Edith Wharton and seconds her philosophy: “French taste? It’s the way the women put on their hats and the upholsters drape their curtains.“
Florence de Dampierre Book Signings
Saturday, December 13; 2 - 4 PM
Hudson Home
356 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.822.8120
Sunday, December 14; 2:30 - 4 PM
Harney & Sons
13 Main Street, Millerton; 518.789.2121
The billiard room at the Litchfield house.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 12/10/08 at 10:42 AM • Permalink
HunterBee Brings A Flea Market Aesthetic to Millerton
For many years, Kent Hunter and Jonathan Bee spent weekends visiting flea markets and antiques fairs, buying furniture and funky decorative objects that they had no room for in their apartment in New York. They stored their finds in Bee’s parents house in Great Barrington. “When the basement filled up, we knew it was time to open a shop,“ says Hunter.
This Friday, the couple unveils HunterBee in a prime storefront in Millerton (which was previously home to Millerton Market and before that the much missed Pasta at Large.) Hunter Bee has a mix of country antiques, folk art, found objects, and industrial design. “From low to high, there is a beauty in everything here,“ says Hunter who’s a graphic designer by day and is drawn to furniture and objects with bold lines and audacious shapes: vintage valises, factory furniture, old advertising signs, a Pop Art-inspired baby bottle. “I like things with history and a patina.“ He also likes things that are quirky and one-of-a-kind such as a pair of formal French-style chairs made from bicycle tires. “They’re in the style of Louis XIV or maybe Louis XV, and they are incredibly comfortable,“ he says with glee, bouncing on the seat. “And the matching table is genius—pure Wiener Werkstätte!“
The couple, who’ve been life partners for 15 years, are dividing the labor to make sure the vicissitudes of their professional collaboration does not affect their personal life. “Kent is going to pick all the merchandise and I am going to be in charge of sales,“ says Bee, an artist whose various New York careers included fashion sales and social work in the AIDS community. “Now I’m a cliché—a middle aged antiques dealer,“ he says cheerfully. But Bee hasn’t lost his social conscience and he is selling handmade jewelry by people with disabilities from Community Access to the Arts, the Great Barrington organization that organizes workshops in the visual and performing arts for people with disabilities.
The men say they have been welcomed with open arms by the merchants of Millerton. Despite the economic climate, they think it is a good time to be opening an antiques store. “It’s the green way to decorate your house.“ says Hunter. “Antiques are the ultimate in recycling.“
HunterBee
21 Main Street, Millerton; 518.789.2127 or 646.294.2571
Thursday - Saturday 10 AM - 5 PM; Sunday 11 AM - 4 PM, and by appointment
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 11/25/08 at 07:39 AM • Permalink
Food for Thought: The 6th Annual Northwest Connecticut Kitchen Tour
A tour kitchen by Cedar Creek Wood Works
The last thing you’re probably thinking about at the moment is renovating your kitchen. But now’s a good time not only to day dream about new cabinets, countertops and appliances but also to put together that binder of ideas and inspiration so when the economy bounces back you have a well-researched and well-considered plan on the drawing board. The organizers of this Saturday’s 6th Annual Northwest CT Kitchen Tour understand that the tour is not merely about voyeurism, so they will have packets with information on the materials, products, sources and craftsmen used at each one of the nine kitchens spread out among the towns of Cornwall, Falls Village, Kent and Lakeville/Salisbury.
Is it really possible to see all nine kitchens? “Absolutely,“ says organizer Joyce Finkelstein, who has mapped out a route so you can start in the south in Kent or north in Salisbury and see everything in six hours. “The tour benefits the Musical Theater Society at Housatonic Valley Regional High School which includes all of these towns [as well as Canaan and Sharon], and we wanted the tour to reflect that.“ Besides the information packets, there will be snacks (and recipes for them) at each stop, including truffles made by the high school’s cooking class. “This is the main fundraiser for the musical theater society, which allows the high school to put on a full-scale musical each year, which otherwise they could not afford,“ says Finkelstein, noting that this year’s production is Anything Goes (March 19 -21). That could be the title for this year’s kitchen tour, too, which inlcudes a Victorian-style kitchen, a “jazz-fusion” kitchen that could be in New Orleans, a classic antique New England kitchen with a British AGA stove, and a true chef’s kitchen which was designed by its owner who is a professional chef.
Kitchen Tour of Northwest CT
Saturday November 1, 2008; 10 AM - 4 PM
Information: 860.435.8842
Tickets ($30) available in advance and on Nov 1 at:
Agapanthus, Lakeville
Four Seasons Food, Lakeville
Harney Tea, Millerton, NY
House of Books, Kent
Kent Pharmacy
Salisbury Pharmacy
Salisbury Post Office (outside on day of tour only)
Sharon Pharmacy
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 10/29/08 at 03:42 PM • Permalink
New York Botanical Continuing Ed Sallelite at Bard
It begins with the first sign of fall and grows more pronounced with every passing week. Gardeners who for months have been bounding (well, perhaps not quite bounding) out of bed at 5 a.m. to squeeze in as many hours of muddy bliss as possible, retreat indoors to mope about, trying to rekindle their interest in life by flipping through gardening books and catalogues. Well, gardeners, good news. Starting this fall, the New York Botanical Garden will offer a selection of its popular gardening and landscape design classes at a new satellite center, our own Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. The inaugural course, Establishing Fruit Trees in the Landscape will begin October 11. Other classes to follow include, The Deer Resistant Landscape; Getting Started with Perennials; Introduction to Landscape Design, Designing Dazzling Borders; The How, When, & Where of Pruning; and Maintaining Fruit Trees in the Landscape. For those who are seeking certification, these classes are part of the Botanical Garden’s certificate program.
New York Botanical Garden Continuing Ed; 718.817.8747
Pre-registration required.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 10/01/08 at 04:53 PM • Permalink
The Last Open Day of the Season
Ah the joys of snooping around other peoples’ gardens, luxuriating in their seeming miles of brilliantly conceived, meticulously maintained, well-fed, deeply-mulched, weed-free planting beds, without personally having suffered a single twinge of sciatica or, indeed, so much as a broken nail. Devotees of the Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, this it it! The end. Fini. Kaput. Until next year. The last tour of summer takes place in Berkshire County this weekend.
Three properties, all near Great Barrington, will be open this Sunday. Eighteenth-century Seekonk Farm, (above) winner of Garden Design Magazine’s Golden Trowel Award in 2000, is a mostly native woodland garden, that comes into its own in early fall, with Thalictrum, Cimicifuga, and ancient arching Hydrangea tardivas. Wheelbarrow Hill Farm (photograph at top) is nestled in the trees on top of a hill with long views. Flower beds are terraced into the hill, and the woodland has been pruned and cut to frame the view. A cutting garden sits at the base of the hill, and wildflowers and groundcovers grow on trails throughout the woods. And, finally, a bowl-shaped garden in the foothills of Tom Ball Mountain has many natural gifts: boulders, hemlocks, black birch, pines. Additions include richly textured, colorful shrubs, bulbs, and perennials, Goshen stone paths, and a small lily pond, a major focal point. In September many of the plantings are at their peak: grasses begin to plume, the tubs of annuals are at their fullest, many cannas and dahlias are finally doing their thing. Generally, there is a pleasing sense of maturity and ripeness.
Open Days Tour
Sunday, September 21; 10 - 4
Admission: $5/per garden
For directions, visit the conservancy website; maps available at each site.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 09/16/08 at 11:09 AM • Permalink
A Cinderella House Makes Its Debut for Charity
Twin Lakes Farm is the star of the benefit house tour on Saturday
Matthew Patrick Smyth, an A-list New York decorator with a weekend house in Sharon, is used to working for demanding clients who expect things done yesterday. So he was not surprised when Scott and Roxanne Bok approached him in June about decorating a restored 19th century farmhouse in Salisbury, CT, and told him that it absolutely had to be ready by September 5. “We had promised the Housatonic Child Care Center that it could be on their annual charity house tour on September 6,“ explains Roxanne.
Though there are four other residences on this year’s house tour, Twin Lakes Farm, as the property on picturesque Route 44 is now called, is the marquee mansion. Always referred to by locals at the old Crosby Estate (Bing’s brother Everett once lived there), it had become a spooky and dilapidated ruin with burned out greenhouses and a concrete wall out front—the proverbial white elephant. The Boks, who have a house nearby, wanted to buy it for the farmland so they could raise cattle and grow vegetables to supply the kitchen at their White Hart Inn, which was recently featured in The New York Times. “The owners were very difficult so we did not even see the inside of the house until we bought it, but we had planned to knock it down anyway” says Roxanne. “When I finally saw it, I realized it was an elegant Victorian trapped in bag-lady clothing. I couldn’t kill her.“
After ripping off weird additions, meticulously renovating the interior, building new barns, replacing the concrete wall with a stone one, fencing pastures and planting a row of trees along Route 44, the Boks decided that the house would make an ideal office for their various local businesses (including Weatogue Stables) and their family foundation (which is a major supporter of not-for-profits like TriArts and Shakespeare & Company.) “They wanted to be able to use the house for board meetings, conferences and parties,“ says Smyth. “And they wanted it to feel like their home, too.“
Smyth managed to pull off the balancing act—and on time too. He used as many local resources as possible—from buying kitchen rugs at Hammertown Barn, chairs at Susan Silver Antiques in Sheffield and a magnificent 7-leaf dining table from New York antique dealer David Duncan who has a weekend house in Falls Village. When the Boks left for a ten-day wilderness trip to Alaska two weeks ago, the house was still empty. When Roxanne arrived on September 3 to see if the house was ready for Saturday’s tour, she was awed by what she saw. “It’s shockingly beautiful,“ she told Smyth, and immediately called her husband in New York. “Scott, you are going to die when you see it. Every room is perfect. It’s totally, totally gorgeous.“
You can judge for yourself on Saturday.
The 25th Annual House Tour to benefit the Housatonic Child Care Center
Saturday, September 6, 10 AM to 4 PM
Advance tickets $45; available at J. Stack in Salisbury, Salisbury Pharmacy, Salisbury Garden Center, Four Seasons Food in Lakeville, or Sharon Pharmacy,
Day-of tickets $50; available at the Salisbury and Lakeville post offices or at any of the houses on the tour. There will be lawn signs all over town pointing the way to the houses.
Smyth and homeowner Roxanne Bok on the back porch of the recently renovated and just decorated Twin Lakes Farm
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 09/04/08 at 12:00 PM • Permalink
Gardening: Hollister House Festival & Seminar
Hollister House, in Washington, CT, is the featured site of a Garden Conservancy-sponsored Study Weekend that kicks off with a cocktail reception and tour of the extraordinary gardens that were begun there in 1979 by George Schoellkopf and Ron Johnson. Since then, under Schoellkopf’s guidance (and, since 1993, with the design contributions of Gerald Incandela), the garden has evolved into a uniquely American synthesis of a gardening style we generally think of as quintessentially English.
Sited on 25 acres of mostly wooded landscape, the garden complements and incorporates 18th-century structures —a house, barns and outbuildings. These and the walls and hedges that surround and connect to them, create a firm architectural framework for a series of garden “rooms” in the romantic English tradition. A winding brook and a large pond at the bottom of the lawn complete the scene.
Saturday’s events include a morning seminar at the Washington, CT Town Hall. Old Fashions, New Traditions: The Influence of the British Isles on Northeast Gardens is the topic of a talk by Dan Pearson, the British garden designer, plantsman, and contributing editor to Garden’s Illustrated magazine. It will be followed by case studies of a number of notable gardens by the gardeners who created them. After a buffet lunch (and another opportunity to tour the Hollister House Garden for those who missed the reception the night before), there will be a connoisseurs’ plant sale, and a plant show-and-tell session with gardening writer Page Dickey (author of, among other titles, Gardens in the Spirit of Place, 2005) and Marco Polo Stufano, the former director of horticulture at Wave Hill. Also weighing in will be nurserymen Pierre Bennerup and Adam Wheeler.
Sunday will be a normal Garden Conservancy Open Day with tours of five Litchfield County gardens, including Hollister House.
Friday, September 5
Cocktail Reception 5 - 7:30
Admission: $60; $50/members
300 Nettleton Hollow Road, Washington
Saturday, September 6
Hollister House Garden Festival and Program, including buffet lunch: $140; $125/members
Washington Town Hall
2 Bryan Plaza (off Route 47), Washington Depot
and Hollister House
300 Nettleton Hollow Road, Washington
Cocktail Party, Program, and Hollister House Garden Festival, including buffet lunch: $180; $160/members
Pre-registration required for all of the above
Litchfield County Garden Conservancy Open Day Tour
Sunday, September 7; 10 - 4
Admission: $5 per garden at the door
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 09/01/08 at 01:18 PM • Permalink
Giving Soul to A Spec House in Austerlitz
A brand new house is a blessing and a burden, a tabula rasa that comes without the history, quirks and charm that are the hallmarks of memorable country houses. Over the past seven years, James Oates and William Li have transformed a modest, spanking-new timber-peg, three-bedroom house on an unpaved road in the Austerlitz woods into a stylish and personal weekend Shangri-La. “Division of labor is the key to a successful weekend house,“ opines Li, who is the publisher of Condé Nast Portfolio. Li, who had executive jobs at the now defunct House & Garden and HomeStyle magazines, thinks like an editor. “I am in charge of making things pretty and tasty,“ he says. His partner takes charge of landscaping and other construction-oriented chores. “I’m like my grandfather who was a great putterer,“ says Oates, who runs an interactive design agency called Hudson Union, which is based in Brooklyn. “I like to have projects. I like to be busy. I do the manual work, and William makes me lunch.“
The couple, who wed in 2003 (and became domestic partners with the blessing of the State of Vermont) closed on the Austerlitz house on September 11, 2001, which underscored how much they consider their house a refuge. They had been weekending and puttering in Kinderhook for the previous four years. “We had an adorable cottage that was a renovated chicken coop,“ says Li. But it felt cramped because they had a constant stream of weekend guests. “I said to Jim, Life’s too short. Let’s get a bigger house.“
They knew the second they saw the barn-red house that they’d found home. “It was love at first sight,“ says Li. Adds Oates: “We ran around the house we were just so excited.“ Everything about the house was right—the massive stone fireplace, the double height living room, the first-floor master bedroom, and the two upstairs guest rooms. The builder had not bothered with any landscaping, which has allowed Oates to putter purposefully for the past seven years. “I deer-fenced ten acres myself,“ he says. “That was a major. It took nearly three years.“ He didn’t build the swimming pool himself, but the design they came up with could not be more copacetic to the site. A rugged stone walls separates the pool from the patio, making it seem natural to the land, providing a ledge of extra seating for large parties.
Li took charge of the interior. “A lot of the furniture came from Meissner’s Auction in New Lebanon,“ he says. Most of the fabrics came from high-end designer showrooms, because Li had connections from his shelter magazine days. An design editor friend, Jason Kontos, offered advice on things like the dramatic living room curtains made from Kelly Wearstler fabric. “You’re really not supposed to use upholstery fabric for curtains, but we didn’t care.“
The couple loves to buy art and they nonchalantly mix paintings and prints from cutting edge New York City galleries with framed posters and personal photographs. The house doesn’t have a style per se, but it does have a gemütlichkeit aura. “I’m not sure what feng shui is,“ says Li, who grew up in New York’s Chinatown, “but this house has good feng shui. My mom loved it. She said never sell it. I don’t think we ever could.“
The cheerful, cozy living room mixes fine and funky. The barrel chairs cost $10 each at Meissner’s Auction in New Lebanon, and Li had them reupholstered in a zigzag fabric by Alan Campbell. The Tibetan rug, like all the carpets in the house, is from Odegard, where Li once worked. The Brunschwig & Fils sofa is covered in linen velvet. .
The deer heads outside the guest rooms are from Meissner’s.
The guest rooms are variations on a theme; each one has a rocking chair and eclectic furnishings. The structural beams are used as shelves to hold books, pictures, mirrors, and to display collections of McCoy pottery that Oates has had since college.
The massive stone fireplace and open plan sold them on the house. The Chinoiserie ottoman is by Schumacher.
A candle chandelier hangs over the dining table; Li had the shield-back chairs from Meissner’s reupholstered in a 1950s Schumacher print with a Japanese motif.
Working with Callanders Nursery in Chatham, the couple built a pool with a stone wall that separates it from the terrace and helps keep the landscape looking natural.
When they bought the house, the pool area was all woods,and Oates clearned much of the land himself; a bed of lush hydgangea is used as a cutting garden.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 08/14/08 at 04:36 PM • Permalink
Berkshire Botanical Event: Gardening As Blood Sport
Don’t let the theme of the 39th-annual flower show fool you: The Nurturing Garden: Birds, Bees, Butterflies and Best Friends sounds gentle, but the competition promises to be fierce. Which brings to light a seldom mentioned fact: gardeners are as competitive as athletes. This weekend they get to go head-to-head in a wide range of horticultural and sartorial events. Even at Saturday evening’s fundraising gala, “La Fete des Fleurs,” attendees will be playing to win.
At the flower show there are seven classes in the Design Division (think: flower arranging), including the Men’s Challenge Class and three classes in the Youth Division, for ages 5-12. In addition, there are more than 50 classes for horticulture, including annuals and perennials, bulbs, roses, vegetables, herbs, potted plants and flowering shrubs. Members and non-members alike must submit their plants and arrangements prior to the show; (See details below.)
Saturday evening, at the family-friendly cocktail hour “La Fete de Fleur”, held this year at a spectacular private garden in Canaan, NY, the sport continues. Guests are encouraged to wear attire, especially hats, that reflect the nurturing-garden theme. There will be prizes for both children and adults.
Berkshire Botanical Gardens
Rtes. 102 & 183, Stockbridge; 413.298.3926
Saturday, 1-5; Sunday, 10-5
Deliver plants and arrangements to the Garden’s Exhibit Hall on Saturday morning between 8 and 10.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/29/08 at 09:50 AM • Permalink
