Garvinweasel

India, she is my love song.

2011-03-05T14:18:00.000-06:00

All photos (c) jamesxvi

In late February I visited India for the first time, a three-day business trip to Bangalore, and during my one day of site seeing explored the ancient Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in the town of Srirangapatna in the Indian state Karnataka. My driver waited down the street as I walked to the temple entrance, where after removing my shoes and leaving them with hundreds of other pair arranged in no particular order along the stone foundation, I was allowed to join the stream of Hindu worshipers entering the courtyard just beyond the tower seen below.

Courtyard view.

The building beyond the courtyard was a labyrinth of hallways, the air filled with sandal wood incense. Rooms off these halls contained statues of Hindu Gods, each doorway manned by a robed swami. I was careful not photograph any of the worshipers, so these photos belie the fact that there were a lot of people around me, they simply were crowding the doorways and worship areas in the center of the building, leaving these stone pillared outer halls virtually empty.

On the road, we stopped for some fresh coconut milk.

On returning to Bangalore, the grueling traffic made the hotel seem especially welcoming after a long day. I was delighted with my stay at the Leela Palace, where I had breakfast on the the dining terrace (below) every morning.

With yoga instructor Sanjiv, 7 am, Feb 17, 2011.

The hotel offers a 6 am yoga class in a lovely pavilion just off the pool (below). Each day I was there the yoga class had two to four pupils, and I had the pool to myself afterward for a few laps before breakfast.

Then hi-ho, hi-ho... off to work.

The moon over Bangalore, through the car window, as we drove to the airport for a 2:30 am connecting flight to Paris Charles DeGaul airport.

God bless the executive chefs at Air France... foie gras at 30,000 feet.

My hiatus from posts here is, well, complicated. I am working on the house and hope to return soon with an update and new photos of work in progress. Thanks for stopping by.

- James

Twilight Pond

2010-10-20T09:55:00.000-05:00

Photo: jamesxvi

Axel Vervoordt Interview for German TV

2010-08-28T10:38:00.003-05:00

I can't understand anything the interviewer asks, and while Mr. Vervoordt answers in English, the German translation audio dubbed over his voice makes it difficult to make out what he is saying most of the time. If I can translate the transcript, I will post a follow up with some quotes. You can watch the interview here.

The Selby Contest at CB2

2010-08-16T23:02:00.001-05:00

This picture of the renovations underway was first seen here last November for Brooke Gianetti's Brickmaker coffee table giveaway. While comments were plentiful and complimentary, my entry didn't make it to the top, but now I have found another contest to try, and I'm pretty excited about it. I am a big fan of the eccentric and inspiring photos taken by Todd Selby (below) for his blog, The Selby. Home furnishings company CB2, an off-shoot from Crate and Barrel, is sponsoring The Selby Contest, with a grand prize that includes a $10,000 CB2 gift card and a photo session of the winning home by Mr. Selby. They require three pics, and you can see mine, and vote for Garvinweasel, here. You can cast your vote in under 15 seconds, so I hope you won't mind that I ask for your support, by way of vote, and if you'd like to repost or link back, even better and very much appreciated. And by the way, if by some chance I should win, I will donate the card to a charity... it's the right thing to do. Wish me luck, and thanks for your support!

Vervoordt r.e. Kanaal

2010-08-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

I found an interesting site about a project by Belgium's Vervoordt family. I heard about this when I was living in Brussels in 2008, that Axel Vervoordt's son Dick was planning a development around the Kanaal complex, where the Axel Vervoordt company has their workshops and showrooms. This extensive site contains an explanation of the master plan and its inspiration, descriptions and floorplans of the properties that will be for sale, biographies of the architects and designers behind the project, information about the Vervoordt Foundation, dedicated to supporting the arts and preserving the Vervoordt collection, and probably much more. It is in Dutch, but I viewed the site in Google's Chrome browser, which did a pretty good job of translating to English.

I have been on hiatus for a while now, focusing on renovations at Garvinweasel, with lots of projects underway simultaneously... never really a good idea in my experience, but sometimes things just work out that way. I hope to post some new photos soon of the original floors stripped of a century and a half of coverings, including at least two coats of paint and two layers of carpet. This is one tough project, slow going, and I have a backup plan for new plank flooring should I just give up at some point, so wish me luck.

Dominique Browning on Our Aging Oil Infrastructure

2010-06-07T18:25:00.009-05:00

Image: here

While we still don't know the full extent of impact from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Dominique Browning, former Editor-in-Chief of the much missed publication House & Garden, spells out the additional disasters waiting to happen in the Mississippi delta/Gulf of Mexico region in her blog hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund. She also provides a link to send a letter to the White House and Congress. Go, read, write.

We'll Always Have Paris

2010-04-10T09:20:00.012-05:00

Malcolm McLaren died of cancer at the age of 64 on April 8, 2010, in Switzerland.

As producer of the seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols, he created a phenomenon that, at the age of twenty, captivated me. Their debut album "Never Mind the Bollocks..." was in heavy rotation on my turntable and on the second night of the band's only U.S. tour, I stood on a front-row center chair, eyeball-to-pretty-vacant-eyeball with an angry John Lyndon aka Johnny Rotten. The band's infamous bass player, Sid Viscious, had a suspicious looking bandage around his left elbow, later revealed as an injury from trying to shoot up some street-bought heroin using a washed-out ink pen center as a makeshift needle.

A few years later I tried my own hand at being a sort of post-punk-rock impresario, opening the Antenna, a musical venue that went on to become the second longest running alternative performance space in America, according to The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists, after New York's now defunct CBGB's. Antenna served as proving grounds for bands like R.E.M., and a road to nowhere for others, including Brides of Funkenstein.

The Antenna stage was also a regular gig for another recently fallen musical genius, singer of the 60's pop hit "The Letter", Alex Chilton, who died March 17, 2010 in New Orleans.

Alex was often on guitar for a band called Panther Burns, who's leader Tav Falco, now lives in Europe, where he maintains a cult following.

My own tenure at the Antenna lasted only six months. The band Romeo Void, with their hit song "I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together", was to headline one Friday night in June 1981. I took the band, led by singer Deborah Iyall, to lunch that day at T.G.I.Fridays, and when I showed up the the club to open a few hours later, found that my partner had changed the locks. I think the band, who was also locked out, was more upset than I was, and the event allowed me to pursue a career that didn't interfere with my ability to get out of bed in the morning.

I spent the next few years getting in touch with my inner-geek, and by the time I was working on Wall Street, Mr. McLaren had morphed into a solo-artist, creating albums that brilliantly combined a wide array of influences, juxtaposing opera and hip-hop, cowgirls and down-beats. Some of my favorites from this period include "Buffalo Gals" from the album Duck Rock, and "Carmen" from the classic Fans.

But it was in 1994, while I was living in Paris, that he released a collection of songs that I still reside in my iTunes playlists, a double-album that includes collaborations with Francoise Hardy and Catherine Deneuve, the album "Paris". The influences found here mirrored my own, expressed in the lyrics "miles and miles of Miles Davis", and it quickly became the soundtrack to my own life in the City of Light, which by now had come a long way from the days I was first under Mr. McLaren's influence. But then, so had his. It's a sometimes beautiful, sometimes haunting album, with a mix of world music influences and Maclaren's wicked sense of humour, and I predict it will remain on the Garvinweasel playlist as long as I'm around. The recent departures of Mssrs. McLaren and Chilton serve as a reminder that we are, alas, only here for a short while. Long live Paris.

Malcom McLaren
1946-2010
R.I.P.

French Lifestyle Blog - Two Maisons

2010-03-25T11:34:00.001-05:00

Some of you know that I lived in France for a while in the nineties, and I sometimes dream about being an american in Paris again. Here's a link to a great lifestyle and design blog, Two Masions, by a lucky expat who lives in the south of France. She also has some great items for sale in the online shop.

He Ain't Heavy

2010-03-16T19:42:00.014-05:00

He may not be my brother, but I consider him a kindred spirit. My neighbor, and the former mayor of the country village where Garvinweasel sits on the map, is an artist of sorts. His eye for landscape contour, and his ability to sculpt the earth, captivated me today as I watched him work his magic.

The act of moving logs weighing several tons, some felled by the ice storm in January 2010, others felled by my chainsaw as part of a master plan that includes reforestation of much of the property, seemed effortless. I used to spend months shredding a tree stump by hand with my maul ax. He dug this one up in about ten minutes, then carefully filled the resulting crevice and sculpted the slope from which it was pulled the way a woman sculpts her cheek bones with a sable makeup brush.

Dudley, almost one year old, keeps a close eye on the work in progress from his perch on top of the dogloo, an igloo style dog house made mostly with hay bales. You can see other hay bale uses here. If you'd like to think about adopting Dudley, or another of the Garvinweasel rescue pack, please see my Blogger profile for my email address.

You can see here that there is still much tree clean-up underway from the ice storm. My tree crew estimated the resulting work to weigh in at close to one hundred tons. I'm doing much of it myself, and after a long day wielding a chainsaw, or loading my truck with crown wood debris, I generally take a long, hot soak in the tub, which is why I was delighted to find this great post on making bath salts on one of my favorite blogs, linen and lavender.

I should be wearing a hard hat in this picture, under a fallen pecan tree, which stood over sixty feet tall with an equal crown spread. I'm thinking these limbs might be a start for my own Wabi hut. I plan to dig a small pond in the field seen over my shoulder here, surround it with pine seedlings, and such a structure overlooking the pond may be somewhere on my time horizon.

I spent ten hours working outside today. I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine, put on my Yoga One cd (thanks again LeAnn), and get in the tub.

Zen and the Art of Axel Vervoordt

2010-02-26T17:00:00.004-06:00

Here is a link to a great article about Axel Vervoordt, from the online edition of Art + Auction magazine.

The article mentions a Wabi hut on the grounds at 's-Gravenwezel, 'made of earth and fallen tree limbs'. I am fascinated by this, especially considering the vast store of tree limbs still awaiting removal here, the result of a recent ice storm. If any of you have seen it, please let me know more about it.

Happy reading and good weekend.

p.s. I found a picture of the Wabi pavillion; it's in the slideshow that accompanies the article.

Photo by Laziz Hamani

Thinking of Switzerland

2010-02-08T11:35:00.001-06:00

These are from December 2007, in Les Diablarets and Gstaad.

Requiem for a Tree

2010-02-06T09:55:00.011-06:00

Let the trees be consulted before you take any action
every time you breathe in thank a tree
let tree roots crack parking lots at the world bank headquarters
let loggers be druids specially trained and rewarded
to sacrifice trees at auspicious times
let carpenters be master artisans
let lumber be treasured like gold
let chainsaws be played like saxophones
let soldiers on maneuvers plant trees
give police and criminals a shovel
and a thousand seedlings
let businessmen carry pocketfuls of acorns
let newlyweds honeymoon in the woods
walk don't drive
stop reading newspapers
stop writing poetry
squat under a tree and tell stories.
- John Wright

The ice storm last weekend brought with it the end for several grand trees at Garvinweasel. The pecan tree above was last seen in this post, where it was referred to in Jane's comment as 'slightly scary', which was what I loved about it. I spent one whole day outside with my chainsaw already this week, and have no idea when I will finish the work of cleaning up the remains of this and two other trees that were uprooted by the weight of the ice, along with a couple of other trees that lost major limbs.

As Brian sang from the cross in the Monty Python film that bears his name, it's best if one can 'always look on the bright side of life'. On that note, perhaps I can turn the wood from these trees into a beautiful floor, something much needed at Garvinweasel.

I love these end-cut parquet from Atelier de Grange. I find their web site mesmerizing. At the least, I should produce several tons of firewood, which would be put to good use next winter.

For Sale

2010-02-04T08:32:00.000-06:00

At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.

- Robin Lee Graham

True, perhaps, but for those who have yet to learn this lesson, there are boats like the Vent d'Est, with interiors by Axel Vervoordt, offered for 11,750,000 euros.

I, Blogger

2010-01-19T23:39:00.005-06:00

Self-portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat

The lovely Borjana Eghbalian of the blog Green and Stylish has tagged me for the Kreativ Blogger award, which requires me to reveal 7 things about myself in this post and pass the award on to 7 bloggers that I admire (and secretly want to know more about) and then leave a post on their blogs to let them know. I will also proudly display the Kreativ Blogger award image. Thank you Borjana!

So, about me..

Image here

1. As a child, I fell in love with an abandoned, octagonal house (with remnants of a wrap-around porch) seen at some distance from the road on trips to visit my grandparents. I wanted this abandoned house to be mine, to rescue it, bring it back to life, but my parents would never stop to let me go explore it. This is certainly a clue as to why I am here now, at Garvinweasel.

2. I like to write and sketch ideas and images in a Moleskin carnet with my Lamy Safari fountain pen, black ink. I have a sketch of the four acre garden plan for Garvinweasel in my current book, along with some information architecture and cloud computing diagrams with notes on predictive analytics algorithms.

3. I am incomprehensibly crazy about the nine dogs that live at Garvinweasel (Lady, Bigfoot, Daisy, Bear, Penny, Beatle, Missy, Dudley and Lucy). We have fostered twenty-five dogs over the past four years.

4. I like to read. I found a pre-publication copy of Susan Minot's first book, "Lust", in a loft I once rented on Grand Street (in New York's Soho), left there by the previous tenant, who seemed to have moved out in a hurry. I mailed the book once from Paris to girl in Seattle, along with, for some reason, a tie from Barneys NYC. She returned the book, but I can't find it now, and I sometimes miss my tie.

5. Once a month, usually on a Saturday, I drive my '67 Ford pickup to town and get my haircut in the old barbershop on the town square, across from the courthouse. Sitting in that barber chair within the tobacco smoke-stained walls, warm shaving foam around my ears and on my neck, the smell of Barbicide in the air, I feel like I have been given a Valium IV and dropped into the set of a grainy movie adaptation of a southern gothic novel. If I was very rich, I would buy a big painting by Basquiat every March at the fair in Maastricht, and I would get a haircut and hot-shave in this barber shop every Saturday.

Photo of Joni Mitchell by Jack Robinson 1969

6. I like to listen to the music of Hildegard Von Bingen, Miles Davis, Radiohead, Brian Eno, Joni Mitchell and Iggy Pop (from whom I have a hand-written letter, but that's another post). I usually listen on last.fm, but if no music is available, I can hum Mozart's "Requiem".

7. My personal style is basically white linen or cotton shirts, hand-made cuff-links, vintage Rolex Air-King, my French muck boots (Le Chameau), khakis or Levi's and a hint of Hermès Bel Ami.

______________
My blogger tags...

I pass the Kreativ Blogger award to these 7 bloggers in appreciation:

Wendy at Little Chapel on the River
Jane at My Pear Tree House
LeAnn at Linen and Lavender
David at The Neo Lifestyle
Desiree at Vosges Paris
Shawn at Country French Antiques
Julie at The Provence Post

A Green and Stylish Thank You!

2010-01-18T08:56:00.000-06:00

Checking my email this morning, I was surprised and delighted to find that I have been tagged, by Borjana of the wonderful 'Green and Stylish' blog, with the Kreativ Blogger award. Seeing Borjana's lovely wellies in her post, I decided to set up a quick shot of my own (Le Chameau 'Country Walkers'), with some of the Garvinweasel pack and their green and stylish winter house providing an appropriate background. If I am at home, it is most likely these boots are on my feet, and I took them off for a few minutes this morning to snap this picture (some of you may recognize the hay bales from an earlier post). Thank you Borjana... I will return with my list of personal revelations and blogger tags in the next day or two.

Garden Journal

2010-01-04T08:29:00.003-06:00

The groves were God's first temples.
~William Cullen Bryant, "A Forest Hymn"

Thomas Jefferson kept a garden journal for sixty years. I've been meaning to start one for the past four. Not that I've done much in the garden. I sometimes spend an entire weekend picking up sticks and branches, and though it is a necessary task, it hardly seems worth writing down. I find the time I spend outdoors doing these seemingly menial or trivial tasks actually provide a space in time that is otherwise difficult to find in the everyday sense.

I enjoy being out there with the birds and the dogs, and I am constantly looking around the property while performing needed chores, dreaming about what I could do here or there, envisioning a pond or an orchard, a vineyard or a hedgerow. My perspective on much around gardening and property management has changed. I used to rake leaves; now I am gathering raw material for organic compost, for use in a future kitchen garden. My compost heap is several hundred cubic feet, and will eventually yield a ton or more of the stuff each year.

Someone gave me a $50 Visa gift card as a Christmas gift, and I will use it to order 500 pine tree seedlings from the state's forestry service today, for delivery in February. I will soon learn something about tree planting, and plan to capture some reflections of the experience and post some images here.

Image: here

Happy New Year

2009-12-31T16:51:00.003-06:00

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul”

-G. K. Chesterton quotes (English born Gabonese Critic, Essayist, Novelist and Poet, 1874-1936)

Many thanks to Eve, from the German blog Unikum,for sending this Irish New Year Blessing:

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

A Christmas Story

2009-12-26T08:10:00.015-06:00

"I'm ready for my close-up", our little table top Christmas tree seemed to say. With the Canon G11 Santa left for me, I too, felt ready, and set the scene by randomly placing votive candles among freshly cut evergreen branches (a la Axel Vervoordt) and snapped this photo, and the one below.

When I was little, my mother told me about what Christmas had been like for her as a child, the youngest of five born to farmstead parents in the Mississippi delta. Growing up during the Great Depression, Santa Claus would bring her a pair of new shoes... and an orange. I remember her telling me that she always really looked forward to getting that orange at Christmas.

I didn't understand when I was kid, it just seemed so weird to me, a child of the suburbs, used to seeing oranges piled high in the produce section of every grocery. Somehow, now, it seems to me a perfect memory... a Christmas story from another era, yet one that resonates deeply for me today.

I lost both my parents this year, and the holidays brought bittersweet reminders of Christmas past. We listened to Dad's favorite Christmas music (he loved Nat King Cole's versions), watched classic movies like "White Christmas" (she loved Danny Kaye) and "Christmas in Connecticut" (he really liked Barbara Stanwyck), and we placed some oranges around the base of our little tree... for my Mom.

Tangled Up In Blue Christmas

2009-12-19T12:55:00.019-06:00

... is what they should have titled the new Bob Dylan collection of holiday melodies. I consider myself a Dylan fan, so I happily snapped the above iPhone pic of his image on the wall of an alley during a recent trip to Brussels. Discovering his newest music offering on Amazon.com this morning while doing some last minute shopping, I thought 'oh, this might be good' and clicked on the the 'preview all songs' button. After few bars of the first couple of numbers, I was transported, as if by a Dickensian ghost, to a vision of sitting on a barstool in a dark and smoky crosstown joint on Christmas Eve, befriended by a few lonely kooks out of a Charles Bukowski novel, a malfunctioning jukebox rotating this CD all night while a gravely voiced bartender entertains us by alternately coughing up his versions of a duet and blowing Lucky Strike smoke rings. If you should give it a listen, please let me know... do you hear what I hear?

Here's a happy alternative... how about Diana Krall singing 'Jingle Bells' and other holiday standards while sharing champagne and foie gras at home with friends and family... and may Messrs. Dickens and Bukowski, merry gentlemen, rest in peace.

Good Weekend!

image: here

Patina

2009-12-14T00:00:00.010-06:00

"Monuments are anchors in time. Epochs pass, weather erodes, people lose interest. This cannot be helped. But patina itself is worth appreciating. Patina is the value that age puts on an object. It’s what makes an antique antique. It is experience, maturity, the soft sheen of time. Patina wasn’t present at the spanking-new creation. It comes from a life lived."

- John Yemma, editor of the Christian Science Monitor, in his "open source" column for November 22, 2009, "On Thanksgiving: the memorial that time forgot"

______________
I need to install a gate soon, across the drive entrance, in conjunction with the installation of 2000+ feet of underground electric fence for the dogs. Garvinweasel sits on about four acres, but the dogs can disappear for hours, exploring hundreds of acres of an adjoining pastures and forests, returning with barbed-wire scratches, deer legs (they love these) and other assorted artifacts from their adventures. Every day I worry that they may not all make it back in one piece, so I ordered the underground fence wire, training flags, transformers (one backup) and six collars... all still in the box waiting on me to find a spare weekend or two. These fences have a special, twisted wire that don't send a signal to the collars, made for secured pass-through areas, like the driveway gate. All that to say I have been browsing gates on the web. Tonight I came across this jewel, and wanted to share it with you.

Gate image: here Quote: here

Farmer Fizz

2009-12-11T07:36:00.012-06:00

Image: www.skurnikwines.com

My only regret is that I did not drink more Champagne.
Lord Maynard Keynes, on his deathbed

'Farmer Fizz' is the nickname for Champagne produced in small batches by growers in the region of France that not only produces these magical wines, but is also one of the most widely recognized 'brands' in the world. Every year Terry Theise travels to the Champagne region to visit these growers, producing an annual catalog of estate selections from the finest. His writing is witty and dry, not unlike the bubbly itself, and is made available by wine importer Michael Skurnik. You can download a copy of the 2009 catalog here.

Why drink 'grower' champagnes'? A selection of Terry's top reasons, from the catalog...

You should drink grower Champagne if you've forgotten that Champagne is WINE.
You should drink "farmer-fizz" if you'd rather buy Champagne from a farmer than a factory.
You should drink grower-Champagne because, like all hand-crafted estate-bottled wines, it is not a mere Thing but is indeed a BEING, expressive of where it grew and who raised it. In drinking it you help protect DIVERSITY, and diversity leads to VITALITY.

Venus Infers

2009-12-09T22:35:00.001-06:00

It would be reasonable to surmise that, with less than a fortnight of shopping days till Christmas, you may still be thinking about what to get that difficult-to-buy-for spouse, friend or favorite blogger. Well, let not your heart be troubled, as Christies' New York branch will be offering antiquities on Friday, December 11th, including this circa 1st century B.C - 1st century A.D. Roman marble Venus, expected to fetch between $100,000 - $150,000. You can peruse the sale catalog here and derive your own conclusion as whether it would be worth a call to NetJets tomorrow, if New York would be too far to drive.

Life Imitates Art... An Ephemeral Sundial

2009-12-08T00:00:00.077-06:00

Image: James XVI

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

"Look" said Ms. XVI... "a sundial". Made of ice. Functional... but flawed. Imperfect. Impermanent. An accidental discovery, captured in a moment, Sunday morning at Garvinweasel. Beauty can be found everywhere you look, it depends only on how you 'see'.

___________

The back-story... Hand-painted ceramic bowl: $11. Large dog kennel (with black plastic removable floor): $115. iPhone 3G: $199. Stepping outside on a freezing cold morning to find an ice 'sundial' in the dog water bowl sitting next to the kennel with a camera in your pocket: priceless.

Winner of 'Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors'

2009-12-07T08:11:00.001-06:00

Image: amazon.com

Congratulations Albarosa, from Brillante Home Decor, on leaving the third comment on the contest post!!!

Thanks to everyone who entered, I enjoyed revisiting the castle with you and reading all of your comments.

Have a great week and check back tomorrow for a post about life imitates art.

-James

Meeting Axel Vervoordt

2009-12-06T10:02:00.015-06:00

Photo: Architectural Digest

I walked up the stairs from the cellar at Kasteel Gravenwezel which led to the entry hall (below), famously depicted on the cover of 'Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors'.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

This room, at the top of the exterior staircase landing seen in last week's post, leads to Axel Vervoordt's office (via doorway above) and study (doorway below). This airy, light-filled room, with a black-bordered white marble floor, has earth from the property mixed with linseed oil and pigment to create the glowing color on the walls.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

Stepping into Axel's office, one of the first things I noticed were sixteen (I counted) orchids in old clay pots in each of the two window sills on either side of the fireplace. In front of each window was a small sofa, as shown in the image below (from the Axel Vervoordt Home Collection web site), though the orchids were replaced in the catalog shot by some books and objects.

The first time I saw Axel Vervoordt, he was standing in the center of his office and speaking with people he seemed to know, offering them something to drink from the bar hidden behind a closet door in a corner of the room. I found the wonderful illustration (watercolor?) of the office (below) some time ago and had it stored on my computer, but I don't know who created it. If it is yours, or if you can identify it, please email me so that I can update the credit.

Image: ?

Through a doorway to the conference room (below), a long table was lined with art books and blueprints of projects underway.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The chapel (below), in the tower room at one corner of the conference room, was roped off but allowed visitors a peek inside.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The next room on the tour was the much photographed ground-floor study, its walls lined with bookcases filled with beautiful collections of pottery, sculpture and books. This Chesterfield-back sofa, is quite deep and also from the AV Home Collection. Its unusual shade of purple lends an element of surprise on entering the room.

Image: here

The Lucio Fontana painting, above the fireplace mantel in the study, was purchased by Axel Vervoordt in 1969 and is said to be one of his favorites.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The stove in the ground-floor kitchen gave off much warmth, but I'm not sure if it was wood or gas. Who wouldn't enjoy preparing a meal in this room with its thick wood trestle-table, crystal chandelier, white marble floors and counter tops and blue pigment paint.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The next doorway in the kitchen led to the dining room, it's silvery light blue walls displaying an arrary of 17th century Chinese porcelain raised from a sunken ship by the Hatcher expedetion. Axel Vervoordt bought the expedition's entire trove of this porcelain and displayed it in his first Paris antiquarian exhibition, which brought him world attention.

Photo: here

Taking the portrait-lined staircase up to the next floor, I found several very serene rooms that seemed to be lived in. In the Oriental Salon, the low table in front of the sofa had some magazines and newspapers on it.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

Just behind the this Oriental Salon was the Venus room, lined to the ceiling with bookcases filled with Axel Vervoordt's archives, catalogued files of research materials related art, history and furniture. With this bed from the Axel Vervoordt Home Collection, it could serve double-duty as a guest room. Notice the burgunday-colored faux marble bath through the doorway at left.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The red room, on the next floor up, was one of my favorites.

Photos: Axel-Vervoordt.com

As I walked toward the tower room doorway, seen above to left of the bed, I heard an ancient floorboard let out a little squeak. Happy in the knowledge that I knew the exact spot in the floor of the castle that had a squeak, I stepped on it again on my way out, to be sure.

On the second weekend of the exhibition, I returned to see the castle one more time, arriving late, around 6:oo pm. This time, when I entered Axel Vervoordt's office, he was alone in the room, sitting at his desk and focused on some papers in his hand. He looked up and smiled as I walked over, and stood up to shake hands as I introduced myself. I told him a little about my projects at home and that he was my primary source of inspiration. Nodding as I spoke, he said that he knows of some very nice houses in Tennessee. I noted how many people the open house drew, and he told me that some of the visitors were even clients with whom he had projects underway, hence the blueprints on the conference room table. I told how much I had enjoyed touring the castle and thanked him for opening his home. He graciously responded 'with pleasure' before returning to his desk and his work.

Photo: MarieClaireMasion.com

As I walked across the bridge towards my car, I stopped to look back and take in the image of the Kasteel s-Gravenwezel against the dark sky, and hoped that one day I would see it, and Axel Vervoordt, again.

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Axel and May Vervoordt open the Kasteel s-Gravenwezel to the public for twice yearly exhibitions, summer and winter. For dates and details, please visit the official web site.

Interview with Belgian Pearls' Greet Lefèvre

2009-12-04T07:55:00.009-06:00

When I stumbled upon Belgian Pearls, the design-focused blog by Greet Lefèvre, I knew instantly that I had landed somewhere special. Her carefully chosen images, posted frequently, often contain photographs of her professional projects and home, and her writing style is personal and engaging. Checking frequently to see what Greet had posted next was one of the primary drivers behind my developing interest in the blogosphere. The inspiration I always found there kept me coming back for more, and I was delighted when she agreed to be the subject of the first interview to be published here.
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James: Your blog, Belgian Pearls, is full of exquisite images that have captured the attention of some the web's most influential style bloggers and mavens. At time of this writing, you have over 150 followers, and I see link backs, mentions, and blog list entries for Belgian Pearls on many other blogs. When did you start blogging and what inspired you to create Belgian Pearls?

Greet: I started blogging in July this year after I had discovered and read a lot of blogs during the past year. I was so surprised about all these beautiful and inspirational blogs I discovered from around the world! So all these blogs and bloggers inspired me to start my own blog. A second reason to start Belgian Pearls is the fact that I saw that a lot of bloggers and people and general, are so fascinated about Belgian Design and all things Belgian. So first I started to search other Belgian Design bloggers but I did not found one Belgian Design blog!!! So then, being a Belgian Designer, I was convinced to start my own blog! Question was ‘How introducing my blog into the blogger community?’ One of my favorite, inspirational blogs was Velvet and Linen. I was following this blog since a couple of months. So I contacted Brooke and she introduced me into the blogger world! I am so thankful to Brooke, she really has become a good friend!

J: I think it is clear to anyone who follows your blog that you are passionate about design. When did your interest in design start, and how has it developed over time.

G: Since I was a little girl I have always been surrounded by design, interiors and antiques. My father involved us in any project he was working on and took us along to museums, castles and a lot of exhibitions related to his business. As a child I loved to go in our working places to see our cabinetmakers, real craftsmen, working on a piece of furniture or wood paneling and loved touching the wood and loved the smell of the wood! So I grew up between the wood and the sawdust of the wood. My interest in design has been growing unconsciously during all these years. So my brother and I run our family business for the 4th generation now and I really think that the love of interior design is something you are born with! After I graduated, I joined my father in the company, by assisting in the administration department of the company for the first few years. At the same time I finished my studies as an antiques dealer and on weekends I started working in the antiques shop from a well-known antiques dealer in our region. Together with these studies and the experience I gained in the antiques business , my passion for antiques was growing! In 1998 we started a new showroom of interior design and made-to-measure furniture and this was definitely the start of my career as interior designer.

J: Your company, Lefèvre Interiors, was founded in 1890. Would you describe for us some of the principles or processes you use to help clients realize a vision for their home?

G: As our company exists since 1890, the word “confidence” is one of the most important pillars of our company. So first you have to earn the confidence of your client. The client needs to have the right feeling about you. He has to trust you! And mutual of course! If this feeling is present, you can start to talk with the client and discussing about his needs. So ‘listen very well to the client’s needs’ is the second important pillar of creating a good relationship with your client. I always have in mind that it is the interior of my client and not mine, which we are discussing about. My client and his family has to feel good, comfortable and happy in his home. So the wishes of all the members of that family have to be fulfilled. It is so important to know the way of life of your client. A third important pillar is to discuss about timing of the designing process and to keep your promises about the approach you proposed your client. And finally, maybe the most important pillar, is the delivery of quality! So our company is known for quality designing, quality made-to-measure furniture and wood paneling, so all supply companies with who we work with as wood suppliers, seating companies, painters,… have to deliver the same high-quality. Only if these mentioned principles are present, you can help your client with the vision in their home or room they want you to design. I spend a lot of time in discussing with my client to try to know them better and to put myself in his life world. And I try to learn to discover his taste and desire by showing my clients the interiors we already designed. I always ask them to show me images of what they have in mind or what they really like. Or if they have any furniture or decorative items they are devoted to and they want to keep in their home interior.

J: You have written on your blog that Belgium's antiquarian, art dealer and designer Axel Vervoordt has influenced your work. I also read that you attend the Open House exhibitions every year. Would you share with us some details of this influence and also some of your impressions on visiting the Kasteel 's-Gravenwezel and the shop at Kanaal?

G: At the time I was working at the antiques dealer, I became in contact with a lot of antiquarians and designers. So one of them was Axel Vervoordt! Ever since, every year I go to visit his beautiful castle and the exhibition warehouse Het Kanaal near Antwerp. Axel Vervoordt is a famous designer and known around the world! He is a trendsetter in designing! He always brings new ideas about interior design and how to use antique pieces in the interior! His love for all things of beauty is so huge!!! He is a real master and my big example! And yes, as a lot of other designers, mostly Belgian designers, I am influenced by his work! I love walking in his castle where, from the very first moment you enter it, you feel the authenticity, simplicity and sincerity that all of the rooms, antique furniture and decorative items, radiate.

Even in Het Kanaal, where you can discover his beautiful home collection, you can feel that Axel Vervoordt had been thinking very deeply about the design of this furniture collection. He exactly knows and feels what people expect of for instance, a seat, a coffee table etc. Not only of the designing and the materials but also of the comfort of it. He uses very natural materials, he loves wood and natural fabrics such as linen. In his book “At Home with May and Axel Vervoordt” he wrote that it is his duty to find a better place to all things entrusted to him. So that is also what I try to do when I am searching for antique furniture and decorative items for a client’s home. I try to give the object a place in the home where it “feels lucky”.

Mr and Mrs Vervoordt love to bring in nature into their home by using flowers and branches of their own garden. Not the stylish created bouquets buth a very simple flower or a blossom branch in a vase! Bringing in nature in ones interior is a must, to me. When designing a clients home, I try to remember his principle of full and empty! Axel Vervoordt uses in his book “The Story of a Style” the word “volledig”. It is a Dutch word that means full (vol) and empty (ledig). The two words are in harmony with eachother. In his lifeworld the word means to him :” The plenitude of the emptiness”. Keep the best and get rid of everything except the essential. This is the philosophy on which the life and work of Axel Vervoordt is founded. So also for me it is important to create an interior where my client feels good and where the essential thought is to be happy in that home, to enjoy the pureness of objects and to get rid of all things who are “too much”. I really try to explain to my client to use the entire home, all the rooms of it and not to withdraw in only one place of his home! So it is important to enjoy the library as well as the entrance hall, or the kitchen as the sitting area etc. But therefore all of the rooms have to be in harmony. To reach this harmony, Axel Vervoordt loves to create a room who is “empty” in alternation with a room who is “full”. So you can translate this in a room who is peaceful, a meditation room, in alternation with a room with more objects, furniture. So depending on your state of mind of the moment, you can choose for the room you want to be in at that particular moment.

And one of the most important things I learned from Axel Vervoordt, is to choose for the objects, the designing that you personally like the most! Only then you can feel peaceful and happy. That is why it is of great importance that you know your client very well. There a few rooms in the Castle of ‘s Gravenwezel, who inspired me to create the rooms in my own house. For instance the library room of the caste (PICTURE 1) and the kitchen of the castle (PICTURE 2). I took over a few ideas as you can see here in my own library ( PICTURE 3) as well as in my kitchen. Here I have also chosen to paint the inside of the kitchen niches in a blue colour (PICTURE 4).

PICTURE 1

PICTURE 2

PICTURE 3

PICTURE 4

J: Belgian design seems to be the hottest subject in the design world these days. What do you think of as primary attributes of Belgian design, and why do you think it attracts so many today?

G: Belgian designers are very loyal to their ancestors. They have a lot of respect for their work and try to live and work further in the mind of those. They take over from father to son their skills and
craftsmanship. That explains why there are a lot of companies in Belgium who are still ran by people of the 3rd, the 4th or even the 5th generation. So there is a treasure of experience among the Belgian craftsmen, designers and architects. Belgian Designers have an enormous respect for their history.

Belgian people in general are known as very hard working people. And they never stand still, they are always looking for innovations and renewal. Their work is their hobby. They deliver high-quality products. Belgian Design is not a” throw-away” design. Our designers love to work with natural, sincere materials. The designing is not “overdone”, it is rather simple and elegant without being ‘cold’. There is a “soul” in the work of our designers and craftsmen. The presence of the soul of our ancestors, I would say. All of this is translated into the Belgian design. Even nature is important in Belgian Design and is translated in the use of wood and natural fabrics. Belgian people love their homes and want to live in their homes and share it with family and friends. A Belgian is a “bon-vivant”, a pleasure lover. The designers have that in mind when creating an interior. Our designers and architects have an open mind, they love to learn, they are eager to learn, they are inquisitive.

J: Where do you find inspiration in your own design work? Do you use your own home as a sort of lab for design ideas?

G: There are a lot of inspiration sources to me. First of all I have a big collection of books , from the ones left from my father to the contemporary ones. I love magazines and reading about design. And I really love to visit castles and museums, studying the antique furniture and interiors, to get inspiration! To me this is one of the most important sources for inspiration. When we go on holidays,, I love to go to see castles, fairs, exhibitions, antiques markets,…in combination with of course the ”lazy” days. And the design fairs and exhibitions are also very important. And in fact , the working places in our company, are the lab for design ideas. There I discuss with my family ( my brother and my husband) together with our craftsmen the vision on a new design or the use of new patines or whatever. Also nature or fashion can be a source of inspiration to me.

J: Do you collect anything, and if so could you tell us something about your personal collections?

G: I am not a real collector of any particular piece of antiques or design. However a few years ago, I started to collect egg cups. I try to bring home an egg cup of every country we visit. I really like the design of it. Books, mostly about interior decoration and antiques, are my passion.

J: You have shared some great insights on Belgium with your readers on Belgian Pearls. If one of your readers was to visit Belgium for the first time, what would tell them to see or do?

G: Here are some of my favorites:

1° Brussels

1. The Atomium : is one of the most important landmarks. It was built for the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Is designed by the architect André Waterkeyn. It is a structure which represents a unit cell of an iron crystal. It was meant to last just for the Expo but its popularity resulted in it being made permanent. In one of the spheres is a restautant which offers you a magnificent view of Brussels.

2. Grote Markt : Central square of Brussels. It is surrounded by guildhalls, the city’s Town Hall and the Breadhouse. It is together with the Atomium the most important landmark in Brussels.

3. Sablon Place : This location is a home to many antiques shops and art galleries.

4. Museum of Art and History : Important collection of art objects from different civilizations from all over the world.

2° Antwerp

1. Grote Markt : Not as big as the Grand Place of Brussels but certainly even beautiful. In the middle of the place stands the Brabo fountain, dated 1887 (refers to the legend of the origin of Antwerp) of the sculptor Jef Lambeaux.

2. Rubenshuis : The former house of our famous painter Pieter Paul Rubens (17th century) is now a museum with a wonderful collection of paintings by Rubens himself and by some of his contemporaries.

3. The Castle of ‘s Gravenwezel : Castle of our famous antiques dealer and designer Axel Vervoordt.

3° Ghent

1. Saint Bavo’s Cathedral : where you can discover the famous painting “The Mystic Lamb” of Hubert and Jan Van Eyck (15th century).

2. S.M.A.K. : Museum of Contemporary Art

4° Bruges

The historic centre of Bruges is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. Bruges is a canal-based city, and is often called “ The Venice of the North”.

J: Greet, it has been a great pleasure getting to know you this way. Thank you for sharing these insights to your world with us!
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You can visit Greet on her blog Belgian Pearls and her company website Lef è vre Interiors, where you can see many more examples of their cabinetry and furniture (all images below courtesy of http://www.lefevre.be/).

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Don't forget the contest...
enter for a chance to win "Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors".

Axel Vervoordt Interview

2009-12-03T08:09:00.001-06:00

Photo: TheArtNewspaper.com

TheArtNewspaper.com has just published an interview with Belgian art dealer and antiquarian Axel Vervoordt here.

A few more steps...

2009-12-01T12:33:00.011-06:00

Image: www.schilde.be

Continuing the open house tour of May and Axel Vervoodt's Kasteel s-Gravenwezel, I followed the wide cobblestone path across the castle's moat, into to a paved courtyard.

Image: www.chateauxdebelgique.eu

The courtyard, on the castle's face, looks across the moat towards the beautiful grounds, with a small lake on the property visible in the distance through the trees.

Image: ?

Nine-foot long, lattice-back garden benches from the Axel Vervoordt Home collection faced the courtyard from the castle's outer walls, seen above just below the first floor windows. Visitors to the open house enter through the cellar door, seen here just below the landing at the top of the double-sided staircase to the home's first floor. The steps to the cellar appear to be original to the castle, as the are made of a beautifully worn dark gray stone. Once inside, a few steps to the right leads to a large gallery...

Image: axel-vervoordt.com

This room, empty except for the large refectory table and painting, evokes the kind of serene sensibility that is synonymous with 'Axel Vervoodt'. It is connected by a doorway to...

Image: axel-vervoordt.com

the original kitchen, with this large hunt table as its centerpiece. The table was very simply decorated for the open house, with evergreen branches and votive candles, placed around the tabletop in a casual arrangement, which was the inspiration for this year's Thanksgiving table at Garvinweasel. The candles were not in any sort of holder, just dozens of white votives sitting directly on the scrubbed pine table, placed in what seemed like a random pattern between the branches. The simplicity and confidence of this approach was one of the first such surprises throughout my tour.

To the left of the table, old gas burners were set into a black delt tile counter top, with simple holes cut through the tiles on the counters front side for plain black knobs to control the gas. The lower cabinets beneath the knobs were covered with simple curtains; plank shelves lined the walls above. Live plants, woven baskets and ceramic pots, filled with utensils or live cuttings, added to the simple and elegant charm .

So many modern kitchens are over the top. Nothing here gave the appearance of being 'updated', though you know it must have been, as I don't imagine that the Vervoordts found the kitchen this way when they purchased the castle, yet the restraint and respect with which they have revived it gave me a new perspective on what it means to be custodian of a historic property. Had I experienced being here prior to purchasing Garvinweasel, I'd like to think I would not have taken delivery of a truck-full of stainless appliances. Thinking about it now, I may put them on eBay.

In a few days, I'll take you upstairs, to the first floor. In the meantime, don't forget about the contest to win a copy of Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors.

Win 'Axel Vervoordt:Timeless Interiors'

2009-11-27T23:09:00.031-06:00

Photo: Amazon.com

Today begins Axel Vervoordt's annual Winter Exhibition, or open house, which runs Friday through Sunday, this weekend and next. This is the first in a series of posts related to Axel Vervoordt that I will publish over the next ten days of the Winter Exhibition. I am giving readers and bloggers the chance to win a copy of 'Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors' by Armelle Baron (Author) and Christian Sarramon (photographer). Contest details appear at the end of this post. A description of the open house (below) comes from axel-vervoordt.com:

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The castle of ‘s-Gravenwezel, the private home of Axel and May Vervoordt, is like a permanently changing exhibition of wonderful furniture and objets d’art, from various periods and styles. During these two weekends, it is possible to visit all of the 50 rooms from the castle and its outbuildings, each of them different in ambiance and character. The post-industrial “Kanaal” with its 19th century red-brick brew houses and 20th century concrete silos display the pieces from the Axel Vervoordt Home Collection together with contemporary photography, unique archaeological pieces and some rare 20th century design furniture. Castle and Kanaal: Friday-Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. till 7 p.m. Entrance at the castle: 10 euro Free entrance at “Kanaal”

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While living in Belgium on a temporary assignment, I attended the open house at the castle two weekends in a row in 2007. I had never been to the Antwerp area, and it seemed as though my GPS was not exactly sure how to reach the castle. After righting a couple of wrong turns I passed a sign for the village of -s-Gravenwezel and found myself on a narrow road through a forest. I soon came upon a clearing that revealed the shapes and colors and spires that I already knew from the well worn pages of my favorite books at home, 'Axel Vervoordt: Story of a Style' and 'Axel Vevoordt: Timeless Interiors'.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

Driving slowly up the tree-lined drive, I was directed to park in a field that seem to have a high concentration of Ranger Rovers. As I walked back from my car toward the castle entrance, I noticed small barn or run-in shed for horses near the back of the parking field, and recalled reading that Axel said rides every morning. Moments later, as I walked past the towering gates I could hear water flowing through the moat that encircles the castle. Looking across and seeing the castle in full view, I recalled the first time I saw a reference to it in the magazine article that introduced me to Axel Vervoordt some years before, and prepared to take in what I was about to behold.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

I stepped onto a cobblestone drive that led through a small corridor where I was directed to the entrance in the outer building. The first room contained a simple desk, with several AV staffers standing behind it chatting with each other and some visitors. One of them gave me a ticket in exchange for the ten euros admission, and I took the few steps down to the reception area (above) where I felt the warmth of a slow burning oak fire. The room felt eerily familiar, as I had seen it in photographs a hundred times. I slowly made my way through the first series of rooms, pausing to take in every detail.

Photos: Axel-Vervoordt.com

This work room (above) had many "manquettes", some on the bookshelf and table top, others hanging on the walls. These miniature models of various components of buildings, mostly roof lines and spiral staircases, have for centuries been made by apprentice carpenters as a sort of final exam. Books, blueprints, and other paper artifacts from Axel Vervoordt were for sale in this room, and I purchased my copy of 'Artempo', the catalog from his first Venice exhibition, here.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

The majority of the rooms had fireplaces, and every one of them glowed with the warmth and aroma of burning wood. Each room was staffed by at least one Axel Vervoordt employee who kept an eye on the fire and answered questions about any of the objets d'art or furnishings in the room. Much of each room's content was for sale, the castle serving the dual role of home and showroom for the Vervoordts. With her inventory clipboard in hand, the staffer in this pine room (above) was happy to discuss the details of the room's construction, revealing for me its hidden compartments and doors.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

This kitchen (above), which normally serves as a staff lunch room, was set up with cider, coffee and wine to wash down scones or cookies arranged on silver trays.

Photo: Axel-Vervoordt.com

I sat on a long bench in the Orangerie having a glass of wine before walking out into the courtyard of the U-shaped outer building to follow the wide cobblestone path to main house, its windows aglow in the dim light of this Belgian winter afternoon.

Photo: here

I will post recollections of touring the main house in subsequent posts over the course of the open house dates. In the meantime, you can let Mr. Vervoordt himself show you around a room or two in this video from Belgian television (below), the last of the two part series that began in this post on Monday, courtesy of YouTube.com.

Win 'Timeless Interiors' Contest

I created this blog a year ago with almost no experience as blog reader, much less, blogger, and gave up after two posts. At the time of this writing, the Garvinweasel blog has only been re-activated for about ten days and I have already met so many great people here. It really started up again with the Velvet & Linen Brickmaker's Table contest. I have discovered many new sources of information and inspiration, and I'm making new friends in the process. To celebrate the re-birth of the Garvinweasel blog, and to say 'thank you' to everyone following or linking to it, I will give away a copy of 'Axel Vervoordt: Timeless Interiors" from Amazon.com. Here's how to enter:

- If you have a blog, just add a link to Garvinweasel on your blog list. If you'd like to do a post to help promote the contest, even better, but not required for entry.

- If you are a reader, just sign up to follow Garvinweasel using Google FriendConnect

After doing one of the above, leave a comment here letting me know and you will have become a contestant. If you are already following, or already have a link to Garvinweasel on your blog, please leave a comment here along with my new friends so that I have a complete list for of all entrants in one place. The contest entry period will close at 6:00 PM Central Standard Time next Sunday evening, December 5, 2009. Later that night I will put all verified entries into a large hurricane glass (with candle removed) and ask Ms. XVI to shuffle them around and draw one name. I plan to take pictures for the post announcing the winner on Monday morning, December 6.

* Please note that in order to win, you must live in a country that Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk ships to directly. Delivery times are outside of my control, but if you are in the US or Canada you should have it in time for Christmas if you would like it for a gift to give. Outside the U.S or Canada, the winner would be responsible for any applicable duties and taxes. If other contest rules need to apply, I will post them as soon as I am aware of any need to revise. Best of luck!

Axel Vervoordt - Designer of the Year

2009-11-23T16:52:00.007-06:00

According the Belgian on-line magazine Knack Weekend, British design house Andrew Martin has named Belgian art and antiques dealer Axel Vervoordt 'Designer of the Year'. I translated the Dutch from the article using Babelfish followed with some light editing/translation of my own. The original article appears here.

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The internationally renowned antiquarian/decorator Axel Vervoordt is exclaimed by the already just as famous British decorating house Andrew Martin to stylist of the Year 2009. This London house not only creates fabrics and furniture for decorators around the world, but also developed its own line of furnishings and lighting. In the past years numerous famous decorators to receive the award include Kelly Hoppen and Michael Reeves. Vervoordt is not the first belgian to receive this recognition, which went to the late Jean de Meulder in 2000. The award will be presented on 26 November to the Vervoordt family. The emphasis lies on family, because the company of Axel and May Vervoordt is continued by their son Boris Vervoordt. The date for this presentation is designed to take place on the occasion of the annual open house days, next weekend, in the castle of s-Gravenwezel and the shop Kanaal, both on the outskirts of Antwerp.

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This international award is considered 'the Oscar of the Interior Design world', according to the Andrew Martin site, which contains photographs of past winners, including:

Kelly Hoppen
Thomas Pheasant
Michael Reeves
Stephen Falke
Jean de Meuidier
Amanda Rosa
Jamie Drake
Tera Bernerd
Taylor Howes
Helene Hennie
Kit Kemp

The Vervoordt family (Axel, May, Boris, Dick) appear in a two part televsion interview (also in Dutch), courtesy of YouTube. Taped in the Oriental Salon on the second floor of the castle (for U.S. readers, first floor overseas), I enjoyed watching this even though I can understand only a few words here and there... words like 'Sting' and 'Madonna', two among a new generation of the exclusive and usually private AV clientele. The story began when Mr. Vervoordt made a handsome profit from his first sale of a painting, purchased as a teenager while traveling to London with his father. Over the years he built his reputation and his business grew, eventually becoming the premier dealer and decorator among European aristocrats and global moguls, types who generally shy away from publicity. It is well known that Bill Gates has visited the Kasteel s-Gravenwezel to shop for antiques and art, and the Vervoordts' are rumoured to maintain an office in Seattle for the sole purpose of keeping the Gates' residence just right. You can see photographs of his work on one of the Royal residences of Belgium in the book Timeless Interiors.

Here is part one of the video interview. I will post part two on Friday, along with some notes on my recollection of visiting the castle's open house, and meeting Axel Vervoordt, in December 2007.

Country chic

2009-11-21T00:43:00.001-06:00

I stumbled across a great blog called Velvet & Linen last week. It's run by a Los Angeles-based designer, Brooke Gianetti, who, in addition to being lovely and talented, has some great friends. Among them is Mark Sage, owner of Love Train Antiques in Atlanta and a partner in Bobo Intriguing Objects, the Belgian design company who's products are now featured in the Restoration Hardware catalog. Mark and his Belgian partner, Rudi Nijssen, were on the catalog cover recently. Brooke and Mark decided to have a contest and give away not one, but three, of these Brickmakers tables, which retail for $1,360 in the catalog.

So here's how it works: entrants were required to submit a photograph of the room where they intend to place table, should they win, and they agree to photograph the table for potential promotional use by Mark or Brooke. Pretty good deal! I have been familiar with Mark's Belgian company for years, as I travel to Brussels for my job. I usually stay over the weekend to browse antiques on rue Haute, where you can see selections from the Bobo line displayed in a great little shop called Jacques Brol, run by the very interesting and multi-lingual Paul Jacobs. Here's a pic from rue Blaes, one street over, leading to the flea market.

I knew this table would be perfect for Garvinweasel, but the challenge I faced was which room to photograph, as most of rooms here are in various states of renovation construction, with none of them lending themselves, as is, to a photograph that would inspire a contest judge think 'aha!'. So, I decided to throw together a vignette in the future library using objects and light weight pieces of furniture to convey a sense of what could be, should the table arrive here one day soon. After moving loads of wood around in the room, sweeping up a little sawdust, and moving in what you see below, I felt I had something worthy of a try, and off to Brooke my email entry went.

About the objects in this photo: I bought the antique mountain chair at the Place Jeu de Balle flea market in Brussels in 2007; the books include two Axel Vervoordt exhibition catalogs, Artempo and Academia; the carved wood Buddha is from a trip to Beijing and the ceramic opium pillow on which he rest is from another trip to Hong Kong. I did the pen and ink drawings from an illustration inside the cover of Paris Interiors (Taschen Press) and blew them up on hand-made paper. Should the brickmakers table arrive at Garvinweasel, I would place it between two sofas in the same light sage velvet shown on the ottoman and pillows. I grabbed the hay bale off a stack out back, but it will soon make its way to the dog shed for their winter comfort.

To give you a slightly better idea of what is really going on in this room, here's a wider angle shot.

In case you are curious about the rest of the room, here's a doorway from the libary to the music room. Note the heavy plastic over the door opening, to contain sawdust. The blue paint left on the old door frame will be stripped, and the whole room will likely go a mildly distressed french gray. I have stripped the old fireplace mantel, constructed a built-in a bookcase and custom doors for the audio closet, and have started on wainscoting.

So it looks like 2010 is shaping up to be the year of country chic, as you can see in this video for the Chanel Spring 2010 collection, shot under the glass of Paris' Grand Palais. Karl Lagerfeld and crew are welcome to spend the weekend at Garvinweasel anytime. From the looks of this video, they would feel right at home.

Brooke and Mark's contest has shaped up over the past week into a raving success. She has posted dozens of entries on the site over the past few days, and the first round of judging will take place over the weekend. Her blogging design friends will pick ten finalist, then on Monday morning at eight a.m. the public can vote right there on her blog. The final selection of three lucky winners will be by popular vote. Please check in with her on Monday to see if my hay bale made the first cut, and if so, I hope you will vote for me. The dogs will thank you. They want their hay back.

Built-in Brussels

2009-11-20T08:57:00.001-06:00

I spent a few days working in Brussels recently, so I stayed over to visit the flea markets and snap pix of design inspirations. Here's an empty Grand Place early Sunday morning.

On Saturday I spent some time wandering through a beautiful series of rooms at a custom cabinetry shop on rue Blaes, a few blocks from the daily flea market at Place Jeu de Balle. Their web site, Baden Baden, has a extensive collection of rooms to view and is offered in French, Flemish and English. Here's a sampling of what I snapped on my iPhone:

Fake Plastic Trees

2008-09-07T09:56:00.004-05:00

A green plastic watering can
for a fake chinese rubber plant

in fake plastic earth...
Fake Plastic Trees, by Radiohead, from the album The Bends, 1995

I came home this week with a load of laminate fake wood floor plank samples. Although the entry hall, small hall and dining room all have the original heart pine floors, the rest of the floors at Garvinweasel remind me of this mess we're in.

Two rooms across the back of the original house were created from a porch, with the floor built at an angle to encourage water runoff. The conversion left the angle, creating rooms that felt like a carnival funhouse. Resisting the urge the install distortion mirrors and flashing lights, I decided instead to level the floors. My framing carpenter fabricated counter-angled mini-joists over the angled floor and attached an OSB subfloor, which has been begging for covering now for way too long.

I also brought home some wide plank pine boards. I thought I could paint, stain or lime these, maybe different treatments for different rooms or sections of the house. I looked at poplar planks and thought they looked like Axel Vervoordt's style, my favorite. I did some google research on poplar and first found that it is rated too soft for floor use. Then I saw Axel Vervoordt's Venice apartment on Topsy Turvy Style, and read that he used poplar wide plank floors in the living room. I also found a source for reclaimed wood floors that stocks poplar, and another source for 'hardened, distressed' poplar flooring, so it's definitely under consideration. The fake plastic boards, however, are not.

Once In A Lifetime

2008-09-03T15:19:00.001-05:00

And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house!

And you may ask yourself - well, how did I get here?

- Once In A LifeTime by Talking Heads, from the album Remain In Light, 1980

How did I get here? I ask myself that a lot lately. It's been almost three years since moving into an antebellum farmhouse that I though just needed a little paint and some updated flooring. I was wrong. My dream was move a bit out of the city, but still close enough to commute. Plant a garden, read by a fire, the country air and all of its joys. Now living among an elcectic melange of crash pad, design lab, recording studio, hardware and tool supply and indoor lumberyard. I've decided to chronicle the trials, tribulations and occasional triumphs in an effort to make some sense of it all, and hopefully unwind from the seemingly endless cycle of design/plan/source/demolish/build/repeat. A sort of online cocktail... two parts personal journal, one part DIY reality tv, a dash of "don't let this happen to you" advice, a whisper of design inspiration, shake well and serve. Over ice (it's hot down here). Relax and enjoy.