Amsterdam School architecture

I was in Amsterdam last week for a work conference and managed to stay a bit longer so as to get an afternoon to explore.

There wasn't really anything specific that I'll take away as inspiration for Amherst, but there were still a few quirky things that caught my eye. In particular this amazing building called Het Schip.

I found it totally by accident when I was walking from the hotel to the conference. It turns out it's one of the most iconic buildings by Michel de Klerk, a famous architect of the Amsterdam School. He made me think of a dutch version of Frank Lloyd Wright...who had a thing for brick. :-)

I took tons of photos and video of Het Schip and surrounds, here's a compilation.



Besides this, Museum Van Loon was great to wander in: kind of like a National Trust house but dutch. I wish I'd had more time to properly explore. In particular it had a fabulous garden room, really light due to the use of mirrors; and a great kitchen that had the very clever idea of white tiles on the (very low) ceiling to make it easy to clean. :-)

For some reason, I also really liked this row house that almost looked like it had a triangular corner, and the effect you got looking through the windows.

visiting Shaws Corner

After collecting our new pet cow, we went exploring. It turned out that Shaw's Corner, the Arts & Crafts style house where George Bernard Shaw lived, was only 15 minutes drive away.

We really liked the house, it was quite modest compared to the usual National Trust mansions. It was the kind of place you could actually imagine living in comfortably.


From a distance it may have looked reasonably straightforward in layout but it had all these little quirks, unusual little porches and windows jutting out. I especially loved the windows joining onto the chimney:



We're beyond the point of being able to incorporate these sorts of details into Amherst now, but I still like looking at them.

There's one exception however: the notion of a rotating summerhouse. This was quite famous as the place where he wrote a lot of his plays at the end of the garden. It was on a kind of track so he could easily rotate it to get the best of the sunshine. Dave was much taken with it, spending a lot of time peering underneath to try and work out the mechanism.



You can see all the photos I took including the lovely garden here. Sadly there are none of the inside as they don't let you take photos there (and there were too many 'guards' around for me to sneak a few!). But there are lots in the BBC article.

inspiration from Kent & Sussex

We recently spent a few days in Kent and Sussex, visiting gardens and old houses. The weather wasn't brilliant but we were lucky most of the time - grey skies but seldom rain.

As usual, we were on the lookout for ideas we can copy at Amherst. Here's our favourites:

At Derek Jarman's garden in Dungeness we found a form of gravel garden - actually shingle - that I like. I've seen gravel gardens before but I've not liked them: this one was different though: no fences and surrounded by proper sized pebbles rather than itty-bitty stones that crunch when you walk. Given how hard it will be to maintain grass where we are, this is a godsend.


At Walmer Castle we discovered a lovely shade of blue paint that worked surprisingly well even in a sometimes dark corridor:


A cool concept for a lookout bench at Scotney Castle:


Wonderful circular steps designed by Lutyens at Great Dixter:


Raised planting troughs at Sissinghurst.... Actually I'd come across these on a past visit but seeing them again reminded me. Of course hers are all proper stone and weigh a ton but you can get fake plastic ones that look very realistic - I have to remember to get a bunch before we leave, as Mum says she's not seen them in Australia.


Also at Sissinghurst, the lovely plant gazebo from her famous white garden:


And finally, also from Sissinghurst, the herb garden. I'd love to lay our herb garden out this way in the square between the two houses (albeit without the tall hedge). I especially like the camomile bench that you can see at about 13 secs in:

San Francisco inspiration

In early October I was in San Francisco for a work conference. It finished on the Friday and I stayed over the weekend to visit friends.

On Sunday Caroline and I went exploring to see some of the beautiful old houses. I'd been to San Francisco several times before, but not since I got interested in architecture, so it was fun to look around with fresh eyes.

You can see all the photos I took here, but below are some that sparked particular inspiration for Amherst.

Bamboo mural on the front of a house in Haight Ashbury - something like this might be nice for a shed or verandah wall?


I loved the glossy black finish on these stairs.


And I loved the concept of training vines to grow across the risers of stairs.


I like the small verandah under the eaves of this house and can see something like this working well with the style of Amherst.


You can barely make it out in this photo, but there's some lovely old stained glass set in the trellis on the edge of the verandah. Something like this could be really great on the verandahs at Amherst, at one end to screen something off, or simply as a partial divider maybe? In particular, for the old cottage now Dad is putting the wraparound verandah on.


I loved this plant, especially how the melodrama of it so fitted with that of the house. This is a reminder to not separate planting from the architecture.


Plunging rosemary plants... I never knew they could grow like this. This might be a nice option for around the balcony edges or on terrace walls.

our visit to Beth Chatto gardens

We visited the famous Beth Chatto gardens in Colchester Essex last Saturday afternoon. It was a gloriously hot day so the gardens were extremely crowded, but you couldn't have picked better weather for seeing a "dry" garden.

I'd been looking forward to this for ages as the gardens are famous for being in a very dry part of England, only 500mm rainfall per year apparently, and so similar conditions to Amherst. I was hoping to get lots of inspiration.

Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. The plants were all healthy but somehow there was just something missing for me. It felt like a small botanical garden and lacking a personal touch. Perhaps I'm just too used to gardens with "rooms" but it lacked the magic of other gardens we've visited. It's sad as I'd really wanted to love it, not least because it's in a very dry part of the country with similar rainfall to Amherst, so I would have had a good chance to make something similar! C'est la vie.

The one thing I have taken away from this is that come hell or high water, we have to have lawn around our plantings. Even Dave agrees. Gravel might be OK for a small section, eg: formal herb garden paths, but it is just too hot and washes out the plant colours to have it everywhere, ala the mediterranean garden. Hell, I'll even use fake astroturf if I have to in parts to create the effect of lushness.

Here's a picture of the dry garden, so you can see what it looks like. It's not that it's ugly, it's just that it doesn't move me the way other gardens do. If my garden looked like this, it would be a chore to work in; whereas if my garden was like at Sissinghurst or Hidcote I could gladly labour all day happily.

Aberdeenshire inspiration

We’ve just got back from 4 days in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, spent mostly visiting castles and gardens albeit in somewhat drizzly weather. As is usual whenever we travel now, we came back armed magpie-like with ideas for Amherst! You can see the full set of photos here but these are the main ideas:

For the garden:

My favourite of the gardens we visited was at Leith Hall, as it was the most ‘English’ of the lot with a huge zigzagging herbaceous border and lots of flowers and specimen trees. Ideas it sparked included:

Gates that shut themselves by means of a heavy stone weight tied to them


Having a circular gateway like their moongate. Not sure how hard it would be to make, but in the right spot it could be really effective.


Mowing the grass to make a pattern. I’ve seen this done before to create walkways, but never as effectively to create a decorative pattern.



A close second to Leith Hall of my favourite gardens was at Crathes Castle. It was the first we visited on this trip. Ideas we got from it:

Lupins lupins lupins. They were everywhere in full bloom, especially in the garden at Crathes Castle which had an entire border full of them. They really looked spectacular. I’m going to give them another chance in our London garden, plus put them on the list for the ‘cossetted’ secret garden area at Amherst.


Square rope like netting stretched between stakes all along the herbaceous border was used at almost all the gardens we visited, but we saw it most at Crathes. I’d not seen it before, I guess because we’d not visited early enough in the season before the plants had grown. It was put about thigh height and the plants just grew up through it so that it provided them with support and held the flower stalks up straight. A very clever idea I shall definitely borrow, a lot easier than attempting to stake individual plants.


Gravelled paths but letting the edges go a bit wild so that succulents and little creepers can spread in the margins


Garden gates made of curved metal strips. I love cast iron gates but as I don’t know any friendly blacksmiths I figure we won’t be able to ever afford them. But, perhaps we will be able to find some readymade curved metal strips which by judicious weaving and screwing together, and black paint, we could get this effect.


Dave found a lovely creeper which has pink and white mottled leaves as well as green. It is called actinidia kolomikta.



The only non-castle-attached garden we visited was Pitmedden Garden. I learned once and for all that I do not much like parterre style beds and elaborate planting out schemes. Which is good as I’ve now spared myself a trip to Versailles! But we did see some things we liked there, including:

Apples and other fruit espaliered not against a wall, but along and over a curved arch walkway, like you would more commonly see with roses.


Double rows of limes (or linden trees as Dave prefers to call them) planted close enough and pruned to create a walkway.


Carefully chosen sculpture can really enhance a garden – we both loved the lifesize boxing hares on the main lawn.



Drum Castle was the last of the castles we visited, and we spent a lot of time in the garden as we got there too early! Most of the things we'd seen elsewhere though, so although it was lovely we didn't get any new ideas. The sole exception was that there was a spectacular tree, called davidia involucrata... aka the pocket handkerchief tree!



For the house:

There weren’t as many ideas as you might expect considering we visited 5 houses, but with only one exception they were all very different to the usual style of place we visit. They were mostly castles, and Scottish style castles at that, which tended to have a lot of narrow towers with lots of winding stone steps. We visited in order, Crathes castle, Haddo House, Leith Hall (like a mini-castle), Craigievar castle and Drum castle.

Some of the ideas:

The importance of rugs. You can never have enough rugs it seems, and if you can’t get giant ones that cover a room, then just get 3 or 4 and scatter them around. They don’t even need to match to look good provided they’re all of similar style, and they look even nicer when they’re worn. So I’m on the lookout for old rugs, I wonder where you get them from?

Tapestry seats on chairs. I might even experiment with re-upholstering the new dining chairs with tapestry seats, if I can find some ready-done tapestry. I’ve seen it come up on Ebay occasionally. I just don’t have the patience to do the lot myself!

Little flaps, about the width of a bookmark but lying perpendicular to the book, hanging from the top of each shelf in a library. It stops the dust getting onto the books in the shelf below. Dave reckoned we could do it using Velcro to hold the strips on and then just have a piece of wood that sits over the top to give the illusion of a straight edge. When it got dusty you could just peel the Velcro off and wash them.

Dave is keen on the idea of having a ‘Great Hall’, aka a long room with barrel vaulted ceiling. We talked about maybe having the library at Amherst in this style. I was also wondering about putting the giant stained glass lamp in there, with a skylight above it, but would have to try it out in SketchUp to test it didn’t disrupt the symmetry.

Rather than having a chair that converts to a 2-step stepladder, have instead a longer bench or stool that converts to a 4-step stepladder.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey house

In the previous post I talked about the houses we visited just outside Washington DC. One of them was the Pope-Leighey house, which is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian houses. Unlike his other buildings, these houses were designed for the middle classes so were much smaller and more affordable.

I hadn't known what to expect. But figured, as I didn't get a chance to look inside any of his houses in Oak Park except his studio and first house (1890's), it would be interesting to see inside one of the houses he designed later in his career during 1940's.

The Pope Leighey house took my breath away. Just walking down the driveway towards it, it was so beautiful... the wood on the outside blending in with the trees, the glass, just the whole shape. I liked it a thousand times more from the outside than any of his Oak Park homes.



The inside was even more spectacular. It was small, yes, but it felt spacious. The lighting, the different ceiling shapes and patterns, the whole symmetry of the place just made it feel very comfortable. So much so that even Dave adored it and we were half jokingly talking about building a replica of it at Amherst. (Not that we need it, but oh, if we ever did need to add another cottage, this would be it).



You can see a lot more great photos of the inside here. The photos don't do it justice though, as they don't capture the feeling of relaxation and comfort it imbues. Also interesting is this article, writing by Mr Pope in 1948 describing his thoughts about the home.

My favourite features included:

***The recessed lights above the dining table

***The carved wood making patterns over the windows - this was the cheaper version of his stained glass windows, and I liked them even better. In fact, I want to do a version of them for shutters at Amherst.

***The two doors in the corner of the dining area that opened out to create a diagonal opening to the back garden.

***The way there were windows everywhere, but you never felt exposed

***The way the kitchen area was separate, and able to be partioned off with concertina doors, but yet part of the main living space if you wanted it to be.

***The glorious concertina doors on the cupboards that were incredibly sturdy by having piano hinges all the way along each bend.

***The cupboard doors in the narrow passage outside the bathroom that opened like flaps from the top, 180 degrees back to lie flat so that they didn't obstruct the walkway if you left them open

***The way the bookshelves had their supports hidden and were in line with the horizontal lines of the panelling

I could go on. It was just an extraordinary house, made even more so by the realisation that all it took was an attention to detail and a care for design, rather than a lot of money or skill to build.

visiting old houses in Washington DC

Last week we spent a day just outside Washington DC. We arrived in Washington in the early evening from London, and left for Savannah the following evening, so decided to spend the day exploring old houses in the region in case we got some more inspiration for Amherst. Despite it pouring with rain the entire time, over the course of 7 hours we visited Mount Vernon, Woodside, Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey house, and Gunston Hall.


Mount Vernon

First up we went to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home.



The weather was dreadful, but worst were the crowds even though we got there on a Saturday at 8.30am! We queued for an hour to go on the house tour, where you're shuffled each room with hordes of people and guides going through an ever-repeating spiel. It wasn't possible to properly look at things as there was no room to move which was a pity as there were things I would have liked to see more and ask questions about.

The most interesting thing about it for me was that even though quite Georgian in style, everything was on a much smaller scale than I'm used to seeing in the UK. Not only the rooms, but even the windows were smaller, ceilings lower, staircases narrower, etc. You can do a virtual tour of it here.

My favourite parts included the colonnaded walkway between the main house and the kitchen; the flower garden which had beautiful spring bulbs; the kitchen garden with espaliered trees around the edges of each garden bed.




Woodside Plantation

Next stop was Woodside, about 10-15 minutes drive away.


Refreshingly, this was almost empty, and we had a tour of the main house entirely to ourselves. Even though the house itself wasn't of as much historical significance as Mount Vernon, I enjoyed it a lot more because you could proceed at your own pace and really get a feel for the place.

I didn't like the outside of the house particularly, but there were some interesting things inside. e.g., the bannisters of the stairs are shaped to make it appear like a perfect oval if you view it from the hall, even though this means that as you climb the stairs the handrail gets noticeable lower near the top. One of the bedrooms had two low steps to enter (because the ceiling in the dining room below was higher than other rooms), which created a wonderful feeling of transition. And I learned that Venetian blinds are far far older than I'd realised... even back in 1805 they had them!


Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope Leighey house

This is on the same grounds as Woodside, about 5 minutes walk away. What can I say, this was utterly stunning, took my breath away and so unexpectedly. So much so that it warrants a post of its own.


Gunston Hall

This was described as an "architectural masterpiece" with wonderfully ornate wood carvings by my Lonely Planet guide so I had high hopes. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to them, but then perhaps my standards were unfairly high.

Outside, the house looked quite charming but very small. It was quite extraordinary considering that inside it had at least 6 bedrooms upstairs!



Inside was surprising too but not necessarily in a good way.

I was expecting extraordinary wood carved decorations akin to Grinling Gibbons work at Lyme Park. They were nothing like this. In the main hallway it had some simple but lovely carved molding but it was impossible to properly appreciate because of the hideous wallpaper they'd hung. Huge, bright coloured, busy pattern that kept pulling your eyes to the wallpaper rather than the delicate work. Our guide himself admitted he hated it, he'd much preferred it when the hall was painted a plain colour so you could see the carvings, but the curator had insisted on altering it to try and get closer to "historical accuracy".

There were two formal rooms downstairs. One had weird spike like wood carvings everywhere and was painted a bright yellow mustard colour, with bright chinoiserie style wallpaper. The other had bright blue grotto style cupboards and a giant rococo / palladian / georgian fireplace carving. In both rooms, the furniture was just haphazardly scattered around, supposedly to mirror the time when they had to rush away quickly to escape from robbers.

Weirdly, they both had these big ornate fireplaces with a big framed bit in the middle above the mantle... which was empty! I asked about it as it gave a sense of the rooms being incomplete, something was so obviously missing, and the guide said that yes something would have been there, but because the curator couldn't determine for certain what it was - whether a painting or mirror - for "historical accuracy" she insisted it was left bare! Very odd... although you might not know for certain what was there, you can sure as hell know that something was. It spoilt the experience of the rooms having it bare.

The rest of the house was less bizarre, although one was painted an extremely bright green all over of the likes I'd never seen before.

Overall, I don't quite know what to think about this house. I didn't like it, but it was still interesting even if just to have as a comparison to other places.

Smith Museum of Stained Glass (Chicago)

OK this is a bit off-topic, but since I posted about Oak Park I figured I may as well put the rest up too. We went to this museum in the evening. It's at Navy Pier which is a very odd place for a museum... but nonetheless it was great. The windows were installed in lightboxes in the corridor so you could just wander through at your own pace.

If you want to see them all, you can look here but here's a sampler. My favourites, of course, were all by Tiffany:

A tour of Oak Park neighbourhood

After the tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's house & studio, I went on a walk to see some of the other houses in the neighbourhood (armed with an ipod shuffle audio guide from the shop). It's a pity the sun wasn't out, but it was still interesting, although I'd hate to live there as you'd feel on show all the time!

What struck me the most is that if you'd shown me a photo of his houses, and I'd not known their provenance, I'd have guessed they were 1960-70's era. That's the time I associate (at least in Australia) with flatter roofs, horizontal emphasis, chunky block pillars, etc. But these houses are 100 years old! That alone makes me appreciate what a visionary he was.

Here are my pictures and links to find out more information about each house (including nicer photos). You can also see the full set of my photos here.

Robert Parker house (1892)
This house is at 1019 Chicago Avenue and is one of the 'bootleg' houses, in that he designed it secretly while still working with Louis Sullivan's firm. I liked it a lot from the outside, far more so than many of his other houses, but that's because I guess I just prefer that Victorian/QueenAnne-ish style! To me, this house is combining the best of that style with the best of Frank Lloyd Wright (although I'm sure he would totally disagree). You can get more information about it here.


Walter Gale house (1893)
This house is another of his bootlegs, at 1031 Chicago avenue. I like it for similar reasons, although it errs a bit too much on the side of 'fairy tale' for my taste. In particular, I'm not sure if I like or dislike the elongated window feature but it's interesting, I've not seen it done before. You can see more pictures of it here.


Nathon Moore house (1895/1923)
This house is at 333 Forest Avenue and is among the most schizophrenic of buildings I've ever seen, at least from the outside. Tudor on one side, gothicky windows in the front and then "modern" on the other. You can find out more about it here.



Hills de Caro house (1896/1906)
This house is at 313 Forest Avenue. I was quite intrigued by the windows, they seem to be almost crouching over each other. You can find out more about it here.


Arthur Heurtley house (1902)
This is at 318 Forest Avenue. I really dislike the outside, but the inside I imagine is wonderful. The chimney is actually in the middle of the house... the audio guide said there was a lovely open fireplace in the centre of the main room. You can find out more about it here.


Laura Gale house (1906)
This is at 6 Elizabeth Court, which is a small road running off Forest Avenue. This was on a much smaller scale to the other houses, and to keep the cost down even further seems to be primarily concrete! I don't like it much from the outside, although I think the giant planter at 2nd storey level is interesting... it's the size of a small wading pool! Of course, totally impractical in that you'd need a giant ladder to reach it, but nice concept. You can find out more about it here.


Peter Beachy house (1906)
This is at 238 Forest Avenue. If I was forced to live in one of his Prairie Style houses, this would be it. I imagine it's wonderful from the inside, but I don't like the outside much. You can find out more about it here.


Frank Thomas house (1901)
This is at 210 Forest Avenue. It was the only one which had the stained glass windows I'd expected to see from Frank Lloyd Wright. You can find out more about it here.


Harrison Young house (1895)
This is at 334 Kenilworth Avenue. You can find out more about it here.



The houses above are all Frank Lloyd Wright designs. But there are other old houses, mixed in, from the same era and I found it interesting to see how they compared. Here are a few of them:

8 Elizabeth court (1871)
I liked the porch entrance especially. It is right next door to the Laura Gale house and I'd guessed it was relatively newly built from a kit, until I read about it here! It was apparently originally in another site on Kenilworth and not moved to this location until 1899.


300 Kenilworth Ave (1890)
This is now a B&B and was pointed out on the FLW tour as being a great example of Queen Anne style. It was designed by Wesley Arnold who apparently also designed the house where Ernest Hemingway was born.


308 Kenilworth Ave (1886)
This was pointed out as being a classic example of Stick style architecture. It was apparently built from a pattern book so the architect is unknown.


John Rankin house (1889)
This is at 245 Kenilworth Avenue and was designed by Patton & Fisher. You can find out more about it here.


408 Kenilworth Ave (1890/1908)
This was apparently remodelled so extensively in 1908 by Tallmadge & Watson, that all traces of the original Queen Anne house vanished!


Simpson Dunlop house (1897)
This is at 417 Kenilworth Avenue and was designed by EE Roberts. You can find out more here.


Charles Matthews house (1909)
This is at 432 Kenilworth Avenue and was designed by Tallmadge and Watson. You can find out more here.


Americus Melville house (1904)
This is at 437 Kenilworth Ave and was designed by EE Roberts. You can find out more about it here.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Chicago home

Back in early January I was in Chicago, fleetingly, for business. Sadly I ended up working the entire time we were there, except for a free afternoon the day before we left. So, I went to visit Oak Park, Frank Lloyd Wright's old neighbourhood.

Now, I'm not a Frank Lloyd Wright fan, in the sense that I wouldn't ever like to live in his houses. A lot of his interiors are beautiful but they don't fit me... and his houses don't look very welcoming from the outside (at least to my eyes). But, he's been so influential I thought I'd see what the fuss was about.

The centrepiece of Oak Park is the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio, at 951 Chicago Avenue. It was among the first houses he designed and was very different to what I expected.

This is what it looks like from the outside at the front on Forest Avenue, which was the entrance to the house:



It was very unusual to have the bricks on show as the base, but that was done deliberately to provide a kind of visual anchor. I like the wooden shingling and how it matches the leading in the window. Apparently this was deliberate to have diamond paned leading to make it seem like the 'shell' of the house continued over the windows.

But, I don't like the front path layout. It was done deliberately so you enter from the side, walk straight up and then across, to make you take the time to observe the garden and house from different angles. It was a big difference from the more welcoming Victorian approach of having a path straight from the gate to the front door... I don't like it, it feels too guarded.

This is what it looks like from the Chicago Avenue side, which was the entrance to his studio



I like the concrete planters that are built in as part of the balastrading. It's an unusual entrance... first, there are two entrances and so apparently he used to watch potential clients entering and judge how they'd react to his ideas based on how they chose to enter!

It's unusual in that it has statues up high, effectively on the roof. According to the guide, this was a bit of arrogance, in that the octagonal studio roof was so unusual that he expected people to look up and thus they'd be in view! There's also all sorts of elaborate carving on the pillars, each with a symbolic meaning.

Overall, I found it intriguing, but I'm not sure I like it.

To see inside, you have to go on a guided tour. As it was midweek and offseason, I lucked out and there were only 5 of us, with a guide who'd been working there for over 20 years and been instrumental in its restoration. She told us some great stories.

For instance, the house had been almost derelict after spending many years converted to a rooming house... it was about to be demolished but then the Louvre museum asked to salvage some of the rooms. The city council then figured if one of the top museums in the world thought it was valuable, perhaps they should reconsider smashing it up! Thank God for the French (and I don't say that very often).

Also... when he built there it was the middle of nowhere, still dirt roads, and hardly any other houses around. Very soon after his house was finished, the lot RIGHT NEXT DOOR was bought and they built a classic Victorian style house, right up against the boundary! So he then had top remodel the entire side of that house to try and block out the view of nextdoor... that's why windows on that side tend to be high up rather than at a level you could look out of.

As per usual, they wouldn't let you take photos inside, so the pictures below are scanned from the guidebook. (This is by no means a substitute for the book though, it's well worth buying if you're ever visiting). If you want to follow along, this is the floorplan.

The first room you enter is the entrance hallway, and I was astonished.



It felt so very English! Oak everywhere, tasteful shades of green, even a classical frieze up high on the walls. It felt a lovely warm and welcoming place, nothing like the feeling I had outside.

You then veer left and it opens out into the main living area, complete with a stereotypical Arts & Crafts inglenook. (The entrance hall is on the far right of the first photo). It's quite a large open space, with built in seating, in a kind of L-shape leading into a small dining area.





This whole area just felt lovely to be in.

We walked through to the dining area and then out into a kind of mini-hallway, to the left of the 2nd of the pictures above. This had the most glorious pantry area, complete with a hatch for passing food through into the dining area.



I just adore this... you really can't beat a well-crafted built-in cabinet.

We then walked across the hall (which you could also reach directly from the front entrance area) to the more formal dining room. This was quite dark because the windows were so high up, to block the view of next door, but it had a lovely skylight positioned right over the table.



Except, it's not a skylight! It is wrought ironwork, with japanese paper behind it and lamps above. Apparently before dinner parties, Frank Lloyd Wright used to unscrew it and prop up some branches in there, so it gave the effect of being a skylight with the shadows of trees! It's a very clever idea.

After a brief peek into the kitchen we then went upstairs. The first room we saw was the children's bedroom, which started out as one big room and as the family grew it got divided in half... except he kept the top part open. Our guide, who'd interviewed several of his children, said that during the day the mattresses were kept in cupboards along one wall and only rolled out (japanese style) at night, with the girls on one side and boys on the other. Of course the inevitable mayhem ensued of the kids throwing things over the wall to each other etc!

Nowadays, the dividing wall is still there but it's set up as part office, part single bedroom.



After that, we moved onto the master bedroom. The thing that I liked here was the attention to detail. The same chain that is in the mural painting is reflected in the shape of the hanging lights, and so on. I like the oak, but I don't like the shape of the roof... it reminds me of a barn!



This house was special when it was built for having the 'modcon's. In fact, when it was built it was before electricity, but as he knew it was coming he planned in for it. Heating wise, he apparently bought the steam from a factory 10 miles away and piped it in...except that a lot of the heat got lost enroute so it didn't work too well, but it was a valient attempt! But most amazing of all, it had indoor bathroom plumbing!

This is the bathroom, not bad even by today's standards:



What I found most interesting about this was the way he positioned the window... it looks into the alcove behind the sink, so you get a sense of natural light but with absolute privacy.

The other bedroom on this floor was the South bedroom, most notable to me for having the built-in radiator cover benches. I also likedthe lowered ceiling with the small windows marking the drop.



But the piece de resistance, and the room that the Louvre most wanted, was the children's playroom. This has a giant barrel ceiling and windows designed deliberately to be a children's height. The mural over the fireplace was chosen to reflect one of the Ali Baba stories, which the kids nominated as their favourite.



At the opposite end of the room from the fireplace is a little stage area, where the kids could play and give concert recitals. There is a grand piano built in under this but it apparently sounds dreadfully muffled. Overall, it seems pretty formal for a playroom, but it has a nice spirit to it and I love all the oak.



From there, our tour moved from the family part of the house over to the studio extension. On our way out we passed through a hallway that appeared to have a tree growing through it! Nowadays it is just a fake effect, but apparently in the beginning it really was a tree branch. The problem was though that it killed the tree, because part of its trunk was inside the house and getting heated, it put out buds too early and was killed by the winter. I really like the idea of making your house feel part of nature by having it seem like a tree is growing through it... I'd love to do this at Amherst in the study, perhaps, but I'd make it a much bigger branch!




This is the entrance hall to his studio:



Although I don't care much for the patterns here, what I took from this is the notion of stained glass rooflights! It gives a lovely soft lighting effect.

At one end of the studio is his office, where he used to sell ideas to clients. This is a really nice room and quite practical even given it's odd shape. By having the windows up high he used all the walls for cupboards and corkboards, to pin out plans. I can imagine it was quite an impressive environment for selling.



Our guide said that during it's days as a rooming house, this office was split into two with one part being a bathroom! It's hard to imagine how odd that must have felt.

At the other end of the studio area is the split level space where all his employees worked - draftsmen, craftsmen working on particular furniture pieces, whatever. Notice the chains especially... they are integral to the stability of the building, by providing the force that holds the octagonal shape together.



The things that look like pillars on the ground floor are actually specially designed cupboards, where plans were stored. They were on casters so the room could be rearranged easily. There was also a big safe in one wall, that wasn't for valuables but instead for keeping plans to protect them from fire.

And that's the end of the tour.

Overall, I found it far more fascinating than I'd expected, and there were a couple of ideas (fake skylights, stained glass roof windows) that might even come in handy at Amherst!

inspiration from Lyvden New Bield

A few weekends ago, when we drove up north to collect the armchairs, we stopped off en-route at Lyvden New Bield.

This is a National Trust property that I've wanted to visit ever since seeing it on an episode of 'Hidden Gardens'. It consists of a very atmospheric ruin over 400 years old - except it's not a ruin, it just was never finished! It's designed full of Catholic symbolism in the measurements, carvings, etc. Quite extraordinary.


There is also an Elizabethan garden, one of the oldest gardens in England. It has huge spiral mounds, laid out in a grid and surrounded by rectangular waterways to make a sort of moat.


These mounds are seriously big! They were built from scratch using the earth from digging the moat. To give you an idea of their scale, this is me standing halfway up one.


Overall, the garden had an interesting feel to it - unnatural and yet organic combined. In an odd way, it reminded me a bit of Casa Battlo, the wonderfully unusual apartment designed by Gaudi in Barcelona. (by the way, the photos don't do Casa Battlo justice... I hated it in photographs but standing in it I fell in love)

I was curious to see this garden in person because it's a very different sort of garden to the most. It uses earth shapes as much as plants for effect. The only other garden I've heard of like it, which we're going to attempt to visit in May (on the one day each year it's open to the public) is the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. I'm intrigued by the idea of creating giant sculptures out of earth; it might be interesting to experiment with something like this at Amherst.

ideas from October roadtrip

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been away. Last week I got back from two weeks holiday driving round Northwest England with Mum. While away, we visited many historic homes and gardens, including Blackwell - a famous Arts & Crafts house I’ve been desperate to see ever since I heard of it. Besides being a fun trip it’s given me lots of inspiration for Amherst, especially for the garden. Here's a selection:

Blackwell in Lakes District
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fireplace tiling with bold colours and just a few patterned tiles for contrast...	...and high mantles
interesting shelves around mantles and alcoves	this is while it was being restored but it shows clearly the lovely barrel shaped ceilings

Blackwell is a turn of the century Arts & Crafts home, designed by MH Baillie Scott. It was only restored and opened to the public a few years ago and still has almost all it’s original woodwork, tiles and stained glass. It has a wonderful feel to it and is quite distinct to Standen although they share a similar heritage. It’s the first time I’ve been inside a house that looked like a stereotypical Arts & Crafts design from picture books. It felt very liveable even with the sparse furnishings as everything was in the perfect proportions. My favourite parts in every room were the fireplaces; each was different and had an adjoining inglenook, often larger on one side and almost always with windows. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me take pictures inside but there's some photos at the main site and a good article about it with more photos here.

Levens Hall near Milnthorpe
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reminder of how effective it can be to have a short hedge of box around island beds
wonderful pale pink flower with beanlike seedheads, staked waist high in an autumn border	boring but practical...having an overflow drain at the side of garden ponds

Levens Hall has reputedly the world’s best (and oldest) topiary garden. It was fascinating, but perhaps the biggest learning for me was to avoid topiary! Not because it looks bad – on the contrary, I discovered it can create an Alice-in-Wonderland type atmosphere done en-masse and was surprised how much fun it was to walk in. But, it takes decades to establish and maintaining it is clearly an impossible amount of work; I just can’t see myself managing to do justice to anything but the simplest piece. You can see more pictures from our visit here.

The Courts Garden
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Incorporating a formal marsh-like border around a pond	Having lots of berries for Autumn colour
Using grasses to create a shimmering walkway	Planting hedging shrubs at the base of fruit trees, so they can be sculpted into a ‘collar’
Using holly for hedging and sculpting hedges into more organic flowing shapes

The Courts Garden is a National Trust garden about a half hours drive outside Bath. To see the full set of photos from our visit there, click here.

Hollytree Cottage B&B
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Sorbus tree; planted on an angle to create an arch effect	Planting climbers with bright autumn colour to fall over a low wall near a gate

Hidcote
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Letting a variegated holly bush grow into a tree	Borders so deep they’re almost squares, which you can walk around on all sides
Wonderful varieties of sage, like Boutin with flowers like felt	Toad lilies (or tricyrtis to give them their proper name), which grew waist high
Snowberries

To see the full set of photos from this visit to Hidcote, click here… Hidcote truly is one of the most inspiring gardens I’ve visited and even in not-great weather it’s still wonderful. But, to see it in full glory, here are photos from a Summer visit several years ago when I first fell in love with it.

Snowshill Manor
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Unusual layout of a garden bank, with arced wall and grass walkways to zigzag down instead of steps	Garden buildings which are in the middle of the garden with doors that form a walkway

Another idea - which sadly I wasn't able to take a photo of - was using writing as part of room decoration – e.g., cut-out wooden letters balanced in arced wall grooves (so not flat against wall) that spell out a phrase.

Mostly Snowshill is visited to see the house contents – which is a treasure trove collection of everyday things, like antique bicycles, toys, costumes and so on. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take any photos inside, but we did take some of the garden which is nice in its own way. To see more photos of the garden click here.

Lacock Village and Abbey
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Clock incorporated in a door

Lacock is an entire village preserved by the National Trust. The only things that bring it to the modern age are seeing all the cars, the tarmac and people’s clothes. But, get rid of the cars, bring in some dirt to cover the roads and period costumes and you have instant period set – which is why it seems almost every period drama in the UK gets filmed there! It’s also been used in the Harry Potter films, especially the Cloisters underneath the Abbey. To see the full set of pictures, including the Cauldron from the first Harry Potter movie, click here.

Acorn Bank Garden
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Permanent raised beds inside a greenhouse	Pretty artichoke flowers
Virginian Pokeroot	Small mini-ponds interspersed in borders to grow water plants
Lovely narrow winding cobbled path through the orchard	Unusual angled pair of steps
Terraced paths with plants in a narrow strip and down the banks, with undercover ponds

Acorn Bank is quite small but lovely in its own way. It has one of the largest collections of herbs in England and a lovely orchard with lots of old apple and pear varieties. To see the full set of photos click here.

Hilltop in Lakes District
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growing alpine plants in small ridge on roof

As for Snowshill, Hilltop is famous for the inside of the house rather than the garden, as it’s where Beatrix Potter (she of Peter Rabbit fame) lived. You can’t take pictures of the house, but if you want to see more photos of the outside, especially the vegetable garden, click here. Even though the garden was looking a little worse for wear, we couldn’t resist photographing it considering it’s where so many of the stories were set! It's in the little village of Hawkshead in the Lakes District

A tour of Standen

A few weekends ago we visited Standen, an amazing Arts & Crafts era country house designed by Philip Webb in Sussex, England and now run by the National Trust.



It’s a wonderful place with the kind of proportions and detailing that just feel right to be in. In decoration it’s also the closest I’ve come across so far to the styling I’d like at Amherst. Some of my favourite parts were the built-in's, the panelled walls and alcoves - but most of all, the "living hall" - kind of like a big room with fireplace etc that functions both to join various rooms together as a hall would, but also works as a proper room.

I've put together a photo-set at Flickr with all the pictures we took, plus a bunch of others scanned in from various books (because they didn't like you taking pictures inside - although we managed to sneak a few!) To help it make more sense, I've attempted to code roughly where each picture is taken from on the floorplans & garden map.

The Rashleigh Inn in Polkerris

I was talking to Dave this morning about Cornwall and we were trying to remember the name of the great inn at Polkerris. This is my favourite place in Cornwall I was talking about in my last post. A quick google later and I'd found it - and even better, the had this cool aeriel picture that shows you what I was trying to describe about the narrow road down and just a few houses. There are other pictures on their site too, including a map... if you're ever in the vicinity I recommend it - at least during off-season when there's not many people.

View_of_The_Rashleigh_Innlrg
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

remembering Cornwall

I just came across this article in the New York Times about one of my favourite gardens and it sparked some great memories: The New York Times > Travel > A 'Lost' Cornwall Garden Regains Its Glory

Back nearly a decade ago(!) when I used to work in management consulting, I spent nearly 5 months based in St Austell, which is in the heart of Cornwall, on a project. It is only about half an hour's drive from these gardens. It was the off-season when our team were working there so instead of staying in some nondescript chain hotel we convinced a local B&B to open especially for the winter to put us up. Because we were the only guests there, we were able to keep our rooms from week to week so it came to feel like our home... I still vividly remember my room as it had such lovely floor to ceiling bookshelves stocked with all sorts of old paperbacks, and whitewashed timber walls. Anyway, it was so lovely that often instead of me going back to London for the weekend, Dave would catch the evening train down. The journey took around 5-6 hours, so if he got the train in the early evening he'd arrive in time for me to pick him up late evening. Usually I used to work really late on Fridays so as to have the weekend free for exploring. Dave always had a nice trip, there was a proper old fashioned dining car with starched tableclothes etc, so you could have a relaxing dinner and bottle of wine en-route! The way back was even better because there was a sleeper train... you caught it around 11pm on Sunday night from St Austell and woke up 7am in Victoria station in central London and could just go straight to work. (I think the train on the way back went slower so as not to rock the sleeping passengers!) I still adore sleeper trains, and partly it was because of the Cornwall experience.

Anyway, it meant we spent many weekends exploring Cornwall, and the Lost Gardens of Heligan were my second favourite place to visit. My absolute favourite place was the tiny little beach cove at Polkerris, which had just space for 1 inn (great evening meals), 1 beach shop (selling old fashioned buckets and spades, those funny little windbreaks that English people love, etc) and a little window serving icecream cones. Maybe only about 10 houses in the village in total. It was also not far from the house that Daphne du Maurier lived in and modelled the house in "Rebecca" on... the fictional house was called Manderley - the real life one is called Menabilly. Sadly it wasn't open to the public when I was there, but if you were adventurous you could go walking along the cliff path and see it from the distance. The road down to the cove is very steep and only wide enough for 1 car, lined either side with steep rock faces covered in climbing ivy. My technique for getting down it was to go carefully till the first bend, and then on the straight bit just go like the clappers to get off it as quickly as possible, since if you met another car coming the opposite direction someone had a difficult backing-up job! Fortunately, it was such a small place that there wasn't usually much traffic.

But back to Heligan... over the past 8 years since I first started visiting, it's grown a lot. They've uncovered whole sections, like the ravine, that were still overgrown and impassable when it first re-opened. But there's just something so romantic about the garden's history and the way it was rediscovered. The most wondrous parts for me are the little details which survived... like this paving they uncovered in the garden shed, and the hooks for hanging hand tools with the gardeners names next to them. Little pieces of inconsequential history but they impart so much.

stone and pebble paving (Lost Gardens of Heligan - Tim Smit)
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


I love the whole garden at Heligan, but my favourite part is the vegetable garden - here's a blurb from the NYT article that does a good job of describing it:

"At the heart of the operation stands the brick-walled vegetable garden, a two-acre trapezoid whose northeast corner stretches out to catch every last bit of warmth from the early-evening sun. Divided by an apple arbor and footpaths into six plots, each with rows up to 40 yards long, the garden is dug (and manure is dug in) exclusively with hand tools. Parts are covered in winter with seaweed brought from the nearby village of Portmellon, which imparts both iodine and other beneficial trace elements to the soil... In keeping with the Victorian ethos, rows are straight, plants are evenly spaced, everything is in its ordained place.

Heligan does not limit itself, of course, to common vegetables; it grows salsify and scorzonera and parsley root, cardoons and borecole and sea kale, all highly valued a century ago but now largely ignored. Nor does it focus on long-lasting if often tasteless supermarket varieties; in an effort to preserve diversity the gardeners grow heirloom gems - six kinds of broad beans, five kinds of peas, a dozen kinds of cabbage and brussels sprouts and no fewer than 27 kinds of potatoes, including yellow-fleshed rattes, beloved by French epicures but hard to find, at least through commercial channels, in Britain or the United States. There are red, black, purple, blue, brown and white spuds, still only a fraction of the 1,500-odd varieties seen at London shows in the 1870's.

Special corners are reserved for princely species like the purple-tinged artichokes, relatives of thistles, and asparagus, with its feathery foliage climbing high above elevated beds. Rhubarb is grown under ancient terra-cotta bell jars, scarlet runner beans climb bamboo tepees and pears and plums are espaliered against the old walls.

In spring and early summer, the garden seethes with color - not only the florid gladioli, snapdragons and other flowers raised for cutting but also the more delicate blossoms of the gooseberries, currants and raspberries growing in cages off to one side, and a sizzling array of chards, with wrinkled, prominently veined red or green leaves and stems of orange, yellow, red, peach and pink. More hues of green than the most avid gardener has ever seen provide a subtle and ever-changing background.

But some of the most dramatic achievements at Heligan take place out of sight, notably the culture of pineapples - yes, pineapples, real Jamaica queens and smooth cayennes - far from their natural habitat. They are grown in pits heated by decaying horse manure, laboriously shoveled by hand, 30 tons several times each season. The first to be produced in the reborn garden were presented to Queen Elizabeth II"

wooden buildings from Kadriorg, Tallinn

Here's a couple of photos showing some of the wooden buildings in Kadriorg which I was raving about in my earlier email. If you'd like to see the full set, you can take a look at them here.

IMGP1483
Originally uploaded by lynetter.


IMGP1488
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

IMGP1427
Originally uploaded by lynetter.

a quick update from Greece

So now I'm in Athens... I'm here for a work conference till the weekend so unfortunately not expecting to get to see much other than the inside of a hotel ballroom. So unlikely to get more inspirations for the house - although, based on what I saw from the taxi on the way from the airport I don't think the buildings here are really my style anyway...there's an awful lot of concrete! Still, I can't complain, I'm looking out the hotel window and can see the Acropolis all lit up and it is beautiful.

I'm not going to be able to post properly again till the weekend when I get back to London, but wanted to say thanks to people who've commented on my posts. I really appreciate it and there has been some really helpful input, so thank you. Also a special thanks to jm who told me about Vincent and Ingrid's blog... it turns out they're similarly in the throes of planning to build their dream house, except that theirs is in Estonia! I saw jm's comment while still in Tallinn and got in touch with them. Unfortunately Vincent was working in Finland but Ingrid was around and we met up for coffee and chocolate on our last night in Tallin and had a wonderful chat comparing notes. The world is getting to be a really small place. :-)

inspiration from Tallinn

So it has been *ages* since I wrote. The excuse as usual is that work was manic, but it is over at least for now... we are on holiday and I don't have to go into the offi