Away for the Weekend:

To my little cottage in the woods.
























And read.
























And sleep.

















And sleep.
























And tea parties.
























And mirror time.
























And pink wellie wearing...

Better Homes Than Yours:

175 East 79th Street

Upper East Side, Manhattan

















Beauty and sophistication abound in this rare 1 Bedroom Prewar Penthouse. French doors lead from the dramatic Living Room with gas fireplace, 11.6" ceilings onto a 41' x 9' South facing planted terrace with sunset views and solar controlled awning. The 41'-0 x 19'-9" Northern Terrace has expansive open city views. All terraces are lit and have their own sprinkler system. This exquisite architectural renovation features handsome custom cabinetry in the dining room and bedroom, central A/C and sound system, 2 new baths, the master with radiant heated glass tile floors, renovated kitchen with chic bamboo floors. A beautiful and luxurious apartment with all the rooms facing terraces.

Type: COOP
Rooms: 4
Bedrooms: 1
Baths: 2
Yr. Built: 1929
Attended Lobby: Yes
Prewar: Yes
Outdoor Space: Yes
Pet Friendly: Yes


















































































































Now lets play a game,

Can you guess the asking price of this fabulous apartment?

Aquariass:

Giving unconditional cuddly love, fish make good pets. Transport them from their natural underwater environment to a toilet tank aquarium and as they die just flush them. When form follows function it’s always good taste. Discover more deranged design inspiration at elsewhwere.

Doris Duke:

In my next life I either want to be reincarnated as a black girl (because they have more fun) or as Doris Duke. Doris lived like a queen honey. So few live like a queen these days. I know we’re at war and vulgar displays of wealth and fashion are frowned upon during times of hardship but where are the do’ wagers? They owe it to me. While I swelter in my walk up flat eating cat food out of a can with one light bulb. These bitches owe me a glimpse of the life that I should have.
















Doris had it all, money, good looks, wealth, good body, riches, Porfirio Rubirosa and luxuries. Porfirio seemed to wiggle himself into some of the richest and most glamorous women. So when reincarnating I want him also.


































I have just returned all refreshed from my tour of Doris’s Hawaiian hideaway the fabled “Shangri La.” All simple and unimposing on the outside and a palace on the inside a little getaway all fit for her majesty, Queen Doris.






























Don’t believe me? It truly is all that I say. One of the best sites I have ever visited in person on the Internets. Take the tour of Shangri La it will leave you longing for a taste of Porfirio and how the other half live. I just want a piece…a piece of the Porfirio tube steak.































Wik her up - Doris:

Wik him up - Porfirio:

Better Homes Than Yours:

I want to live with Paulina Rubio at the wonderfully appointed La Catedra in Barcelona, Spain. This is the nicest ruin I can imagine myself dwelling. I understand from my sources in Kentwood Louisiana that Britney Spears saw this episode of MTV Cribs and wanted to buy the place.

La Catedra: “Thank you for calling the architectural offices of La Catedra, how may I direct your call?”

Britney: “Um yeah how much is Paulina’s concrete castle I saw on Cribs?”

La Catedra: “I’m sorry but the family is not interested in selling their home. It’s not for sale.”

Britney: “Everything is fo sale…BITCH just name yo price.”

La Catedra: “I’m sorry but you have been misinformed the 1 million sq. foot 10 room, “Casa La Catedra” is definitely NOT FOR SALE!”

CLICK

Britney: “Yo damn bitch hung up on me, ya’ll!”

La Catedra: “Thank you for calling the architectural offices of La Catedra, how may I direct your call?”

Britney: “Yo bitch you jus hung up on me?”

La Catedra: “Yes”

Britney: “I just wanna tell you this!”

CLICK

How to buy a green sofa:

What’s all this about buying green? I mean how hard can it be?

The easiest method to purchase a green sofa is to walk into a showroom and pick out the one that’s green. It’s simple really. Not blue, red, orange, purple, black, but green. Gosh people just try to make every thing so hard these days.

Lila Jang:

Film in North Florida:

Who says we aint got culture down here. Why just one quick gander at the weekender section of the newspaper is chock full of artsy things to do, but only on the weekend. This past year alone saw a crowd attending the prestigious Pensacola International Film Festival. There are no plans or updates as of yet that I know of for 2008.













One of the best things about this area of the world is well...the area. Gorgeous beaches, beautiful clear emerald green water, and stunning natural scrub environments. Film production companies looking for new and interesting places to lens their stories are increasingly drawn to Northwest Florida. It’s interesting terrain, extremely inexpensive, and film goers for the most part have never really seen this area before.

"Premiering at the Pensacola Film Festival: "Permanent Vacation." This film was 100% shot in the Pensacola area, starring David Carridine and the biggest stars of the British cinema. Based on the popular novel "What We Did On Our Holidays", the film is a jet black comedy about a British family on holiday in Florida. They encounter a wild menagerie of local characters and, in a typical British fashion, "go native". Directed by W. Scott Peake and crewed by area production professionals, "Permanent Vacation" is a film not to miss."

Info courtesy Pensacola International Film Festival


“Permanent Vacation”



Another added attraction to this area is that so many locations are willing to let you film in their homes or properties, I'm sure for a huge but modest fee. If you are just dying to see what it looks like here in Pensacola and the surrounding areas check out Film North Florida.




























A Pseudo-Tudor on the bluff overlooking the bay is but one of the scenes from a walk around my East Hill neighborhood.























A patio perched precariously on the bluff overlooking the Bayou Texar.





















The boathouse where I'm sure sinister things have happened.




















Art Deco home on the residential section of Pensacola Beach.




























Gulf of Mexico view.




























People milling about on the Art Deco house's beach.





























So come on down, bring your film crews, production companies, over paid actors and film in Northwest Florida...We need your dollars.

Photos courtesy Denise Daughtry and Film North Florida

Better Homes Than Yours:

Andy Warhol was one of the most interesting artists of the twentieth century and was well known for his decorative collectibles. Few were ever granted the privilege of being invited into his Upper East Side of Manhattan traditional four-story townhouse with close to 30 rooms. The interior consisted of fine art deco furniture and museum-quality American, English and French antiques, rich fabrics, great rugs, and hand-stenciled wallpaper. Much of Warhol's Federal and Classical American furniture was made in Philadelphia and Baltimore from around 1815 to 1840. His choices were motivated by price as much as aesthetic value.






















This photograph from the early 1980's shows the eccentric artist at home with his eclectic mixture of fine furnishings and odd accessories and that Andy Warhol was way ahead of the trends of the period.

Better Homes Than Yours:

Richard Woods' and Sebastian Wrong's Wrongwoods

Apartment Therapy

TV Guide:

Finally the new Television set and Hi-Fi entertainment console combo that I ordered back in 1965 arrived...just in time to watch the Jetsons!

Better Homes Than Yours:

My Dad was a modernist architect that began his practice in 1955 and a lot of the homes in which we lived were homes that he designed and built. My favorite home was a Brady Bunch style home that was situated on a lot that retained it's natural setting with the home placed in the middle of the wild growth. It had a glass box feeling about it and radiated around a central atrium garden with a water feature, tropical plants and a free standing rail less staircase. It was so cool growing up in the houses that everyone wanted to visit and were envious that you lived there. They usually included custom built jungle gyms or 20 foot platforms with rope swings or salvaged bomber plane fuselages where we played captain and stewardesses. The point is that during this incredible period of forward thinking, visionaries created unusual spaces for their families to dwell and call home. I was one of the lucky ones who experienced this type of alternative living, while neighbors had to be content with the cookie cutter, Dick Jane and Sally style variety of homes available at that time.

Witness in the above photo a modern construction that separates rooms as capsules connected by common areas of recreation. The bedrooms are completely dislocated from the living areas only accessible through outdoor corridors. Completely enveloped by a natural setting. Bright colors, natural material choices, flat planes and overhangs, with large expanses of sliding glass encouraging an indoor outdoor lifestyle. How it takes me back to my own Brady Bunch house. Learn more about mid century modern houses and architects of the period and more importantly The Case Study Houses, experiments in residential architecture.

Space hotel: 18 sunrises a day

Few hotels can offer their guests a view that boasts a sunrise 18 times in a day, but a new space tourism company is promising just that by building the first hotel in space.Galactic Suite, a private space tourism company, is planning to build a three-bedroom hotel using pods joined together in orbit. They hope to be open for business by 2012.But tickets for a trip aboard the Galactic Suite will not be cheap, with a three-day stay costing about £2 million.For that price, the company claims it will train customers for their space flight on a tropical island before flying them to the hotel. Once there, they will be able to enjoy spectacular views of the Earth and experience life in zero gravity. The hotel is expected to make a complete orbit of the Earth every 80 minutes, so in 24 hours the sun will rise and set behind our planet 18 times. Read the rest of the article at Architecture Week...

Better Homes Than Yours:

Today’s interiors are less than visionary or ambitious , replicating the same room over and over again for the client who would never live in a daring space. Opting for conformity, submissive lack of imaginative ideals, and that dreadful universal concept of keeping up with the Joneses. Who do you think the Joneses are keeping up with? Magazines rarely publish interiors unless they have that little something extra regularly citing, "It's just another pretty room." The past decade has seen a rehash of modernist principles returning to vogue with reinterpretations having merit, the Home Depot copycat contractors and do it yourself magazines have bled the movement into the mundane and if imitation is the goal then why not recreate some of the better modern spaces.

Example:

The vintage contemporary bachelor pad gets the royal treatment in this incredibly chic high rise apartment. The monolithic walls separate and terminate before reaching a nonexistent ceiling creating volume and the feeling of unlimited space. The use of spindly legged tables and chairs help to achieve a see-thru quality to occasional furnishings inviting a guest to have a seat and anchor them before these pieces float away into the black space above. A low slung boxy sofa is the only substantial upholstered feature to this spaceport lounge offering the seated visitor a starring role in the conversational cockpit. Strong use of black accents suggested in iron work, objet d'art, horizontal surfaces and the imposing lampshade add an extra punch of masculine drama. An alter-like slab fireplace has a background of tropical greenery and an inset trickling waterfall.

Better Homes Than Yours:

A New York Penthouse, despite restricted space, took on the feeling of country living when its color scheme was changed to the white, bright look focused on tulip pink and cerulean blue. The man-made materials play an important role too, include vinyl bamboo blinds, space-saving gold spray-printed nylon window screens, practical polyester white carpeting and faux marbré tops for the radiators. Laminated melamine organizer drawers double as coffee table bases, while all other accessories are fashioned from visitor friendly acrylic. Artificial flowers, a plastic rubber tree and white synthetic shantung silk upholstered ottoman complete this tableau. By Interior Imitations