valentine's day Dreaming of Morocco: Architectural Digest and St. Tropez Boutique

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Architectural Digest, March 2009, Photos by Ken Hayden

Where could this paradise be? One might assume it would be found in Morocco.....but they would be wrong. This magnificently crafted fairytale hide-a-way designed by New York designer Todd Black ( Architecture by Bender and Associates, Landscape by Craig Reynolds) was built in Key West, Florida for Veronica Webb (former Vogue cover girl), George Robb and their young family .

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Living Room. Veronica Webb and family.

The Moorish aesthetic was adhered to with meticulous detail. The designer even had craftsmen and apprentices from Morocco flown in to work on site for a full year carving stone, setting tile, and seeing to every intricate detail. The domed ceiling in the Living Room above and the Dining Room ceiling below were both produced in Morocco. The cloud wall panels are mixed media work by Teresita Fernandez. Dream-like!

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Dining Room

Everywhere you look there is a kaleidoscope of color and pattern that somehow all works together in harmony. The inlaid chair patterns, the lattice screens, the patterned ceilings, the tiled floors are all so very beautiful.

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Pool

Is this just a little piece of heaven? This pool area is situated along a canal side of the house. Craig Reynolds used Buccaneer Palms and other salt tolerant native species to create this Shangrila.

I was coming back to this article again and again last week, and just by a blogosphere heavenly collective consciousness coincidence , I was contacted by the wonderful St. Tropez Boutique. For those of you who are not familiar, Saint Tropez Boutique is a designer, manufacturer, and the exclusive dealer in California of fine Moorish architecture elements and Moroccan arts & crafts. They carry beautiful tile, hand carved screens, lighting, furniture, Moroccan tents, and Mediterranean architectural antiques, just to start.

I was lucky to receive these images of Moroccan magic created using the beautiful offerings of St. Tropez Boutique:

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Lanterns, screens, mosaic tile and furniture all by St. Tropez Boutique in this soft grey and ivory living space.

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Hand Carved Lattice Screen inset into the wall makes for a beautiful room divider.

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I love this brass fireplace lattice screen. It is so unexpected and perfect in this contemporary setting.

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Two brass Egg Lamps on this coffee table add a sense of the exotic to this Living Room.

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This bedroom fit for an Arabian princess is graced with wall sconces and cool glazed floor tile by St. Tropez Boutique.

For the complete offerings of St. Tropez Boutique be sure to visit their website here!

AND..........

If you want to dream a little dream of Morocco, it always helps to visit Maryam at her beautiful blog My Marrakesh. She has a way of making you feel like you are right there beside her enjoying a cup of fresh mint tea and gazing at her Olive grove at her soon to be realized Peacock Pavilion Bed and Breakfast outside of Marrakesh. Be sure to visit!

valentine's day New Beginnings

I have not been able to post in the last few days. Maybe you have noticed. Maybe not. I have been thinking alot since I found out some news on Friday that one of my very valued co-workers is going to be leaving the company I work for. Fall is, for some, a time to make changes, to take on new challenges. It is a time many think of as a beginning, rather than a winding down. Maybe this feeling is due to the fact that we associate starting school in the Fall as a chance to start over, maybe show our class mates a new "self" we have improved over the summer.

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Our yard before

So, my friend leaving just happens to be at the same time my older daughter is returning to school. My daughter has all of a sudden become a young adult over the summer. It has been a learning experience for our whole family. But I am feeling it very acutely.

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Our yard with it's new beginning

I have always loved the Fall. It is my favorite season. Not only because it is beautiful here in Sacramento in the Fall with the leaves changing and the air getting that crisp freshness, but because it seems like a time for new things, for possibilities.

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Things are looking good

I am wishing my friend at work all good things in her future. I know she will be going places. She is so very talented and very sharp. I am sad to see her go. I will miss her for many reasons. She was always my sounding board for design and ideas. But I know this is good for her.

And for my daughter, I know this will be a year of challenges and opportunities. My hope is that she takes advantage of them with a cheerful and enthusiastic heart. It is all just beginning and I am so excited for her!

And as for me...well...we will see.

valentine's day Ode to Greek Architecture

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Satellite photo from NASA released August 26, 2007

I have been watching the news about the horrible fires in Greece lately, as I am sure many of you have. The site of the first Olympic Games was affected as have many other historical sites. So much of the world's architecture and design has been influenced by the architectural wonders of Greece. We take our world for granted all too easily, and it doesn't take much for it to disappear.

Here is a wonderful example of our fascination with Greek architecture and it's form and proportion. In honor of the country responsible for the birth of such great traditions:

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The Parthenon recreated in wood by Bunny Williams at her home in Connecticut. Columns were fashioned out of rough-hewn oak tree trunks with carved ionic capitals. The tympanum within the triangular pediment hold pine cones.

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A view to the pool. The limestone coping is from a stone cutter in the south of France.

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A view of the temple as it sits on a rise just on the edge of the forest.

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Casually elegant furnishings from William's and John Rosselli's garden furniture shopTreillage, NYC.

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Fireplace carved by the same French artisan as the pool coping.

Bunny Williams used the same precise ratios of height, width, and depth in planning her pavilion as the ancient Greeks. With her wit and eye for design, Bunny has recreated a classical Greek temple as a garden pavilion in a way that captures the spirit of Greek myths.

House and Garden, July 2003 , photos by Gregory Cerio