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Masterpiece London Art Fair Preview 2019 + Peter Fetterman Gallery

Shooting Stars

St Ermin's Hotel London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Such a conundrum. A clash of the titanic invites. House of Commons Summer Reception, St Ermin’s (not St Ernan’s) Hotel Afternoon Tea or Masterpiece Preview? We’ll go to all three, thank you. And so the afternoon seamlessly merges into the evening, swapping a marquee along the Thames for a roof terrace and later another marquee further upstream.

Royal Hospital Chelsea London Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

In the Houses of Parliament, The Right Honourable Kit Malthouse reminds us that we should be “building the Conservation Areas of the future”. He favours mansion blocks. Who doesn’t? St Ermin’s Hotel was once a mansion block. This year at Masterpiece it’s all about the people. Such constructs of beauty and art and beauty + art. One big photoshoot. And Perrier- Jouët with Lady Henrietta Rous.

Masterpiece Marquee 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Who better to share tips about photographs than Peter Fetterman of his eponymous gallery in Santa Monica? Prising ourselves away from Scott’s obligatory potted shrimps on Melba toast, we find Peter singing abridged Frank Sinatra into his mic, “And now… the time is come…” It’s the Saturday after the Private View and a sweltering 33 degrees in Chelsea. Speaking this time, revealing his English accent: “It’s a hot ticket! Thanks for braving the heat. This is my third year at Masterpiece. I come from a very humble background. I feel like the child who flew to the moon being at this very posh fair!”

Masterpiece Preview London 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

He explains, “I was a filmmaker and moved by accident to California. I planned to stay there two weeks. I went along to a dinner party and the host was selling photographs – I was obsessed with them. I’d literally $2,000 to my name. I bought the lot for $400. I became a collector. You can reinvent yourself easier in America than Europe. I just love photographs! I started trading out of a rent control apartment. I bought more photographs and travelled round in a Honda selling them. Business escalated until now here I am!”

Pugin Table Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Masterpiece London Party 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Mask Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Painting Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Masterpiece London 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Statue Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Water in Dripping by Zheng Lu Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Party Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Perrier Jouet Bar Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Perrier Jouet Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Perriet Jouet Reception Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Basha Masterpiece Preview 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Henrietta Rous Masterpiece Private View 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Henrietta Rous Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Henrietta Rous Masterpiece Preview 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Masterpiece Private View 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Mark Francis Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Mark Francis Made in Chelsea Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Mark Francis Masterpiece Private View 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Royal Hospital Chelsea Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Lloyd Webber and Lord Snowdon Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lord Snowdon Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lord Snowden and Lady Lloyd Webber Mastepiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Charles Plante Rory O'Donnell and Friends Masterpiece Private View 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Lavender Masterpiece 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Masterpiece Show 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

So what’s his take on collecting? “There are hundreds of years of painting. Photography is relatively new, only dating from 1839. I’ve seen its appreciation start from zero in the middle of the 1970s until now.” He points from the floor to the ceiling. “Collecting is all autobiographical. I grew up in an ugly gritty environment. But I knew there was another world, a beautiful one. Photographer and publisher Alfred Stieglitz was one of the first to promote photography as fine art. But it’s also a democratic medium, accessible to all. That’s what I love! There’s no one quite like Ansel Adams. His photography is in the Getty Museum but you can get a print for $1,200. Next door in Masterpiece you can only buy a Modigliani for £14 million.”

Masterpiece Party 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Peter notes great photographs are in demand so prices keep rising. Of course, there’s a price differential between a signed and an estate print. “There are two rules to collecting,” he argues. “Only buy what you love and from whom you trust. If you love it buy it.” Any regrets? “The only mistakes I’ve made is when I didn’t buy!”

Masterpiece Art 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The one person missing from this year’s Masterpiece is Min Hogg. She died peacefully in her Brompton Square flat two days before the Private View. Two of her closest chums were Lynn Barber, the journalist, and Madam Fitzgerald, the former châtelaine of Glin Castle in County Limerick. Olda Fitzgerald’s late husband was the Knight of Glin, a former President of the Irish Georgian Society. Min was a dedicated Irish Georgian.

Masterpiece Artists 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“I love seeing other people’s houses,” she confided. On a visit to a particularly perfect country house in Sussex she chided “it desperately needs a faded throw over the back of a sofa”. She was impressed by The House of Lavender’s Blue. “It’s very World of Interiors. I love the T + G panelling in the bathroom!” Her own flat on the nursery floor of a Georgian townhouse was effortlessly stylish in a completely non designed way. She did, after all, coin the phrase “shabby chic”. When we interviewed Min about her wallpaper range she ordered, “Please don’t ask me what is my favourite house. That’s such a lame question!” We didn’t. Thankfully Min enjoyed the end result, the published feature: “I’m as happy as a clam!”

Masterpiece Artist 2019 © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Masterpiece Preview 2019 + Lavender’s Blue

You Made Us Feel So Free

Title as quotation. Business (card) as usual. We’re on it like a Jane Austen bonnet. Walking down an emerald aisle. One hundred years of San Sebastián style.

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Art Luxury People

Royal Ascot Berkshire + Lavender’s Blue

Ride on Time

Guess where we’re off to?

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Architects Architecture Art Design People

Carlo Scarpa + Banca Popolare + Castelvecchio Museum Verona

Strings Attached

The paradox. His architecture is so legible yet he defies classification. His work is half a century old yet timeless. His influence is widespread although he wasn’t especially prolific. His oeuvre is so Italian but he still inspired a generation of Irish architects. His personal rhetoric has universal relevance. Born in 1906, Carlo Scarpa lived, studied and worked in and around Venice all his life. Two of his projects in Verona, though, demonstrate his true brilliance. One, an augmentation of a bank. The other, a reawakening of a castle museum. Both reveal his sensitivity towards materials and textures as well as his ability to create memorable forms and spaces. It’s time to place him in the pantheon.

Of Banca Popolare, Carlo’s 1970s block is contextual in massing if not design. Or at least not detail. He was clearly unafraid of decoration. At a 1973 lecture, Carlo argued, “Why gilding? Gilding is not done in order to waste or squander money. For that matter, we wear rings of gold, not iron. Gold shines also in the dark, even in pitch darkness, if there is the slightest ray of light… So you go for precious metal, for what is rightly called tinsel. But if the form is good, if the objective results are developed in such a way that there is nothing to object to critically, this works to the advantage of the end result.” The gilding on Banca Popolare is subtly applied to just the base and capitals of the clerestory columns.

Stepping back into Piazza Nogara, taking in the full breadth of the building, it becomes apparent that Carlo is really presenting a reinvention of the palazzo façade. Looking beyond the vitrine windows and Frank Lloyd Wright style oeils de boeuf, the elevational plane is classically divided into a base, middle and clerestory. The bold proportions and monumental scale may channel Charles Rennie Mackintosh but little wonder Anne Davey Orr, former Publisher and Editor of Ulster Architect, remarks, “I’m sure Carlo Scarpa was influenced by his 16th century Venetian predecessor Andrea Palladio.” Banca Popolare is both emphatic and empathetic. And more contextual than it would first seem.

One motif that Carlo made his own is what could be called a “strings course” – parallel stepped lines, when sectioned forming ziggurats. It pops up everywhere in a multiplicity of forms: coffer, cornice, cutaway, parapet, plinth, porch. At Banca, he employs the motif as a giant T shaped corbel, aesthetically, if not functionally, supporting the vitrine windows.

“Thus his first major project was the castle at Verona,” explains conservation architect John O’Connell who is busy working in Beijing, London, Paris and Ireland. “It was very badly bombed by the Allies! He applied his very severe and practical approach whereby ‘The past is the past and if it has disappeared can now be rebuilt’. All or most museums of the western world have been inspired by his work but in particular this project. Carlo was the master of the whole museum world post World War II. He’d a very rigorous approach towards presentation and conservation employing simple and very high quality interventions.” Carlo’s new building elements assimilated in the architecture of Castelvecchio may have mellowed with age, but they still represent a revolution in the perception and display of artworks. His use of polished concrete for interiors is a forerunner to the early 21st century popularity of this material.

King Vittorio Emanuele III opened the 14th century castle turned museum in 1926. But it wasn’t until half a century later that the building’s potential was truly realised. While other Modernists jettisoned the past, Carlo’s work from the postwar era to the late 1970s venerated and transformed it. And Castelvecchio was no exception. He maintained the structure’s original integrity whilst developing an unfolding sequence of spaces and voids and vistas and objects, ceaselessly theatrical, masterful, virtuosic, populated with asymmetric incident. There’s an endless play between past and present, architecture and art.

Historical and aesthetic clarity is achieved through the coexistence of overlaying fragments of construction, selective excavation and creative demolition. This approach reaches a climax in the setting of the statue of Cangrande I Delia Scala. Frank Lloyd Wright’s “destruction of the room as a box” is taken to its ultimate conclusion. Who else but Carlo Scarpa would envisage “construction of the void as a gallery”? Demolishing the end bay of the Napoleonic wing in the courtyard, he dissolves corners to position the statue on a cantilevered platform. This complex spatial organisation thrillingly delivers visibility above and below ramparts and across and around boardwalks. Such movement – there is nothing static about Cangrande on his horse. The outer Roman tiles on the roof above are pared back to expose an underlay of green copper. Implied delamination of existing solid form leads to a richly layered materiality throughout the building.

“Stones at the top of the building can continue upwards a little, and I would like them to vibrate in the light of the sky,” Carlo lectured. “Then the sky can enter in so many ways and I would almost obtain a ‘quivering of form’, like the Ancients. And so, with a sunset grey or red, whatever it will be, I will feel their light penetrating within. In this case, the reference is to Andrea Palladio who laid his stones at a distance of two and a half or three centimetres with gaps remaining. This is what I discovered one day and what caused me to explain, ‘Good Lord, how beautiful, how expressive it is, what meaning it gives!’” An exaggeration of this effect is the medieval butterfly parapet of Castelvecchio which carves the sunrise grey or blue over Verona.

John recalls, “He enjoyed a small but very high status practice and would have met all the ‘Stars’ from Le Corbusier to Louis Kahn.” Early on in his career John met Louis, describing him as charming, self effacing, very humble. “Carlo was Professor of Architecture in Venice. This role allowed him to think everything out first, to distil ideas through academia. There is a distinct geometry to his work. He was the successor to Josef Hoffmann.”

Pantheon placement continuing, “Carlo’s pupil Gae Aulenti was a superb architect. Her greatest work is the Quai D’Orsay in Paris. Some say she was appointed because her views on life were in line with the then President Mitterrand. It is excellent – well conceived and executed. The National Art Museum project in Barcelona is commanding but weak in parts. Not her fault as the building is a late 19th century bombastic structure and the collections are mixed or of varied quality! A must, and to be seen.”

“Back to Carlo Scarpa,” breathes John. “His most engaging and demanding project is the Memorial Chapel commissioned by the Brion family outside Venice near Verona.” It’s a commemoration of death in concrete and water. The curtain wall is pierced with two interlocking unglazed oeils de boeuf framing a view of the meditation pavilion: a metaphorical section of Andrea Palladio’s interlocking columns on the loggia of Andrea Palladio’s Palazzo Chiericatti in Vicenza where Carlo played as a child; an eternal love symbol; a cross eyed bull. “Also of great importance is his extension to the Canova Museum in the Veneto as well.”

How would John O’Connell sum up Carlo Scarpa? “He sought and I believe achieved a way of detailing and using modern materials so that they conveyed the value and spiritual quality one finds in Italy with the sense of craftmanship so vital and valued in the heroic architecture of Europe from Ancient Greek times to the pre industrial world.” International architect Alfred Cochrane, currently hot in demand from Beirut to Rome, is another admirer: “Carlo Scarpa! A genius! A god in the Seventies architecture firmament.” Pantheon placement complete.

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Art Country Houses

Giusti Gardens Verona + Summer

A Maze

“The Giusti Gardens are very simple and rather English!” exclaims architect John O’Connell. “So beautiful, not heroic, just green. They have lots of trees, paths and shade, and were much admired by Mozart and Goethe though not at the same time.” What did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have to say on Giusti Gardens in his Italian Journey? “… where huge cypresses soar into the air like awls. The yew trees, which are clipped to a point, are probably imitations of this magnificent product of nature… judging from the date when the garden was planted, these cypresses must already have reached such a great age.” Diana and Apollo | a grotto and a belvedere | a precipice and a pavilion | a labyrinth and a tower | lizards and lemons. Amazing.

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Architecture Art Luxury People

Verona + Charles Dickens

Greater Expectations

Some of the greatest novelists have also written books about their travels. George Orwell’s Down and Out in London and Paris is an easy read, although it might put you off a visit to the French capital, or at least its cafés at any rate. Pictures from Italy by Charles Dickens is another searingly honest experiential travelogue. His response is mixed but one place that gets his approval is Verona. Great!

“I had been half afraid to go to Verona, lest it should at all put me out of conceit with Romeo and Juliet. But, I was no sooner come into the old market-place, than the misgiving vanished. It is so fanciful, quaint, and picturesque a place, formed by such an extraordinary and rich variety of fantastic buildings, that there could be nothing better at the core of even this romantic town: scene of one of the most romantic and beautiful stories.”

“Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of today, the shade of 15 hundred years ago… With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful! Pleasant Verona!”

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Art People

Juliet’s Balcony Verona + One

Liberty Blue

It’s not a Juliet balcony but it is Juliet’s balcony.

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Art Luxury People

Eves + Mulberry

La Traviata

Eves Opera Singer © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Scandinavian sopranos can be so quintessentially English.

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Architecture Art People

Ranger’s House + Park Blackheath London

Sloane

Blackheath Houses © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pirouettes and marionettes and silhouettes. A silent metronome ticks to the galliards and sarabands of our lives. And so we arrive at a large villa or small mansion. Ranger’s House in, at, on, and opposite Blackheath. It was built around 1700 by Captain Francis Hosier, Vice Admiral of the Blue. Our destination, our desirous subject of the day, is a red brick two storey over raised basement block with later brown brick single storey over raised basement bow fronted wings. The southern wing is bowed at both extremities lending symmetry to the front elevation; the northern wing is missing a bow robbing the garden elevation of symmetry. 

The striking marrying of a house and a collection occurred at the beginning of the 21st century. Ranger’s House was missing artwork and furnishings. The Wernher Collection was homeless. English Heritage acted as matchmaker. The collection of Sir Julius Wernher once graced the interiors of Luton Hoo (his Bedfordshire country house) and Bath House (his London townhouse). The former is now a glitzy hotel; the latter, long demolished. Sir Julius (1850 to 1912) and his business partner Sir Alfred Beit (1853 to 1906) made their fortunes from gold and diamond mining in South Africa. The Beit Collection is housed in Sir Alfred’s former country house, Russborough in County Wicklow, and the National Gallery of Ireland.

Sir Julius’ will was the largest ever recorded at the time by the Inland Revenue. Sir Alfred was reckoned to be the richest man in the world of his time. The tycoons’ busts flank the entrance to the Geology Department of the Imperial College of Science and Technology in Kensington, founded in 1907 with a donation from Werner Beit + Co. There is another Irish connection. The late 5th Duchess of Abercorn, “Sasha” Alexandra Phillips, was the great granddaughter of Sir Julius Werner. Her sister Natalia is the Dowager Duchess of Westminster. Luton Hoo was sold in 1997 following the death of their brother Nicholas. Their mother Georgina Lady Kennard (née Wernher) was a close friend of the Queen.

Our tour of Ranger’s House with John O’Connell, who designed the interiors of the Wallace Collection, begins. “A portico can be expressed or suppressed, nothing else. The ultimate expression is a porte cochère. Here, it is suppressed as a temple front. We love the expressed aprons and rubbed brickwork!” Moving indoors, “The timber staircase would probably have been painted to resemble stone. Three balusters per thread is very noble. The panelled stairs below denote a basement of consequence.”

There are 700 items spread over two floors. “It is one of the best English Heritage collections with some knockout pieces,” John explains. “The Pink Drawing Room has most emphatic Inigo Jones Whitehall Palace style ceiling plasterwork. The interconnecting door to the Entrance Hall is missing its enrichments on top. The Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait, disposed to one side of a wall composition, should be moved and placed centrally. There would have been pier mirrors and tables between the three windows.”

The Grade I Conservation Practice Architect points to a desk: “This is a Jean-François Oeben wow piece! Mr Oeben was a great craftsman. He would have made the woodwork but the guild system wouldn’t have allowed him to make the metalwork. That would have been executed by another craftsman.” Pointing to an earlier more modest piece of furniture: “This work table illustrates the development of specific pieces of furniture for rooms, the search for comfort.”

“The Adriaen van Ostade is a typically allegorical 17th century Dutch painting. The gentleman playing cards suggests profligacy. The lady gazing out the window is showing disloyalty. And the 1617 Gabriël Metsu is wonderful, an absolute beauty, a very important painting. The broom is symbolic of spiritual cleansing. The lapdog represents loyalty.” Our tour continues through the reception rooms. “Such ravishing marble matching mantlepieces and hearthstones. That’s what you get at a certain moment,” admires John. Completing the tour upstairs: “The corridors remind us of Castle Howard.”

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Architecture Art Luxury People Restaurants Town Houses

Maison + Bistrot du Cygne Brussels

Off Our Trolley

On the gastronauts’ bridge of broad horizons, Brussels looms large, radiating racy and irresistible attraction. It ranks third – after Paris and London – in the Michelin Cities Guide. We’ve loved bistronomique at Scheltema and adored haute cuisine at Comme Chez Soi, so now we’re lusting after haute bistronomique in the thoroughly upholstered intensely mirrored supremely polished Maison du Cygne on Grand Place.

This 17th century former guildhall is gilded to the nines with golden capitals, corbels and a monogram of the architect Pierre Fariseau’s initials. A gold footed and beaked swan emerges from the fanlight over the entrance door. Stone guilt free angels guard the mansard cum bonnet cum domed roof.

The restaurant is a room of dreams: of shape, form, textures and tensions. Ebullience, rather than restraint, is its theme. This is not one restaurant: it is multiple dining rooms, moods, scenes and dramas. The result of multilayered endeavours. Maison du Cygne is a lesson in what Jacqueline Duncan, the Founder and Principal of Europe’s first interior design school, calls “the very grammar of the profession”. That is, the history of design, furniture and fittings.

And what of the Belgo French cuisine? Benjamin van Malleghem, the Majordome, recommends an off-menu seasonal Flemish starter: white asparagus with buttery scrambled egg. We get it. Continuing the high protein diet, we select a low cooked egg accompanied by chervil and sea shrimps main course. Crème brûlée with Madagascar vanilla is a flawless construct filled with passion – and calories. The food is as ripe and original as the revamped interiors.

Opening with O+C Club favourite St Véran Maison Joseph Drouhin 2017, upon Benjamin’s suggestion we move on to Domaine du Colombette 2016. “It’s by a small yet distinguished winemaker. This Chardonnay is rich and full bodied,” we’re advised. And as gold as the architectural trimmings on Maison du Cygne’s façade. “In the 1980s, Maison du Cygne had three Michelin stars. We have recently relaunched under new ownership. We want it to have a relaxing atmosphere – something a bit different,” says Benjamin, pointing to the leopard skin patterned chairs and contemporary French paintings.

Another O+C Club favourite is the puddings trolley, a sweet chariot of temptation. A faded photograph over the bar shows the restaurant in the 1980s. The trolley – still in use – takes pride of place against a recognisable powerfully carpeted forcefully panelled overwhelmingly lampshaded backdrop. Maison du Cygne: it’s an encore, not a swansong.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Hôtel + Café Métropole Brussels

Eclectic Dreams

It’s the café with a hotel attached. In 1890 the Weilemans-Ceuppens brewing brothers opened Café Métropole chiefly to sell their own branded beer. Such was their success they bought the bank next door and transformed it into a hotel. The five star Hôtel Métropole opened five years later. French architect Alban Chambon created Brussels’ grandest hotel. It’s all refreshingly non boutique: big, brash, bombastic. Art Nouveau meets Art Deco outside. Louis the Hooey on steroids inside. More stained glass than a cathedral. The long reception desk is a leftover from its banking days. A period open lift adds to the mood. Bell boy! All the greats have been here, done it, done it here: Sarah Bernhardt | Albert Einstein | Lavender’s Blue. It’s the last remaining 19th century hotel in Brussels.

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Architecture Art Developers Luxury Town Houses

Gustave Strauven + Palmerston Square + Marie-Louise Square + Ambiorix Square Brussels

Art for Art Nouveau’s Sake 

Just as Josep Puig i Cadafalch is overshadowed by Gaudí, so Victor Horta steals the limelight from Gustave Strauven. Monsieur Strauven was a protégé of Monsieur Horta. His pièce de résistance is a sliver of a building on Ambiorix Square, Brussels’ finest address. He designed and built this house, as slim as a Parisian Métro station beacon, for the painter George Saint-Cyr between 1901 and 1903. It’s a slender symphony of sinuous wrought iron lines dancing across a stone façade, a single bay four metre wide work of art, a magnificent manifesto to all things Art Nouveau. Above a lower ground floor truncated Sunset Boulevardesque staircase, projecting and inset balconies weave and wander up the building, feathery columns as thin as bedposts propping up a first floor viewing gallery; then more twists and turns until finally reaching a crescendo – ta da! – a top floor circular loggia. In front of the house, the greenery of Ambiorix Square slopes down to the greenery and water of Palmerston Square which in turn falls towards the water of Marie-Louise Square. In the distance lies the city of diplomats.

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Art Design Luxury People

Galignani Bookshop + Rue de Rivoli Paris

There Will be a Moon in Paris Tonight

Cultured Parisiennes like Maud Rabin always comment how Paris is constantly under construction; the city as cathedral. Perhaps that’s how it can lean towards an old architecture yet expressing l’esprit nouveau. Chaneling Channelling our inner Inès (de La Fressange), chic to chic, air kissing and French embracing, we stride along Boulevard Haussmann to a Gershwinesque cacophony of taxi horns. Tout-Paris, tout suite! Palais Garnier is on our right. “It’s full of ghosts!” whispers Maud. “Paris has two opera houses. The other opera house, Bastille, was built in 1989. Très moderne!” Paying homage to the late great Karl Lagerfeld, we head for his favourite bookshop, Galignani. Danielle Cillien Sabatier, Directrice Générale, will later say, “Thank you so much for this really nice publication.”

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Architecture Art Fashion People

Kenwood House Hampstead London +

Creative Cargo Under Embargo

We’re under contract so for once our lips are sealed. Sound. Film rolling. Let’s just say it was a good day for the cut. The Macaronis are coming to town. This summer. Leading our best lives, being our most amazing selves. We’re feeling like Carping the Diem. In the meantime, here are some handsome houses (and an inn missing an apostrophe) to drool over…

Hampstead London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Hampstead Lane London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Kenwood House Hampstead London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Kenwood House Hampstead London Watercolour by Edward Bulmer © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Kenwood House Hampstead London Shoot © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Fashion Luxury Restaurants

Rosewood Hotel London + Retro Art Afternoon Tea

Up On Reflection

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Courtyard © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

We’re leisurely making our way round the courtyard of Rosewood Hotel in Holborn, a mere canapé’s throw from Sir John Soane Museum. Our first visit was for dinner in Holborn Dining Room. Second visit, Champagne in Scarfes Bar. Our third visit is for afternoon tea in Mirror Room. These are the last photos you’ll ever see of the Retro Art Afternoon Tea. Fortunately, Rosewood London hasn’t gone the way of Bonhams or Typing Room Restaurants – history. Instead, this fifth edition afternoon tea is being superseded by the Van Gogh Afternoon Tea to coincide with an exhibition in Tate Britain.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Hallway © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Retro Art Afternoon Tea is just what the doctor ordered after our inaugural Irish Georgian Society London St Patrick’s Party lecture A Very Grand Tour held at The Medical Society of London, off Harley Street. The lecture might have stretched to 100 slides on 16 buildings in 40 minutes but prepping over dinner in Indian Accent, Albemarle Street’s part subterranean wholly Subcontinental haute cuisine restaurant, eased the intellectual burden. Even an eight hour Very Grand Detour lunch the day before in Hix Soho didn’t detract from a performance as polished as our reflections in Rosewood’s Mirror Room.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Bathroom © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Flower Arrangement © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Sandwiches © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Sweets © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An enigmatic vitrine, shortly to become an evolving diorama of dainty delights, is placed on our table. Pescatarian savouries upfront include salmon vol au vents with cream cheese and keta caviar, egg and watercress sandwiches, and the cucumber and cheese variety. In true Duchess of Bedford tradition, plain and raisin scones follow, accompanied by Corniche Cornish cream, lemon curd, and strawberry and elderflower jam. Queen Victoria Darjeeling blend is a 19th century interrupter. That’s before the afternoon tea leaps another century forwards, starting with retro sweets of Ferrero Rocher | Jaffa Cake | lemon flying saucer | rhubarb and custard. Finally, the vitrine is filled with a very 20th century interruption, a diorama of edible vintage sculptures.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Malika Favre Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

  • Malika Favre inspired pastry: lime and pineapple mousse, raspberry crémeux and sponge, raspberry glaze and chocolate. Malika is a French illustrator and graphic artist based in London. Her bold minimalist style bridges the gap between Pop Art and Op Art.
  • Andy Warhol inspired pastry: Morello cherry jelly, chocolate mousse, vanilla brûlée, flourless chocolate sponge, cherry ganache. Campbell’s Soup is one of Andy Warhol’s most celebrated works of art. Produced in 1962, it’s composed of 32 canvases each representing a can of Campbell’s Soup.
  • Retro Wall Art inspired pastry: vanilla tart case, almond crunchy praline, salted caramel mousse, chocolate crémeux, caramel glaze, chocolate popping candy. Wall Art took on a new meaning in Seventies and Eighties, embracing geometrics and flowers in bright colours.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Andy Warhol Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“As a Pastry Chef, I’m always curious and draw inspiration from things that surround me. London is a vibrant city with an incredibly energetic art scene. Rosewood London’s quirky interiors reflect the British capital’s history, culture and sensibilities,” explains Executive Pastry Chef Mark Perkins. “The interiors feature works of some of the world’s most renowned artists, with contemporary pieces complemented by more traditional art. My latest creations are inspired by retro art from the Sixties to the Eighties.” Next time, we’ll complete our Rosewood London courtyard journey with a leisurely visit to Sense Spa.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Wall Inspired Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Developers People Restaurants

Pitzhanger Manor Ealing London + Anish Kapoor

Master of Mirrors, Master of Light

Pitzhanger Manor Party Relaunch © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s the GSM rule. The thicker the invitation card, the better the party. The relaunch of Pitzhanger Manor proved the point. Sir John Soane’s former country house – post a £12 million facelift (or rather major surgical enhancement by Jestico + Whiles working with Julian Harrap Architects) – on a stormy night was filled with lights and flowers and music and guests.

Pitzhanger Manor Party Column © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“Lord Lieutenant, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,” began Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Chair of The Trustees. “The house was built 220 years ago. The library, 80 years ago. The garden room, three years ago.” He spoke in the garden room now rebranded Soane’s Kitchen. You guessed, it’s a café by day, venue by night. Designed by Jestico + Whiles, Soane’s Kitchen is an elegantly understated pavilion set in the walled garden.

Pitzhanger Manor Party Eagle © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Lantern © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Ealing © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Light © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Chinese Wallpaper © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Chinoiserie Wallpaper © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pitzhanger Manor Party Piers Gough © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Sir Sherard continued, “Every house is unique. There are degrees of uniqueness. Artfully antinomian eclecticism? That’s Pitzhanger. Not for Soane the menu de siècle. He dined à la carte. Pitzhanger is a cocktail of Georgian and gothic eccentricity. Austere and extravagant.” He praised the artist who hand painted the spectacular upper drawing room wallpaper: “Alistair Peoples, champion of Chinoiserie wallpaper!”

Pitzhanger Manor Party Anish Kapoor © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The inaugural exhibition in the library turned art gallery is by Anish Kapoor. Sir Sherard acknowledged, “Anish Kapoor sets a very high standard of excitement and artistic imagination.” The former Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan ended by saying, “Pitzhanger is at the intersection of art and architecture and design. It is Soane’s enduring legacy. Two centuries on, he stands so tall. Pitzhanger – the jewel in the crown of the rapidly reviving Queen of the Suburbs! A wonderfully uplifting zig in a world too full of zags.”

Pitzhanger Manor Party Anish Kapoor Exhibition © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Anish spoke on the “amber melancholic Turneresque light” of Pitzhanger’s stained glass windows. “It’s like a fading yellow page of ethereal importance,” he observed. “I tried to play with it too. I do what I do. Let the conversation happen if it must.” The night ended well: a goody bag of colourful macaroons courtesy of Coutts.

Pitzhanger Manor Party Anish Kapoor Art © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Categories
Architecture Art

St Ferréol Church + Old Port Marseille

A Reverse Chronology

St Ferreol Church Marseille © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Marseille is over in a flash: fleeting days in the sun, days a mere handbreadth, mere phantoms in the sun. To paraphrase Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, we’ve zigged our way through the zaggers. Our last place of discovery is an historic building in Vieux Port. We’re taking a moment to rewind the years and decades and centuries.

St Ferreol Church Marseille Facade © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St Ferreol Church Marseille Chapel © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St Ferreol Church Marseille Altar © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

St Ferreol Church Marseille Bust © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

  • 2019: Lavender’s Blue descend on St Ferréol Church.
  • 1979: A statue of the Holy Family by Yves Le Pape is added to the third chapel on the right.
  • 1875: The façade is rebuilt, incorporating a statue of the Immaculate Conception, as part of the construction of the Rue de la République.
  • 1844: Augustin Zeiger builds and installs the gothic style organ.
  • 1801: The façade and first bay of the church are demolished to make way for road widening.
  • 1800s: The Jesuits take over the running of the church.
  • 1700s: The multicoloured marble altar is installed.
  • 1700s: The bell tower is erected.
  • 1600: A bust of the Patron Saint is placed in the third chapel on the left.
  • 1588: The vault is completed.
  • 1564: The tomb of the Mazenod family is established in the third chapel on the left.
  • 1542: The Augustinian church is dedicated on 15 January.
  • 1379: The building is transferred to Augustinian monks.
  • 1100s: Knights Templar erect a building on the current site.
  • 200s: St Ferréol is martyred for refusing to offer a sacrifice to idols

St Ferreol Church Marseille Plaque © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

 

Categories
Architecture Art Town Houses

Marseille + Marilynne Robinson

A Seraphic Calling 

“We know only what we know, only in the ways that we know it or can know it.” MR. On a morning of utter unimpeachable freshness, it’s time to enjoy a latitudinal view of experience. No curtailment of grace, or majesty, thank you. Efficacious, beautiful, vital, satisfying, glorious. “We wander the terrain of a very remarkable freedom.” You guessed. MR again.

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Architecture Art Design Fashion Hotels Luxury Restaurants

Sofitel Vieux Port Hotel Marseille + Paul Cézanne

Unstill Life

“Well, life is full of surprises,” proclaims essayist and novelist Marilynne Robinson in her 2018 collection of essays What Are We Doing Here? Couldn’t agree more. We’ve just woken up in Marseille. South of France. A night in Provence. There’s more. Breakfast in bed in the Mediterranean city’s best address. Perfection. Nowhere better to enjoy the experiential rhapsodies of reality. So far, so great, Sofitel Vieux Port. The Paul Cézanne inspired five star retreat. Marilynne believes, “Beauty is a strategy of emphasis.” Sofitel mirrors the artist’s strengths, offering a fine balancing between tradition and innovation, suffused with light and imbued with beauty; a distinctive manner of looking, a novel system of application. Pétanque, anyone?

Protestant work ethic gone astray, it’s over to Wallpaper* to extol the delights of Sofitel’s Les Trois Forts restaurant: “The restaurant at the top of the Sofitel Vieux Port doesn’t just have one of the best views in the city – taking in, you guessed it, three forts – it also has one of the greatest chefs in France running the kitchen. Dominique Frerard is a painstaking, ultra meticulous, details guy of the first order and highlight decorated for it.” Meanwhile, Sofitel’s famous feather down pillows (intrinsic to the temporal, a present pleasure) form the perfect companions to considering the mysteries of consciousness. The view’s pretty dreamy, too.

Categories
Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Town Houses

Casa Amatller Barcelona + Josep Puig i Cadafalch

Sweet Dreams are Made of This

To describe Modernisme as Catalan Art Nouveau underrates its roots but it’s a fair starting point. The style originated in the 1870s when Barcelona was enjoying industrial prosperity and expanding beyond its medieval walls. This expansion, named Eixample, became the home of Modernisme. The relaxation of town planning and the influx of wealth combined with a resurgence of Catalan identity created the perfect climate for new commissions and in turn a new style. Modernisme is a manifestation of Catalan character in stone. And brick. And trencadís (broken ceramic tiles). In homage to the region’s history, Gothic, Moorish and medieval styles were fused with naturalistic motifs of Art Nouveau. Catalan architects superimposed their local customs and beliefs on traditional architecture and made it something new. The epoch ended in 1911.

Who better than Colm Tóibín to capture the spirit of the moment, “The style is known as Modernisme, and it was taken up by Catalan architects at the end of the 19th century as a national style from a number of sources, Art Nouveau and William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement being among them. In 1903, just two years before the Palau de Música was begun, the leading Barcelona architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch wrote, ‘the most important thing we have done is that we have made a modern art, taking our traditional arts as a basis, adorning it with new material, solving contemporary problems with a national spirit.’”

Casa Amatller is a prime example of Eixample Modernisme. Its crazy ziggurat gable and spiky dingdong parapet sew a rich Dutch pattern into the fabric. The fabric of the rich, stitch upon stitch. Casa Amatller is one of three attached mansions, each a wildly varying rebuilding of an existing structure, together known as “Mansana de la Discòrdia” or “block of discord”. Chocolatier Antoni Amattler Costa commissioned Josep Puig i Cadafalch to go for it. Big time. An oriel as big as a planet. It was one of the first houses in Barcelona to have electricity, no less. Modern without the isme too. All that, he did with great aplomb. Almost 120 years after completion, Casa Amattler still has the wow factor. Madness or genius? Chisel or pencil? Fantasy or reality?

Apropos to the source of the dosh, Casa Amatller could easily be a stage set for Hansel + Gretel on speed. Maybe a bit of Rapunzel on acid thrown in for good measure too? Josep’s heroic adeptness at ecstatic playfulness is a trait Postmodernists would strive to emulate but rarely achieve a century later. Colm observes his eclecticism: “His style moved from the strident neo Gothic to the more gentle Germanic.” Peter Thornton, writing about Paris in Authentic Décor The Domestic Interior 1620 to 1920: “Most Art Nouveau was a good deal more sober than is generally supposed.” The same could not be written about its Catalan counterpart. No way, José.

Speaking at the European Commission in Smith Square, London, architectural historian Andrew Saint remarked, “Art Nouveau is really missing in the English context.” He cited Charles Harrison Townsend’s Horniman Museum in London as a rare example. “You can see Art Nouveau as a coalescence of vernacular traditions with an interest in urban politics. The poor old Glasgow School of Art shows that Scottish nationalism was an important force. But that energetic Pan Slavic or Catalan movement is missing in Britain.” There is no British equivalent of Casa Amatller.

Categories
Architecture Art People

St Josep Oriol Church + Diputació Barcelona

Sects and The City

St Josep Oriol was a late 17th century Catalan priest canonised by Pope Pius X in 1909. Construction of the church named after him began two years after his canonisation. Enric Sagnier, a prolific local architect, came up with a neo Renaissance style.

St Josep Oriol is a precious survival. George Orwell laments in Homage to Catalonia, 1938, “almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen.”

Categories
Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Portonovi + Boka Bay Montenegro

Portonovi + Boka Bay Montenegro

“Just as if I have returned to town from the most beautiful fairytale of my childhood.” Sophia Loren

The great Italian actress is a fan. Roughly the size of Northern Ireland but with less than a third its population, Montenegro is experiencing a long overdue tourism renaissance. This small country clinging to the edge of the Adriatic Sea in southeast Europe is set to enhance its luxury offer. Its tourism may date back to the 14th century when Sjora Roza boasted a tavern and café but it wasn’t until Montenegro regained independence in 2006 that it started securing travel destination status. Like Northern Ireland, you can only travel about 150 kilometres or so before driving into the sea or crossing a border. Unlike Northern Ireland, it averages 250 sunny days a year.

Where nature ends (five National Parks), architecture begins (three cultural Unesco World Heritage Sites). Durmitor National Park alone has 82 kilometres of canyon, 23 peaks over 2,300 metres, 18 glacial lakes and is home to 163 bird types and 1,500 flora species. It may have beaches stretching for nearly 300 kilometres, but Montenegro takes its name from the Italian for “Black Mountain”. Swim in the morning; ski in the afternoon.

Herceg Novi on Boka Bay is known as “The City of the Sun” and “The City of 100,000 Steps”. It’s both. Although “City” is pushing it for somewhere with 30,000 residents, the same population as Ballymena in Northern Ireland. The Nobel Prize Poet Laureate Ivo Andrić went further, describing it as a place of “eternal greenery, sun and promenades”. The setting is impossibly romantic: mimosa cloaked historic buildings cluster at the foot of Mount Orjen where it meets the coast. The walled Old Town, or Stari Grad, is an eclectic mix of architecture. Not surprising, considering Montenegro has belonged to six Empires – Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Venetian, Napoleonic and Austrian – followed by a stint in Yugoslavia before becoming the People’s Republic.

Now, Herceg Novi is set to expand. “Montenegro essence” is the strapline for the new waterside development Portonovi. It aims to capture on 26 hectares all that is great about the country. A destination within a destination. A microcosm of Montenegrin discernment. The site was a military base – 90 buildings from the 20th century were demolished. One very precious building was saved: a 16th chapel with rare 18th century frescoes. It is being carefully restored and returned to its original use. The Government is retaining the freehold of the whole site but went out to international tender for its redevelopment. Ahmet Erentok, Chairman of Azerbaijani company Azmont, who won the contract explains, “Portonovi is our largest investment outside the Azerbaijan.” It will total almost €1 billion (€960 million to be exact) when complete.

General Manager Stevan Milic relates, “Portonovi has two kilometres of coastline and a 238 berth marina. There will be 8,500 square metres retail space and a further 7,500 square metres of multifunctional floorspace. Amenities will include high fashion shops, jewellers, galleries, a gym, health club and Espace Chenot Spa. The first phase opening shortly will deliver 214 homes including 50 rental properties.” The average home is €1.6 million for 157 square metres of accommodation. Prices range from €600,000 for a one bed to €11 million for a six bed villa. The first One + Only Hotel in Europe with 10 branded villas will open next year. Its standard room will be 65 square metres. “Europe’s largest smallest room!” smiles Ahmet. The hotel will include two restaurants: Locatelli Italian and Tapa Saki Japanese. A sandy beach, tennis courts, water features and gardens will bind the built and natural environments together.

“Portonovi is typical Mediterranean style with lots of stone, timber pergolas and vivid colours,” Stevan points out. “It looks like it’s been here for ages! Other designs are completely different with lots of glass. But there’s a nice unity. Each group of homes has a pool and all the penthouses have their own rooftop infinity pools. The buildings only go up to a maximum five storeys and the slope of the site allows most properties to have sea views. Portonovi is a very high end resort of the type you can find in France or Italy.” Its Italian contractor and developer, Pizzarotti, are renowned for top end schemes in Monaco and New York. British architects Harper Downie add to the international talent collaboration. The cross border marina and helipad include passport control, customs and police. Tivat airport is just 15 minutes travel by boat. A VIP helicopter summer service from Dubrovnik adds to the luxury transport options.

Serpentine corniches snake round the coastline of Boka Bay. Verige 65 is an arrow shaped restaurant and bar built on a former parking lot at the bay’s narrowest point, 13 kilometres from Portonovi. The views are spectacular and constantly changing with the weather – Montenegro lives up to its “wild beauty” tagline – as the clouds and mountains merge and disentangle at a moment’s glance. Local tour guide Liset Kuhar calls the tiny islands in the middle of the bay in front of Verige 65 “our two little pearls”. She notes, “Our Lady of the Rocks was manmade in the 1400s. St George is a natural island with a Benedictine monastery dating from the 1100s.” Chardonnay served comes from Savina winery in nearby Herceg Novi.

Perast and Kotor are two Unesco World Heritage Sites close to Portonovi. Liset refers to Perast as “a little piece of Venice”. Bujović Palace is one of its many architectural gems. Designed by Venetian Giovanni Battista Fontana in 1694 for Vicko Bujović, Commander of the Town Fleet, the palace is what American philosopher Marilynne Robinson would call “an exploration of a glorious mind” set in stone. Liset continues, “Perast is a gorgeous baroque town built by seafaring noble families. Kotor is like Perast with stone walls and terracotta roofs. The town walls of Kotor date back to the ninth century.”

Over dinner in Porto, a traditional restaurant in the Montenegrin capital Podgorica, the Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism Pavle Radulović acknowledges Montenegro isn’t very well known yet. “It’s a challenge; it’s an advantage. We’re trying to spread the tourist season which at present is concentrated from April to September. We’re diversifying the offer. We want the upper class of clientele to come to the Bay of Kotor. In Boka Bay in particular, we’re encouraging high end luxury tourism. We know how to cater for the needs of high net worth individuals. We’re not targeting the mass market in Boka Bay. We’ve different plans for other places. For example, we’re promoting Budva as a party town. DJ David Guetta played there recently. We want to elevate all levels of tourism.”

Pavle is in charge of the largest Government department which covers climate change, spatial planning and the environment in general. Ecology is written into its constitution. His broad remit of sustainable development and tourism is key to increasing national prosperity while keeping the country unspoiled. “We’ve opened over 50 hotels in the last two years,” he adds. “Tourism has grown to two million visitors in 2018 bringing €1 billion to the economy. But we’re very careful with growing our offer. We’re building a product. This is the place to visit; this is the place to live. We have the second deepest canyon in the world and one of the biggest natural reservoirs in Europe.”

Ahmet believes real luxury is “when you feel really comfortable, where you can be yourself in your own zone. Portonovi is a place to escape, to call up your friends and hang out for two or three days or longer. We could’ve invested anywhere but we chose Montenegro for the beauty of the country. The people are very hospitable, very committed, very friendly. Most importantly, I want Portonovi to be the number one project, the best place in Herceg Novi, the best place in Montenegro!” It’s difficult not to wax lyrical about Montenegro in winter, from the glimmering amber sun fading behind the onyx shaded clouds to the emerald green hills dotted with lemon quartz mimosa trees and alabaster alpine resorts reaching down to the golden speckled strands and clear sapphire waters. This country really is a jewel in the crown of the Adriatic Coast. As Marilynne Robinson would say, Montenegro exudes “a ravishing sense of the divine beauty manifest in Creation”. The great English poet was a fan.

“At the birth of our planet, the most beautiful encounter between the land and the sea must have happened at the coast of Montenegro.” Lord Byron

Categories
Art

National Museum of Serbia + Miroslav’s Gospel

Pantheon of Pedigree | Lollardy

Serbian National Costume © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Flying into Belgrade on Serbian Airlines in the dead of night, the city appears in monochrome, a patchwork of bright quilted snow and dark velvety buildings and forestry. A special opening of the National Museum awaits. Founded in 1844, the museum started out as a preservation and research institution, helping define national identity. An emphasis on collecting would follow. The National Museum grew into a defining symbol of Serbian culture and society.

One of its greatest treasures is Miroslav’s Gospel. This is the oldest and rarest surviving illuminated parchment manuscript in Serbian Cyrillic. The Gospel was commissioned in the 1280s by Miroslav of Hum, a nobleman and brother of Stefan Nemanja, Grand Prince of Rascia. It is a compilation of handwritten texts for church readings throughout the year. The manuscript has 362 pages and contains 296 coloured ink illustrations. It was presented to King Alexander I of Serbia when he visited Hilandar Monastery in 1896. During the World Wars, Miroslav’s Gospel was hidden in bank vaults before being granted a forever home in the National Museum of Serbia.

The National Museum of Serbia © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Categories
Art People

King Nikola I Park + Azerbaijani Embassy Podgorica Montenegro

History and Harmony

King Nikola I Park Podgorica Montenegro © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Adrijana Husić, Marketing Manager of Portonovi (a luxury resort in Herceg Novi), is a Podgorica resident. She explains, “King Nikola I Park is off Freedom Street. The land was gifted by the Azerbaijani Embassy at the beginning of the 20th century. Nikola was the last royal ruler of Montenegro. His initials in Montenegrin are on the park railings.” Upon independence in 2006, Montenegrin was proclaimed the national language. There were 30 letters in the alphabet but very excitingly a couple of years later two more letters were added. “Albanian surnames end with ‘ch’,” confirms Adrijana, “while Montenegrin surnames end with ‘ić’.”

King Nikola I Park Statue Podgorica Montenegro © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

King Nikola I Park Bust Podgorica Montenegro © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Categories
Art

Lavender’s Blue + Boka Bay Montenegro

The Universe’s Valhalla

Bay of Kotor Montenegro © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Tomorrow, Vienna.

Categories
Art Design Luxury

The House of Lavender’s Blue + Attitude

The Final Show

Our magnus opus. Crescendo. An operatic high. We’ve got attitude and Attitude have got us. In a world exclusive, Lavender’s Blue the interiors (and a flash of beyond – how’s the garden?) are revealed in all their splendour in Europe’s whirl of interiors magazine, Attitude Interior Design. The Porto based publication was the perfect platform for launching our mission accomplished, a rocketing decade of shopping decorating. Closer to home, a national newspaper was keen to capture the images: The Irish Times. And the most read homes magazine on that sage and shamrock island, Ireland’s Homes Interiors + Living, celebrated Lavender’s Blue in style with a lavish spread. Phew. It’s a (very well rounded) wrap. Our writing may veer towards minimalism, occasionally. Our interiors do not. They feature some rather demanding garniture. Grab your monocle as we live up to our wallpaper. So what do the great, the good and the truly marvellous have to say?

lavender's blue courtyard zelda © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Alfred Cochrane, Artist + Architect: “Amazingly atmospheric as always. You have stood your ground and there is now a vogue again for retro country house nostalgia with a dash of Tolstoy or Turgenev where Daddy Vladimir would gladly go topless. Keep looking towards the East.”

lavender's blue courtyard © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Annabel P, Muse + Amanuensis, “Darlings, so many parties, so little time. What interiors?”

lavender's blue courtyard plaque © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Anne Davey Orr, Artist + Publisher: “I have been witness to a number of interiors which you have designed in the past.  However, none of them expressed this eclectic taste, this creative marrying of objects or these transformational powers so successfully as Lavender’s Blue itself does. In a kind of way it is a pied á terre of curiosities in which the curiosities, including you, spin off and enhance one another.”

lavender's blue courtyard sculpture © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Annabella Forbes, Actor, Art Director, Copywriter, Designer, Film Director, Ideator, Naming Consultant, Presenter, Product Innovator, Script Writer + Strategist: “It’s AMAZING! It’s fab, fab, fab!”

lavender's blue courtyard morning coffee © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Caroline Clifton Mogg, Writer: “London is a city of secret gardens, a place where plain faced streets give little away of what lies there, and where few individual facades give any clues as to the streets behind their all-embracing walls. Protected and hidden by their house the best gardens are a fusion of inside and outside… Whatever secret a garden may reveal, it will always surprise and delight those who discover it for the first time.”

lavender's blue courtyard tailor's dummy © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Dr Charlotte Blease, Cognitive Scientist + Philosopher of Medicine: “It is uncanny. You are the inheritor of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s style. I’m calling it EE – Eccentric Eclecticism.” Louise Hall Tharp, Isabella Stewart Gardner Biographer: “Mrs Gardner bought her Rembrandt with the intent of developing a real museum collection… The rooms are notable for their calculated intimacy and informality – their almost bric-a-brac juxtapositions of paintings, sculptures, drawings, pastels, letters, manuscripts, ceramics, decorative objects, and artefacts. She imitates nobody; everything she does is novel and original.”

lavender's blue courtyard ivy © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Inês Graça, Attitude Interior Design Interiors Editor: “What does one see upon entering this inner world? Broad temporal and spatial references and the thoughtful organisation of a passionate collection. Those of culture are present because of the elegance and knowledge that makes itself apparent. Singularity and extravagance define Lavender’s Blue: a hidden refuge inspired by Irish country houses named after 18th century lavender fields. A little piece of secret London that invites guests to be part of an immersive and unique experience. Fue maravilloso.”

lavender's blue courtyard statue © lavender's blue stuart blakley

John Curran, UK’s First Shigeru Ban Client: “I knew it would be interesting, but had no idea that it would be among the most engaging private interiors I have seen photographed. We pride ourselves as collectors of things we love, but you put us to shame. Having discussed John Soane at our coffee, I will somewhat shyly draw the comparison with the museum, knowing that I am not the first to do so. I have great appreciation for objects that attract the owner and that give a window into the person. Your home very much does that.”

lavender's blue outer hall © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Karla W, Heiress, “Lavender’s Blue is my absolute favourite; you have recreated a 1920s Parisian salon in present day London. The photographs are ravishing but you can only truly appreciate it in the flesh, especially by night. All the rooms are terribly, terribly smart in every sense. Every time I’m at yours I become obsessed with some fascinating detail I never noticed before. Lavender’s Blue is a rare evolutionary wonder. You’re like the sun, always coming up shining. How’s Zelda?”

lavender's blue outer hall view © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Mary Martin, Fashion Designer: “LOVE it! You’re a genius! You should do interior design! It’s exactly the taste I have! Your rooms remind me of the inside of Cardiff Castle which I used to visit as a child.”

lavender's blue drawing room view © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Mary Weaver, Houses Editor Living Etc, “Your home is so charming and original.”

lavender's blue drawing room © lavender's blue stuart blakley

lavender's blue drawing room piano © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Maud Rabin, Parisian Translator, “Your home is so stylish! Très très chic!”

lavender's blue drawing room window © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Michael S Howard, Managing Director Rasa Hospitality, “Your home is AMAZING! How fabulous is that?”

lavender's blue drawing room table © lavender's blue stuart blakley

PJ Gibbons, Editor Social + Personal, “Your house looks beautiful.”

lavender's blue drawing room urn © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Régis Camus, World’s Top Chef de Cave, “C’est magnifique!”

lavender's blue drawing room clerestory © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Dame Rosalind Savill OBE, Former Director The Wallace Collection + Sèvres World Expert, “I just LOVE it! It’s so smart. It’s so exquisite.”

lavender's blue drawing room watch © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Sandra Jonas, Former Model + Landscape Designer Georgia: “You are gorgeous!!! Zelda is so beautiful.”

lavender's blue inner hall © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Samantha Laurie, Editor Wandsworth Magazine, “What a beautiful home you have created! Are you an interior designer?”

lavender's blue inner hall cabinet © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Sheila Molloy, Châtelaine Gaultier Lodge + Castle ffrench, “Your place looks fantastic, full of the things I love. Is the cat alive or dead? My kitchen in Gaultier when it was upstairs was painted a very similar colour blue called Lobaelia pre Farrow and Balls days, Dulux I think. I saw it in the kitchen at Emo Court when Cholmeley Harrison had it about 1978!!!”

lavender's blue bathroom © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Sara Larkham, Editor Ireland’s Homes Interiors + Living: “Your home is spectacular! It’s stunningly unique and transports guests back in time… a truly unique home in London filled with character and charm.”

lavender's blue kitchen © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Simon O’Hara, Châtelain Coopershill House, “Very interesting interiors.”

lavender's blue kitchen china © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Tamar Madmoni Reich, New York Philanthropist + Holistic Health Coach, “Your home is beautiful!”

lavender's blue kitchen sink © lavender's blue stuart blakley

William Thuiller, Art Dealer + Collector: “It’s quite lovely. I love the layered textures, colours, patterns and atmosphere… sort of Leighton House meets Soane Museum, if that’s not patronising! It’s completely alien to my usual taste, in that I would never have bought any individual item, but it works superbly as an ensemble against that rich blue on the walls.”

lavender's blue master bedroom © lavender's blue stuart blakley

Categories
Architecture Art Luxury Restaurants

Belvedere Restaurant Holland Park + Holland House London

Sequentia

The told untold. Belvedere was once the Summer Ballroom of Holland House. Jacobethan and all that. Yeah yeah all very interesting but where’s the St Véran (O+C Club favourite)? Sorted. This restaurant is housed in a gorgeous fragment of a great house, a remnant of glory rebuilt, a figment of imagination realised. Halcyon days | salad days | Holland days. Saucy. And that’s before the Marie Rose with prawn cocktail and caviar arrives. Lavender’s Blue intern Annabel P is here and on form. And she’s got form.

Main course is fillet of sea bass, Jerusalem artichokes and mushroom dipped in balsamic jus. A winning formula. But hey we’re distracted by the fenestration. It’s a very glassy affair. Jigsaw panes of intersecting hexagons and rectangles reflect the timber herringbone floor. We’re transfixed. And that’s before we realise this place is really an art gallery masquerading as a restaurant. Mulled wine jelly with vanilla crème fraîche distracts our minds for a cold minute. Wait! What do Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol have in common? You guessed it! Belvedere.

The formidable Karla W rocks up working it and then some: black trilby, black jacket, black polo, black shades, black stilettos. Black is the new black. Some days, formal lunch blurs into informal dinner into the velvety night into the evanescent. Days like this. The Summer Ballroom has renewed midwinter purpose. It’s got form. The untold unfolded.

Categories
Art Design Luxury

Mellerio Paris Platinum Handbag + Fingernails

Les Nouveaux Jeunes

Sometimes you just gotta have matching fingernails and accessories. “Mellerio jewellery is bespoke. We make whatever you want,” says Director of Communications Diane-Sophie Lanselle with suave understatement. “We’ve made jewellery for all the grand aristocratic families.” This vintage platinum set dates from the 1960s and is on display in the lower ground floor showroom. The House of Mellerio at 9 Rue de la Paix is an hôtel particulier of artistry and luxury: two floors of showrooms, a design studio, a workshop and offices. Best of all are the hidden archives. Deep in the darkness beneath the City of Light, priceless records of designs and clients are kept in temperature gauged perfection.

Categories
Architecture Art Design Fashion Hotels Luxury People

Rare Le Secret Champagne + Expérience Paris

A Revolutionary Idea

Possibly the best excuse ever to visit Paris, France. Rare Champagne, the multiple award winning Champagne, and Mellerio, the oldest jewellery dynasty in the world (founded in the 16th century), have combined their exceptional talents, refined excellence and muse affinity to create a truly prestigious treasure. Rare Le Secret High Jewellery is an exclusive cuvée from the Champagne House of Rare in a bottle decorated by French jewellers Mellerio. Customers are invited to have the decoration of the bottle transformed into a bespoke piece of jewellery by Creative Director Laure-Isabelle Mellerio once its contents have been consumed.

A bottle of Rare Le Secret High Jewellery decorated with a diamond is priced $170,000 or with a ruby, emerald or sapphire, $150,000. Out of 10 bottles worldwide, there are now just three available in Harrods London, one in Takashimaya Tokyo, one in Galleries Lafayette Haussmann Paris and one in the US through the Rare Champagne Ambassador Jonathan Boulangeat and Kyle Kaplan. American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson reckoned, “A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.” Even better, a walk about Paris en route to the studio of Mellerio will provide a lesson in luxury.

The story began in 1997 when Régis Camus, Rare Champagne Chef de Cave, had an epiphanic moment. He realized there was something special in the sparkling wines of that year and rather than declaring a vintage, he blended a small quantity of this cuvée behind closed doors, secretly ageing it in magnums. Now, 21 years later, the results are extraordinary. Régis’ personal creation has a rare depth and rich complexity, hitting lively citrus highlights while delivering tranquil notes.

This sophisticated finesse, a zenith of Champagne production, launched the collaboration between tastemakers Rare Champagne and Mellerio. “Marie-Antoinette is a natural link between our maisons,” explains Laure-Isabelle. Their shared royal patronage dates from 1780 when the Queen of France acquired a Mellerio bracelet formed of seven Ancient Roman cameos enriched with garnets. The bracelet is now on display in Mellerio’s showroom. She smiles: “Mellerio brought glamour to the Court!” Records show all the Queens of 19th century Europe bought the House’s jewellery. Ever the sybarite, Her Majesty would enjoy her first taste of Rare Champagne a few years later.

Laure-Isabelle suggests, “The refined world of Rare Champagne instantly guided my hand.” Her design for Rare Le Secret High Jewellery takes inspiration from Marie Antoinette’s extravagantly silhouetted dresses. It features a single precious jewel of at least one carat embedded in a heart of interwoven gold bands set with 510 diamonds. The gold and platinum threads swirling down the bottle, reminiscent of the flow and structure of haute couture, represent the blend of Chardonnay minerality and Pinot Noir intensity. The 24 carat solid gold muselet cap is a first, even for Champagne! The enigmatic matt black presentation box with its silver mirrored interior resembles the cases of jewellery presented to Marie Antoinette. Indeed, it resembles a Versailles salon in miniature.

A second design has also been created. The classic simplicity of a gold cartouche is reflected in the golden mirrored interior of its majestic case. Inside each bottle is the same blend of Rare Champagne. The Rare Le Secret Goldsmith is a limited edition of 1,000 numbered and engraved magnums. It is priced at $2,000. In New York, this edition is available in Baccarat, Sherry Lehmann and Sotheby’s. Harrods London also stocks Rare Le Secret Goldsmith.

“Rare Le Secret is perfect to enjoy right away,” explains Régis, “and will still be at optimum quality until 2021.” It goes well with scallop carpaccio, hot oysters, and truffle risotto. Nose, palate and view are three ways to describe bubbly. So what’s the verdict from the House of Rare? Nose: subtle salty and mineral notes with aromas of liquorice, candied tropical fruit and bergamot are followed by dried fruit and powdery floral notes. Palate: after a lively attack of Menton lemon and citrus fruits, nuances of fresh apricot, vetiver and verbena express a serene minerality. Hints of acacia honey and incense develop an oriental and smoky vinosity and ethereal finish. View: dazzling. Graceful bubbles rise in beautiful ribbons and produce a delicate sparkle.

Régis calls it “the secret within Le Secret”. That is, the transformation of something precious to drink into something precious to wear. A private visit to Maison Mellerio will allow Laure-Isabelle to turn Rare Le Secret High Jewellery’s bottle adornment into a brooch, bracelet or pendent. It’s the ultimate multisensory journey from cellar to atelier. The House of Mellerio is on Rue de la Paix, the most prestigious shopping area in the city’s Second Arrondissement. It’s between the First Arrondissement (Tuileries) and the Ninth (Lafayette). “Mellerio has been at this address for almost two centuries now. We were the first luxury goods company to open on Rue de la Paix. Cartier arrived relatively recently in 1898!” relates Mellerio’s Director of Communications Diane-Sophie Lanselle. Five star glitz of The Ritz, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme and Le Meurice is mere seconds away along this stretch of the River Seine.

Galignani, the first English bookshop to be established on the European Continent, is nearby. “It’s the Hatchards of Paris,” says Directrice Générale Danielle Cillien Sabtier referring to London’s finest bookshop. “The concept is a space for encounters and cultural exchanges.” The bookshop is on Rue de Rivoli set behind an arched stone colonnade. So Haussmann, so Parisian. In the 19th century, William Thackeray was a regular customer. Last century, Ernest Hemingway enjoyed its reading room. This century, Karl Lagerfeld is a fan. Mr Thackeray called Galignani, “The exile’s best friend.” Is it Rare Champagne-o’clock again? To repeat, possibly the best excuse ever to visit Paris, France.

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