Flâneur du Pays

Trina's exhibition

2011-12-06T11:39:00.001-05:00

The new house was inaugurated if not consecrated on November 19, 2011, with an exhibition of selected paintings by friend and neighbor Trina Sears Sternstein. people arrived... and stayed, which made for more of a gala than a gallery environment. We are pleased. Here are some photos as the afternoon began (photo credit: Christin Couture, possibly for Le Monde, Elle and French Vogue):

We like this ad

2011-11-26T20:23:00.001-05:00

A wonderful ad from Australia...

At last

2011-11-26T07:43:00.001-05:00

Yes, it's true that no house is ever really completed, but we've come close enough that we spent the last several days delighting in daily life in the new house. There's still much to do. We've yet to sort through and move things stored in Greenfield, Norwalk and San Antonio. And there's the exterior landscaping to address. But already the house offers us a place to stay, a home. Here are some images, photos taken just prior to the mid-afternoon reception marking the exhibition of Trina Sears Sternstein's wonderful paintings. On the first day of our new life there we welcomed fifty or sixty friends and neighbors to see her paintings. Apparently the house works: our guests all seemed to congregate in the kitchen and and stayed until the early evening, eating, drinking and chatting away.

Click to enlarge each photograph.

Toward the kitchen from the living room

Naturally a harpsichord

The living room, toward the study

The kitchen "pantry"

The loggia at dusk

From the loggia, to the front door

Not a dirty dish in sight

The kitchen, then spotless

Green square, white square

2011-10-26T01:51:00.005-04:00

It was a relief to walk into the courtyard yesterday. Not because there was grass growing, but because the grass offered relief from the relentless white, which during the summer had been blinding. Now, although the grass seems to make the clapboards whiter than ever, the white walls in turn make the grass look stunningly green. And the grass will, for other than visual reasons, make Lucca and Marco pleased with their new home.

Lest we forget

2011-10-23T16:03:00.002-04:00

Ken has been in Grand Rapids this weekend, and in our conversations we wondered if we could keep the new house as clutter free as we do in Michigan. And since nearly everyone seems to wonder why we have a place in Grand Rapids... well here's glimpse of what we endure.

from the entrance

living/dining area

toward the kitchen

really, there's a balcony there

one of the bedrooms

one of the bathrooms

view from the balcony

Far Above the Chickley's waters...

2011-10-23T10:43:00.001-04:00

As astounding and comprehensive as the various Google abilities may be, we're sometimes unnerved by the potential intrusiveness of it all. But despite the invasion of privacy, we were pleased to have the chance to see our new house from a satellite's point of view. It reveals to us the relationship of the house to nearby geographical features that we might not immediately grasp. And it offers proof that the thing exists! Well, possible proof anyway.

(click to enlarge)

Square house

2011-10-19T23:22:00.004-04:00

Soon we will be living in a square house, with an interior square court. So we need to brush up on our Pythagoras. This is a lovely way to prove something that seemed clear enough in grade school, but was never demonstrated so elegantly.

Inch by inch

2011-10-11T17:33:00.002-04:00

Finish trim awaits

This is the phase of construction that is sheer agony. So near... and yet so far. And so far there's still a lot to be done. But today's visit coincided with the arrival of the Kentucky bluegrass sod, due to be laid this afternoon. Tomorrow the appliances arrive. But interior trim is only beginning and cannot be finished until the interior doors arrive. Both the plumbers and the electricians need to return at least once more to complete their respective work, the bluestone has yet to arrive for the walkway and the countertops need to be ordered, fabricated and installed. At the moment one wishes to summon a squadron, a platoon, a brigade or a small nation's army and start issuing orders. Alas, that is not how it works. One's best ammunition is patience. But this is what I saw today:

The mirrors arrive tomorrow

Grading is done and sodding is underway

Awaiting appliances and countertops

Rick Perry

2011-10-10T13:18:00.002-04:00

Recall the advice handed down 10 years ago by the late, wisecracking Cassandra of Texas politics, Molly Ivins: “Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”

Steve Jobs

2011-10-05T22:38:00.001-04:00

Ever since switching to Apple products– we must have six or seven permutations of Apple's computers, iPads, Nanos and phones – our household’s experience of the Internet and of computing has broadened and deepened andbeen a source, frequently, of amazement, delight and pleasure at the richnessthe world has to offer. For that, and for delivering the promise of computing in so beautiful a manner, I thank Steve Jobs. His death is not only sadand too soon, but underscores how rarely such architects of the imagination happen along – yet his work increases the chances that other such architects of ideaswill flourish.

“And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosityand intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the bestcalligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster,every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I haddropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take acalligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces,about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, aboutwhat makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artisticallysubtle in a way that science can't capture, and I

found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application inmy life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintoshcomputer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It wasthe first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on thatsingle course in college, the Mac would never have had multiple typefaces or proportionallyspaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personalcomputer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have neverdropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have thewonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect thedots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear lookingbackwards ten years later.”

-Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech to StanfordUniversity graduates in 2005

Bluestone, blue grass

2011-09-29T22:07:00.003-04:00

click to enlarge

As things come together and the end pretends to be in sight, we've decided to have Kentucky blue grass sod installed in the courtyard in order to have grass established before the snow falls. And to cross the courtyard from the gate to the front door, bluestone pavers will, as they say, pave the way. The stone will also provide some warm surfaces for Marco and Lucca to sun on, and for container-held plants to stretch their leaves.

Ma petite bibliothèque

2011-09-27T13:48:00.002-04:00

When I was little I used to go into my father's study and look at books. Many of them I could not read, at first simply because I really could not read, but later because I could not read German or Russian. I still cannot read those languages. I generally read encyclopedias, but I was transfixed by one rather large set of smallish books: each spine read "The Little Lenin Library" and I sweetly assumed they were a collection of Russian children's stories. They were not. But I loved the idea of a little library, Lenin's or anyone else's. And now we will have our little library. Below is an elevation study of one of the four nearly identical walls of the square plan for a single-room "library". A little library. Notre petite bibliothèque.

Click to enlarge

Jane Addams Rides Again

2011-09-22T14:42:00.000-04:00

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” - Jane Addams

Finally someone is responding to the selfishness of the Tea Party proponents and the no-tax Republicans. Let us hope and pray that Elizabeth Warren can defeat Scott Brown and recapture the Massachusetts Senate seat for the Democrats. This video shows her forthright answer to right wing. Or you can read her response here:

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." - Elizabeth Warren

Thinking ahead

2011-09-21T20:33:00.003-04:00

We've always realized that we'd still need one more room. No, not a guest bedroom, nor a billiard room nor a conservatory. What we've needed always was a room for books. A library. With any luck we'll be able to build one, probably next year. It will stand free of the house and act as a sort of entry gatehouse at the end of the drive. Doesn't that sound pretentiously grand? It's a room of our own for our books, and that's that.

Click to enlarge for full view

Aftermath

2011-09-05T11:39:00.003-04:00

By the time we reached Hawley, much repair work had already begun, and much had been completed. Completed for the short term; there remains a tremendous amount of work that will take months and millions. But everywhere one saw National Guard personnel working hard to get roads and bridges cleared or replaced for the coming weeks. We drove with convoys of enormous trucks carrying dirt and rocks, rubble and debris. Unlike planned construction projects there was an efficient ad hoc air about the work - and we could actually see tremendous progress in just the few hours we were there. Somehow these emergency workers, when charged with a task, and without bureaucratic red tape and regulatory oversight, simply plow ahead and get the job done. I'm not taking the Tea Party approach here, but simply observing that left to their own devices these teams of emergency workers can accomplish an astonishing amount of work. And I suspect that the failure of some of the bridges and roads was due, in part, to the lack of sufficient oversight, standards, and above all else, public funding. This was roll-up-your-sleeves, get-the-job-done activism at its best. As one Vermont woman observed when asked about the ordeal her town had gone through, "Who knew we had so many heroes?"

We saw a great deal of damage, and I don't think it is particularly useful to show scenes of destruction. My own photographs document roads washed away and such, and yet in the picture there are also the woodlands, hillsides of trees, and verdant fields looking as glorious as ever. But the riverbeds are raw open wounds still.

Work on the house continues, mainly on the interior. The plastering is done, and the painter is beginning his work. Meanwhile the tile artisan (Justin is a master craftsman) is laying the marble in the bathroom, on the walls and floor. The maple flooring is to be delivered this week and will be installed in conjunction with the interior doors. The dumpster has been taken away. The cabinetry delivery needs to be scheduled and the appliances are ordered and awaiting our call to have them delivered. Even the house number, "6" has arrived. Things are coming together.

Living room, toward the study

Southeast facade sans dumpster

Washout on Middle Road

Toward the bedroom, from the kitchen

What we face

2011-09-02T08:08:00.002-04:00

Today I was simultaneously heartened, because he wrote it, and depressed, because he had to write it, by Paul Krugman's op-ed column in the New York Times. Our communities have rallied in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, and instead, this is what some members of our larger national community, the Republican Party, is proposing. Krugman has hit this nail quite soundly on its head. I know I ought to excerpt a portion, and provide a link as well, but I am posting the entire column. It is worth reading right now.

September 1, 2011
Eric and Irene
By PAUL KRUGMAN
“Have you left no sense of decency?” That’s the question Joseph Welch famously asked Joseph McCarthy, as the red-baiting demagogue tried to ruin yet another innocent citizen. And these days, it’s the question I find myself wanting to ask Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who has done more than anyone else to make policy blackmail — using innocent Americans as hostages — standard operating procedure for the G.O.P.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cantor was the hard man in the confrontation over the debt ceiling; he was willing to endanger America’s financial credibility, putting our whole economy at risk, in order to extract budget concessions from President Obama. Now he’s doing it again, this time over disaster relief, making headlines by insisting that any federal aid to the victims of Hurricane Irene be offset by cuts in other spending. In effect, he is threatening to take Irene’s victims hostage.

Mr. Cantor’s critics have been quick to accuse him of hypocrisy, and with good reason. After all, he and his Republican colleagues showed no comparable interest in paying for the Bush administration’s huge unfunded initiatives. In particular, they did nothing to offset the cost of the Iraq war, which now stands at $800 billion and counting.

And it turns out that in 2004, when his home state of Virginia was struck by Tropical Storm Gaston, Mr. Cantor voted against a bill that would have required the same pay-as-you-go rule that he now advocates.

But, as I see it, hypocrisy is a secondary issue here. The primary issue should be the extraordinary nihilism now on display by Mr. Cantor and his colleagues — their willingness to flout all the usual conventions of fair play and, well, decency in order to get what they want.

Not long ago, a political party seeking to change U.S. policy would try to achieve that goal by building popular support for its ideas, then implementing those ideas through legislation. That, after all, is how our political system was designed to work.

But today’s G.O.P. has decided to bypass all that and go for a quicker route. Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met. That’s what happened with the debt-ceiling fight, and now it’s what’s happening over disaster aid. In effect, Mr. Cantor and his allies are threatening to take hurricane victims hostage, using their suffering as a bargaining chip.

Of course, Mr. Cantor would have you believe that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. But that’s no more than a cover story.

Should disaster aid, as a matter of sound public finance, be offset by immediate cuts in other spending? No. The time-honored principle, backed by economists right and left, is that temporary bursts of spending — which usually arise when there’s a war to fight, but can also arise from other causes, including financial crises and natural disasters — are a good reason to run temporary budget deficits. Rather than imposing sharp cuts in other spending or sharply raising taxes, governments can and should spread the burden over time, borrowing now and repaying gradually via a combination of lower spending and higher taxes.

But can the U.S. government borrow to pay for disaster aid? Isn’t the government broke? Yes, it can, and, no, it isn’t. America has a long-run deficit problem, which should be met with long-run budget measures. But it’s having no problem at all borrowing to pay for current expenses. Moreover, it’s able to borrow funds at extremely low interest rates. Notably, right now the interest rate on the benchmark 10-year U.S. government bond is only slightly more than half what it was in 2004 when Mr. Cantor felt that it wasn’t necessary to pay for disaster relief.

So the claim that fiscal responsibility requires immediate spending cuts to offset the cost of disaster relief is just wrong, in both theory and practice. As I said, it’s just a cover story for the real game being played here.

Now, Mr. Cantor may end up backing down on this one, if only because several of the hard-hit states have Republican governors, who want and need aid soon, without strings attached. But that won’t put an end to the larger issue: What will happen to America now that people like Mr. Cantor are calling the shots for one of its two major political parties?

And, yes, I mean one of our parties. There are plenty of bad things to be said about the Democrats, who have their fair share of cynics and careerists. There may even be Democrats in Congress who would be as willing as Mr. Cantor to advance their goals through sabotage and blackmail (although I can’t think of any). But, if they exist, they aren’t in important leadership positions. Mr. Cantor is. And that should worry anyone who cares about our nation’s future.

Comfort me with... cookies

2011-08-25T10:16:00.002-04:00

Yesterday a package arrived for Lucca, who is recuperating from two cancer-related surgeries. He's doing splendidly and the package contained something that spurred him to even faster mending. Our niece, Caroline Bertsch, had baked an enormous batch of canine-frenndly cookies. There were two distinct cookie types: dachshund cookies with a glazed frosting that exactly matched Lucca's fur, and heart-shaped cookies that were emblazoned with an assortment of loving "get well" messages. Lucca (and Marco) are each enjoying their daily ration of these cookies. They are gorgeous and, quite apparently, delicious. Lucca thanks Caroline and wags his tail with love.

Lucca loves his cookies

A Heath Rose

2011-08-18T08:06:00.002-04:00

Dear friend and neighbor Pat Leuchtman has been tending a column in the Greenfield Recorder for years, has raised five remarkable adults, and spent more time than one can imagine cultivating a superb garden in Heath, Massachusetts. She is an accomplished baker and her cooking is such that one covets a dinner invitation. She was a much-loved librarian in Buckland, Massachusetts creating a literary haven for adults and a playground for the mind for her young readers. Pat served two long tours of duty in Beijing, editing an English language women's magazine. During her time in China, during the Tiananmen Square uprising, Pat was the de facto foreign correspondent for her hometown newspaper, cabling astonishing and detail-filled accounts of each day's events. Pat is married to Henry, and the combination of these two is simply frosting on the cake: their creation - End o' the Road Farm - is a sanctuary for family and friends, filled with books, good food, farm animals, gardens and fields, and... roses. Every year on the last weekend of June, Pat and Henry host an open house, the Rose Viewing. Pat is one who would admire the sentiment "comfort me with apples" but would vastly prefer to be comforted with roses. Now Pat shares the source of her comfort and delight. She is publishing a new book, The Roses at the End of the Road.

Pat's new book - order yours today!

The Roses at the End of the Road, illustrated with her husband’s humorous drawings, is available by writing Pat at: End of the Road Farm, 43 Knott Road, Charlemont, MA 01339. Checks for $14.95 plus $.93 tax and $2.95 for shipping and handling for each book should be made out to Pat Leuchtman. If you prefer, you can email Pat at commonweeder@gmail.com and pay via PayPal. As soon as Pat gets some books, she’ll sign it and send you yours. Whether you garden or not, take a moment to visit Pat's web site: http://www.commonweeder.com

Untitled [2011]

2011-08-14T10:12:00.008-04:00

Malevitch, Untitled, circa 1911

Kazimir Malevich, the Russian Suprematist painter, did this (left) untitled work in 1916. The painting came to mind when we walked into the nearly completed courtyard yesterday. It was blindingly white. And it probably will be blindingly hot next summer when the temperatures soar. That said, we'll deal with that later. For the time being, we're simply pleased that we've gotten this far, and we're eager more than ever to be further along. Patience. At least that what we remind ourselves. The plasterer begins his work this week, and shortly thereafter the flooring work will begin. At some point this month, the court will be seeded, and grass will emerge. And then? Maybe the installation of a piece of sculpture. Or two dachshunds.

Loggia near bedroom doors

House from the west

The loggia

Courtyard toward the front door

The entry, court and front door beyond

Courting Dachshunds

2011-08-09T17:17:00.003-04:00

We were pleased today to take a break from a veterinary visit and see the continuing progress of our house construction. The clapboard siding is nearly completed and the immediate reaction is of blinding whiteness. Wait until a gray day. And if we wait for another sunny day, perhaps the kayak will have its maiden voyage. Marco was with me as I took pictures (Lucca remained at the vet's) and I'm pleased to report that Marco seemed more at home than ever.

Ed finishes the courtyard interior wall

Looking from the west-southwest

Looking from the south-southeast

And if the Chickley River ever rises:

Clap, clap, clap... clapboarding

2011-08-01T12:31:00.007-04:00

The aspect of a Lego block fortress in brilliant green is forever vanishing as Ed, Tim and Bruce steadily apply the finished clapboards to the interior court and exterior walls of the house. During the week we spent in Hawley, staying in Pudding Hollow cottage, we witnessed the diminution of the green boards and the growing appearance of the finished clapboard facades. We were enormously pleased:

The entry doors and interior court

The bedroom wing and loggia
from the court

The kitchen, bath and bedroom
facade

June Progress

2011-06-12T11:32:00.012-04:00

A quick trip up to Hawley on Saturday offered a growing sense of what the completed house will look like. The wood ceilings of the entry way and the loggia had been installed, and the casings around the French doors had been built in anticipation of the cladding installation. Best of all, the storage wing and the loggia now sported their white, standing-seam roofs. Despite the rain we took a few pictures:

Through the entry way, looking into the court

Across the courtyard, toward the loggia

Looking down the loggia

2011-05-25T07:52:00.000-04:00

It dawns on me that I have not posted an accurate plan of the house as it actually will be built. There have been a number of modifications, but the blog did not seem to require accuracy: for the purposes of documenting the house's progress, the plans shown thus far were sufficient. But here's a plan, drawn to indicate flooring installation patterns. Essentially the floors will be Berkshire range marble (limestone), a paler-than-cafe-au-lait color, in two sizes: 12x24 inches and 1x1 inches.

Click to enlarge

Marching right along...

2011-05-21T20:48:00.000-04:00

We climbed to the very top and made this video before our descent. It was May 21, 2011, and the world had yet to end:

The Doors - in concert

2011-05-21T20:22:00.002-04:00

No. But we do have doors, stupendous doors. Tilt and turn doors. And a sprinkling of square windows, too. It has been the installation of doors that has transformed the house so far - that and a myriad of other attentions and ministrations that are giving the house sudden scale and coherence. Ed Brady was rightly concerned about the entire shipping and delivery process for the doors: they finally arrived, were successfully unloaded (a genuine feat of patience and planning) and handily installed. Who knew that triple-glazing would look just like... nothing at all? We were pleased with everything we saw during today's visit:

The courtyard sports the structure of its final columns

The doors seen from the courtyard

A view down the loggia (note windows)

Interior view of door, partial view of Ed

I'm so glad

2011-05-08T18:15:00.003-04:00

You have no idea how exciting, and how frustrating, it is to see the new house taking shape. Each visit renders Ken more and more eager to be living here full time. I'm so glad.

The merry month

2011-05-08T15:56:00.016-04:00

Indeed, it's May. We were enormously pleased when we drove up to the house on Mother's Day: the courtyard is palpable and the new roof is precisely what we'd envisioned. A gigantic package had arrived - the Cascadia windows and doors are at long last here and soon to be installed.

The standing seam roof on the bedroom wing

The covered entrance to the courtyard is now built

The courtyard loggia is taking shape - Lucca approves

The biggest present I've ever received!

Looking across the courtyard from the living room

April Arrives

2011-04-16T17:45:00.000-04:00

Forget the tax filings for the moment - head up to Hawley. Those were our thoughts as we sped up to Hawley on April 15 to check out the house construction, board Lucca and Marco at Dr. Broady's clinic and head on to Boston for Ken's conference. We were delighted to see that under Ed Brady's and assistant Tim's guidance the house is taking shape. Suddenly the courtyard is manifest, albeit in green sheathing rather than white clapboard. But we did glean a sense of the final size (it seems bigger and bigger as the great outdoors is less and less dominant, i.e., one's reference is now the actual built space rather than the entire Chickley valley). Lucca was right at home but Marco, who will ultimately love the courtyard more, was eager to get back to the car. Although he's known Ed for many years, builders with beards still alarm Marco. We were pleased that the roofs of neither the storage wing and nor the loggia block one's view of the ridge line and the sky - even from inside the house. There will be ample sunshine. The interior walls are being framed and the ceiling substrata is installed and awaiting its coat of plaster. Our excitement about the house keeps growing.

Ken, Lucca and Marco head up the drive for their

inspection visit

The house seen from directly south

The house viewed from the southwest (loggia facade)

Muddy March

2011-03-28T07:51:00.000-04:00

We drove up for an incredibly brief but informative visit to the construction site on Sunday. Ed Brady had finished preparing the exterior for the application of clapboards (although that won't occur until the French door assemblies have arrived and been installed). The eaves have been trimmed out, and the attic ventilation at both the highest and lowest points is there as well. Overall the roof looks quite trim and smart. What was noticeably different from an earlier visit was the absence of the 8-inch thick glacier that covered the concrete slab. Suddenly the ceilings (still in rough-in state) seemed as high as we might wish. And although the percentage of fenestration to wall area does not exactly provide sweeping all-glazed panoramas. it was evident that there will be ample light and plenty to see, and yet the desired sense of enclosure and privacy. We were impressed with Ed's progress. And we wondered how he coped with the mud. It may be spring elsewhere, but in rural New England it is mud season. That said, Ken managed to get the car we parked (to winter over in Hawley rather than endure the cost of Manhattan parking) extricated from the mud and snow and repositioned in a much drier, more accessible location. All in all the visit whetted our appetite for returning to life in Hawley.

Though frozen in the morning,
this becomes inescapable mud by afternoon

From the courtyard, through the living room

From the kitchen, toward the far end of the living room

March, march, march

2011-03-25T20:10:00.001-04:00

We were up two weeks ago to see the remarkable winter progress Ed Brady has been making. We're heading up again this weekend, this time with a camera with adequate pixel capacity (and batteries, apparently). In the meantime, we thought of the first courtyard plan, weighing in at a whopping 3400 square feet. Flanking the plan in our iPad photo file were two images, both suggestive of square court house plans and each by an artist named Murphy. One, the more Cubist, is by Gerald Murphy, and the other, is by our favorite New York artist Martha Murphy. Martha's paintings, by the way, are available at the Museum of Modern Art (West 53rd Street nearing 6th Avenue) on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The first courtyard house plan

Gerald Murphy, artist

Martha Murphy, artist

February

2011-02-22T17:02:00.002-05:00

Our intrepid photographers*, unable to remain indoors where it was warm, trekked across the tundra and sent this last photograph of the house as seen from the bottom of the driveway. Clearly the roof sheathing is being applied (we spoke this morning with master builder Ed Brady today about colors for the standing-seam metal roof). As yet there is no evidence of the royal palm trees that will line the approach to the house from the pair of marble lions at the gate all the way to the porte-cochère!

*Suzy braved the Arctic blasts to send this image!

Rye Close... closer and closer

2011-02-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

We'd hoped to make it up to Hawley to see the substantial progress we'd heard about, both from friends and from our master builder, Ed Brady. The weather forecast has seemed too risky for the trip, but intrepid photographers and dear friends Constance Emmett and Suzy Groden (think Ezra Stoller meets Sir Edmund Hillary) made the trip and sent back these photos. We cannot say how pleased we are, nor can we convey how eager we are to once again be in Hawley, but here's why:

Living room end near entry to court

Study area at end of living room

View to the northeast from the living room

There will be a window here - and kitchen
to the left, dining room to the right

The court, looking north

Looking toward the kitchen from the living room

The snow comes down, the walls go up

2011-01-27T19:22:00.000-05:00

Rural photographer extraordinaire and dear friend Suzy Groden took a picture of our house last month. With my father's death, and with Ken's mother's death, we've had a dreadful start to the New Year. Suzy's email with the attached photo was a bright spot in those dreary winter days. As you can see, master builder Ed Brady has erected the exterior walls of the two living wings (the loggia and storage wings will rise in the spring). What you're seeing are the outer portions of the wall - the exterior shell. The walls will have an inner shell as well, and the final wall will be about 12 inches thick. And given the West County's winter weather, those walls will be part of the scheme to keep us and the dogs Lucca and Marco, warm and cozy. We cannot wait.

Looking west from Pudding Hollow Road

And we cannot wait for spring.

Carré Vert Visible

2010-11-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Ken and I visited the site: we'd not been in Hawley since well before Ed Brady began any site work. We were astounded and immensely pleased to see the footprint of the house and courtyard, and the in-progress integration of the various utility systems. It was a great day!

Carré Vert

2010-11-05T05:04:00.003-04:00

We've completed phase one of the move into the New York apartment - the furniture and kitchen apparatus have arrived in good condition, but there's the frustration of finding little things and basic things. A roll of paper towels? A... whatever? Little things, necessary things, will follow.

But Lucca and Marco grasped that this would be their new home once they were safely and comfortably in bed last night. They slept well.

Update: Rye Close was (apparently) too arcane - that it was a close or enclosed residence in a rye field was not conveyed. So, since the court will be a lawn and is square, we've decided on the name Carré Vert which is French for green square. As luck would have it, French is the socially accepted language in Hawley, so no one will have any trouble understanding why the house is so-named.

The Doors

2010-10-31T11:15:00.000-04:00

Foundation footings have been poured and this coming week the hope is that the foundation or frost walls will be poured. Part of the process involves locating the door thresholds and to that end the drawing below indicates the center lines of the double or French doors. The red symbols are the locations of the hose bibs (spigots for garden hoses).

Wry Close

2010-08-13T00:26:00.003-04:00

Orthogonal plan (left) and diagonal plan (right)

Anticipating exorbitant site development costs, possible delays and economic unsteadiness, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do: take the same 61-foot square footprint and make the courtyard larger by making the house smaller. This house is just over 1000 square feet. We have less to take care of, the dogs have far more to explore. And additions can be made beyond the walls; additions such as a garage with storage for electric mowers and kayaks, a guest bedroom and bath, and maybe an office. Or not. The plans - one rotated, one orthogonal, are above (click to enlarge).

A matter of scale

2010-08-01T08:52:00.002-04:00

I helped Ed Brady stake out the perimeter of the house the other day, and gave the wrong exterior dimension - a mere 9-foot error. So here's a plan of the house with some dimensions, to give a better sense of how big, or how small it all is. That the courtyard is now 38-feet square rather than 29-feet square strikes both Ken and I as about the ideal size for our needs and for our dogs Lucca and Marco. Click once on the image above to enlarge it, and click again on the enlarged image to enlarge it even further (at least it works on our computer...)

Elevations

2010-07-22T11:12:00.001-04:00

Below are large versions of four exterior and two interior (i.e., courtyard) elevations. Click on each to enlarge. The roof color, alas, seems not to have translated well in the transmogrifications from an AutoCAD drawing to a WMF file to a PDF file and finally to a JPG image. Rest assured what you will finally see as construction progresses is a medium (warm) gray standing seam metal roof - selecting from the limited screen palette offers little precision.

Southeast Elevation

2010-07-22T11:09:00.002-04:00

Southwest Elevation

2010-07-22T11:08:00.003-04:00

Northwest Court

2010-07-22T11:08:00.000-04:00

Northwest Elevation

2010-07-22T11:07:00.004-04:00

Northeast Court

2010-07-22T11:06:00.002-04:00

Northeast Elevation

2010-07-22T11:05:00.001-04:00

A closer look... in elevation

2010-07-16T09:32:00.001-04:00

The six elevations [reading left to right] represent the house as seen looking from the northwest; looking at the house from the northeast; looking to the northwest from inside the courtyard; looking to the northeast from inside the courtyard; looking at the house from the southeast; and finally looking at the house from the southwest. The siding, while rendered in gray lines, is intended to be red cedar cladding. Click to enlarge.

A closer look... in plan

2010-07-16T09:24:00.003-04:00

I'd posted plans and elevations earlier, but only recently discovered that many steps could be eliminated by simply availing myself of online conversion services. That is to say I will no longer need to post poor-quality photo images of scanned drawings. These problems all arose from Mac's inability (or so I thought) to read WMF [windows meta file] images. But when the WMF is inserted into a word document and the document saved in PDF format, the AutoCAD drawing suddenly becomes visible. This is absolutely of no interest to the reader, but for me to communicate to my contractor it may prove a lifesaver. At any rate, here's the plan... and as always a simple click will enlarge the image.

Placing the house

2010-07-14T17:20:00.002-04:00

I've superimposed a footprint of the house on an aerial photo of the site, in order to place the house relative to recognizable topographic and arboreal features. I hope this is of some use in locating the area I'd indicated for well drilling, as well as the slope* to the east (toward Pudding Hollow road) where I'd like to see the septic field.

*the slope accelerates somewhat and inclines down toward the lower field as one moves toward the road.

Grand Rapids

2010-07-05T09:20:00.000-04:00

A ten day sojourn in Grand Rapids, and then it's an all-out effort to work on drawings for the new house. The perc test (for the new septic system) is to be done Friday, July 9, and soon thereafter a well will be drilled. But in the meantime, a mental health break for the July 4th fireworks from River House...

A Second Look

2010-06-19T16:47:00.002-04:00

Having sent drawings off to Ed Brady, with some reassurance that the design was final, Ken and I revisited one of the smaller, simpler courtyard schemes and had second thoughts. There remains the advantage of a private outdoors space, ample storage above grade (necessitated by the demand for some sort of volume to complete the enclosed courtyard other than heated living space, and because lately Lucca, followed by Marco, have been wandering further afield - fine for suburbia, more of a probable in the wilderness.

We are back to square one, I'm pleased to report.

Returning to the drawing board...

2010-06-13T13:31:00.001-04:00

Basement and Main Floor Plans

Elevations

After a two-week hiatus during which many things were learned about aspects of any house that are fundamental to its [low] maintenance and operation, a new plan has evolved that we feel we can happily live within. The main floor interior gross square footage (i.e., excluding exterior walls, but including interior partitions) is 1124 square feet. Click to enlarge.

Clap Boards and Applause Signs

2010-05-28T12:19:00.000-04:00

Rendering elevations by applying shingle siding texture is useful, if only to begin to get a palpable sense of the thing. But in reality, the appeal of white clapboarding was too strong, and these elevations reflect this preference. This morning Ed suggested looking at a Canadian company's triple-glazed fiberglass frame windows, and lo, and behold, they're precisely what I'm looking for. The newest elevations reflect the company's fixed and awning series of windows. Unfortunately the moiré pattern of parallel lines is somewhat distracting.

Elevation: At This Point

2010-05-27T07:42:00.002-04:00

Well, we may not be there yet, but after an exploration of a more complex roof, the insertion of a step (up into the main living space) and a brief foray with clerestory windows, this scheme has solidified a bit further. In order to capture more of the view to the southwest - and recognizing that the initial building project is far more oriented to the views to the north - the plan is to build (sometime in the next two years) a bedroom as separate structure, connected to the dressing area via a "bridge".

Elevations Unelevating

2010-05-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

I'm not remotely pleased with the elevations, based upon the latest plans. For a description, vapid is accurate if less than elevating. But it does give an idea of both the size and areas that need to be examined more closely.

2D Down, 3D To Go

2010-05-25T10:23:00.000-04:00

Ed and Ken: Here's the current (and one hopes final) plan. The house will have a gable, rather than a shed roof, and the dotted (hidden) lines indicate the extents of the two ceiling heights, 10-feet and 8-feet. The living space, is essentially one long "hall" and ancillary spaces are organized along the southern portion of the rectangle, and will have the lower ceilings. The roof will be a standing seamed metal roof, and the siding will either be cedar shingles, allowed to weather to a gray, or clap-boarding painted white. I hope to post elevations either later today or tomorrow. As always, click (or double-click) on the image to enlarge it.

Site Plan May 2010

2010-05-19T20:02:00.001-04:00

Ed: to give you some sense of scale, I've shown a dimension of 235 feet, the distance from the nearest corner of the house (the corner of the screened porch) to Pudding Hollow Road. The town hall is marked at the bottom right corner, and I've indicated a rudimentary road although it's pretty much where we'd want it. So I think my guess (a wild one) was actually not too far off the mark.

The overall dimensions of the house, a simple rectangle with a shed or single-pitch roof, are 56 feet by 24 feet, including the screened porch. By tomorrow I ought to be able to post a pretty detailed plan. To the left of the house there's a circular form that is not a tree - it's a huge rock, and I located it using Google Earth, so it's relatively accurate but not precise.

As always, double-clicking seems to enlarge the drawing on your screen.

How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down On The Farm?

2010-04-06T20:55:00.004-04:00

Wouldn't you know all plans are on hold: I'm not going to replicate Versailles, but rest assured I learned a lot from a week in a fantastic apartment in Paris. I've been wavering in my affection for modern architecture, at least as far as what I'd prefer to live in, but this recent trip has pushed me over the edge and I want to live in a 21st century version of an 18th century villa, albeit at a scale that is possible on a budget. Think of it this way: the Petit Trianon is to Versailles as the Hawley house will be to... your house. Très, très petit. To get a somewhat larger, centered video, double click on the Eiffel Tower - and turn your speakers on.

Further (plan) Study

2010-03-21T20:17:00.003-04:00

In the previous plan, the main portion of the house was 875 square feet - seemingly achieving a dwelling below 1000 square feet. However, in its first iteration the area did not include the smaller living pavilion, and in its second iteration... the house simply was too small. In this current plan, 1175 square feet, the living, dining and kitchen space has been enlarged to be, well, reasonable. And a half-bath for guests has been added with a washer and dryer as well. To give the open deck area (open now, not roof-covered as before) privacy and to address the view, the screened porch (a 16-foot square pavilion) is rotated 45-degrees. This scheme merits a better quality image, and the above will be replaced shortly. We like the plan, we like the entry steps and we like that it begins to have a sense of arrival sequence. Oh, and the kitchen? Base counters along the west (left) wall, and a work island with gas cooktop. We'll use under-counter refrigerator and freezer units. The cabinets will have drawers only, no doors except for the cabinet under the sink itself. As always, north is up, or toward the top of the image.

Modesty Becometh

2010-03-10T18:26:00.002-05:00

Rye Close... closer: click image

Shocked by the current square foot construction costs, and determined to downsize anyway (with hopes of de-accessioning and dreams of a return to minimalism), we took another look at a Sonoma County house we liked (minus the vineyards). The house was a continuous roof, with two unequally-sized pavilions connected by an open, but covered, deck. But our climate is considerably less benign, so in order to consolidate all plumbing, and to reflect the fact that we will mainly use the house on weekends, we made a private pavilion with kitchen, bath, bedroom and dining/sitting area and a public pavilion that is essentially One. Big. Room. The small or public space will have a wood stove, the requisite views, and secondary heating via electrical units (yes, electrical). The roof will be again a shed or single-slope roof, sloping to the north (following the slope of the hillside immediately beyond). That troubling electricity will be supplied by roof or ridge-mounted wind turbines mounted like gargoyles. Check out the turbines here.

Tentative Elevation

2010-03-06T23:51:00.005-05:00

South elevation - click to enlarge

No, it's not a billboard, and it's not the massive wall it appears to be: the roof immediately slopes down behind this facade, and the house (refer to the plan in the post above) is not as deep as the dog trot is wide. I'm calling the breezeway a dog trot because we have dogs, they trot, and way before the term breezeway arose, this sort of covered open air space was termed a dog trot. This was true principally in the Southern colonies simply because the weather permitted such an indulgence.

And if it were Château Rye?

2010-02-23T20:24:00.006-05:00

For those who may find the elevations a bit stark, this is the alternate, shown here from an aerial view. Or it may be Château Cirey, once owned by Voltaire.
Cut stone instead of cedar shingled may strain the budget.

Progress Report

2010-02-18T06:42:00.005-05:00

It is for the superfluous things of life that men sweat. Marcus Annaeus Seneca

Perhaps a more realistic if not downright cynical expression of the notion that God is in the details. But this morning the quotation from Seneca had resonance simply because the day presents a new phase in the development of the Hawley house. I've spoken with Ed Brady, Guild Stewart Brady, whom we've assumed (and hoped) from the start would be our contractor. Ed has already offered some suggestions that will be incorporated, to wit: a more robust wall section for added insulation and reduced structural transference of heat; an exterior bulkhead to a crawl space, itself with increased head height (thus avoiding the prospect of constructing a storage shed at a later date); and radiant hot water floor heating. The floors will be hardwood throughout, including the bathrooms and kitchen. Tile work will be limited to the master bath shower area and to the kitchen back splashes. Once Ed pointed out the virtue of seeing a room without baseboard heating units or the walls without vents and air returns, we were sold. And a preliminary site plan is evolving! Note that the plan is oriented with north at the top, that the Hawley Town Hall is the rectangle at the lower right hand corner, and that while the driveway will begin at Pudding Hollow Road as shown, it will undoubtedly not terminate in the parking area shown but in something less obtrusive (click on image to enlarge):

Further (elevation) Study

2010-02-14T18:35:00.001-05:00

The fenestration arrangement has been tweaked a bit, and the plan detail is gradually becoming more accurate. The addition of scaled figures (that fellow is 6'-0" tall) conveys an alarmingly high roof line, and suggests reducing the roof pitch from 6-in-12 to 5-in-12, but these flattened views, while dimensionally precise, are deceptive compared with three-dimensional reality. And reality is what we're working toward. [As always, click to enlarge the image.]

Elevation Studies

2010-02-14T09:06:00.003-05:00

Okay, okay, but you have to understand that thee are preliminary sketches of possible elevations, with fenestration indicated but in no way definite. As much as I'm intrigued by cementitious clapboarding or vertical siding, it would seem too stark. Instead the siding will, in all likelihood, be cedar shingles, something we grew to like very much at the Middle Road house. Standing seam metal roofs, glazed double doors, and either transoms or clerestory windows pretty much wraps it up. At some point the courtyard will be defined by a covered pergola, walled on one side and thus acting as a fence to protect the world from benevolent dachshunds. [Click on image to view enlarged version.]

Smaller...

2010-02-07T10:27:00.001-05:00

If small is good... we've decided we really should proceed, and do so without the oversight of a bank's involvement. Thus the construction will be financed out-of-pocket, and so arises a need to be as conservative and restrained as reasonably possible. So here's the plan. In the future exterior spaces will be implied or actually made via the construction of a garage, a storage building, and a screened pavilion - all free-standing structures. But this will get us started and therefor back in Hawley!

From Rye Field

2009-12-11T07:04:00.000-05:00

I fully realize it's the middle of December, but I feel optimistic about the prospects of spring, am fully confident of its arrival (with due respect to the January, February and March to come), and look forward to spending time again in Hawley. Feeling that sense of spring (certainly not in this morning's frigid air) I thought this captured the mood:

Every now and then I like to lean out my window,

look up and smile for a satellite picture.
-- Steven Wright

Words to live by

2009-11-12T08:04:00.002-05:00

Walking isn't a lost art: one must, by some means, get to the garage. -Evan Esar

Thinking about Florette

2009-09-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

Although Florette Zuelke died last April, her memory will live on: she was a champion of style, convinced always that adding a flourish was not only essential but beneficial - and far more fun. As the design of the new Hawley house evolves, I find myself wishing that Florette might have seen it. No doubt she would have her own ideas, but my experiences with Florette (and here I admit I was one of the lucky ones) were such that I could count on her approval and support. And rest assured, the house will be designed, albeit on a very small scale, for maximum comfort whether for just Ken and me, or for our guests. Here's a picture of Liberace and Florette, perhaps not constant companions but united in the 1950s to bring classical music to the masses via Columbia Records releases.

New Digs

2009-08-25T08:26:00.000-04:00

We're in Grand Rapids this week. Yesterday we closed on our new condo unit - empty and marvelously spacious because of it. Ken's mother gave us a small watercolor her father, artist and newspaperman Raymond Barnes, had done of one of the family's dogs. Admittedly not a dachshund (our dogs are enjoying the vast riverside park across from the condominium, by the way) but a fine dog, looking and being very dog-like.

Moving Along

2009-08-13T10:38:00.000-04:00

At any given moment there is a dominant criterion looming over the design process, and all too often it operates like the tail wagging the dog. But ease or simplicity of construction, and reduced size (hence reduced cost) would certainly contribute to an accelerated timetable for construction. That said, here's a thumbnail sketch of a design that should soon show up with further elaboration. And yes, a recent review of a Sea Ranch monograph did have an effect. As did a visit to the web site and portfolio of Brown Casey, an Australian architectural firm whose work is reminiscent of the residential work of Glenn Murcott. I imagine both Australians and northern Californians as enterprising folks, residing in these houses but spending much of their time at outdoor chores. My motto, instead: il dolce far niente!

A Gift For A Rose Gardener

2009-08-05T18:52:00.000-04:00

Still in a quandary about how to celebrate the August 2nd birthday? Well, you know that by now it's belated, so it better be good. And here's the perfect gift idea, available from the saddle shop at King Ranch in Texas: a pair of custom rose gardening boots made for Texas-sized blooms. For size information and the Heath, MA mailing address, email me and by return email I'll provide the necessary details. Or you can go directly to her web site and ask her yourself!

Bringing Things Into Focus

2009-08-05T11:14:00.000-04:00

After a morning of trauma dealing with Mac/PC conversions and the idiosyncratic persistence of Microsoft software, I managed to scan a hardline scaled plan of the proposed house. As alaways a double click will enlarge the drawing and one can then scroll about for detail.

Better Than One

2009-08-04T10:59:00.000-04:00

I'm not so certain that two houses are better than one, especially when they occupy the same site, but I have always been intrigued by the pair of houses designed by Venturi Scott Brown on Nantucket (Trubek and Wislocki houses). The earlier courtyard houses have been set aside temporarily because of their complexity and size: quite possibly we do not require so much space. As for the utility of the courts for the dogs, Marco and Lucca have made it clear - they are house dogs. So here is a single house, articulated as two even smaller houses (pavilions would be too precious a term). The division of function is straightforward. One segment is public, the other is private. The area is approximately 1000 square feet, including the entry connector segment.

Rye Close closer

2009-05-02T22:38:00.000-04:00

On occasion I jettison the courtyard parti and explore more conventional, in terms of New England vernacular, forms, some with modified courts. And then I spend some time with Lucca and Marco and realize their safety is of paramount importance. So I return to the courtyard schemes and try again. Gradually these designs have become smaller in terms of enclosed or interior area, while the size of the courtyard itself has varied, going from as large as approximately 44 feet square to as little as 24 feet square. The most recent scheme has a 34 foot square courtyard. Furthermore, by virtue of two sides which are at best semi-conditioned spaces, serving primarily as storage areas, the courtyard could be expanded without unduly increasing the main house's interior. Watching our two dachshunds romping this afternoon, it became clear that they would be happily accommodated within the current court dimensions. Rest assured, I've been "drawing" elevations in my mind for months now, and I'll be posting them anon.

This is not unimportant

2009-04-14T17:48:00.000-04:00

It suddenly dawns on me that I should show you something of the site. This brief clip main shows the upper field. That it shows Ken with Lucca and Marco merely serves to guarantee that it's endearing...

The Influence of OZ

2009-04-07T15:12:00.000-04:00

Ever since I first saw photographs of the outback houses of Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, I'd been smitten. The houses were perfect, and certainly perfect for their setting. But I've always been drawn to that particular sort of dry and open landscape - my idea of a perfect place. Back in 1988, obviously dissatisfied with our then current house, I took a stab at a linear scheme that was both small and something that we could, if we had to, build ourselves. Looking at it this afternoon I think I'd try to reduce the number piers by half, and perhaps revisit the fenestration layout slightly. And I would double the number of dachshunds sunning themselves on the deck. Click on each image for an enlarged version.

1988 Courtyard

2009-04-07T14:44:00.001-04:00

I'm still in the throes of unpacking books and papers brought to Connecticut from Massachusetts. "Throes" implies some sort of activity. Perhaps I should instead say that I am languishing among accumulated books and papers. Today I unearthed a sketch done in 1988, and clearly courtyard houses were on the table. This house is smaller, with a court open to a larger expanse. Nonetheless it does have some relevance, particularly should we opt for a smaller, weekend retreat. In 1988 we were living in a house whose "master" bedroom was just large enough for queen size bed and narrow passage to get to a closet. Clearly we thought that was sufficient and replicated it in this house. But today, sleeping with two dachshunds with impulses toward imperialist expansion, that would be an uncomfortable sleeping arrangement. Click on the image for an enlarged version.

Housing and the Credit Crisis

2009-03-22T20:10:00.000-04:00

Baffled by the complexity of the current housing market and credit crisis? Since we're talking about houses here, it wouldn't hurt to see just how any construction project, existing or planned, fits into the larger (and currently gloomier) picture. This video should help.

Court Has Not Adjourned

2009-03-10T16:14:00.000-04:00

Who would have thought that days of walking around Amsterdam would lead to a definite embrace of the courtyard scheme? I'd all but given up and was exploring free-standing multi-storied schemes, but a glimpse into a courtyard off a small alleyway, itself off a small canal, convinced me that a smaller courtyard could be delightful. Admittedly at that point I was finding everything about Amsterdam delightful, even without visiting a non-coffee coffee house.

The House Takes Shape

2008-06-02T20:49:00.000-04:00

Fiddling around the other day, avoiding more pressing work including a work bee here at Village Creek, I managed to do a rudimentary 3-D sketch of the proposed house (left).

My Eco-Friendly Kitchen

2008-05-18T16:15:00.000-04:00

My eco-friendly kitchen, my green kitchen, my environmentally responsible kitchen is gone! If I'd sincerely wanted an eco-friendly, green, environmentally responsible kitchen, I'd have simply kept the kitchen Mildred Morganstern built in 1950. This whole retrofitting for the environment is turning into a commercial bonanza of smug consumerism, yet another cottage industry of buying new stuff. That said, I cannot possibly make claims that any of the kitchen posts below is remotely green, energy stars and forestry certifications notwithstanding. So, want to be green? Easy: learn to be happy with what you already have. As I've often asked clients, "Do you think the food is going to taste better in a new kitchen?"

A window over the sink...

2008-05-18T14:39:00.000-04:00

Just how open do people want their kitchens? It used to be that a window over the sink was just the right degree of relief or escape from the tedium of doing the dishes. In this kitchen renovation a window over the sink was not possible, although the space offers ample opportunities to view the outdoors. In fact the dilemma was to create a functioning kitchen that doubled as the de facto entry, since this end of the kitchen invariably is where visitors stand to first get their bearings and check out the view. By removing upper cabinets on one wall and a base cabinet on the other, we hoped to expand the breadth of the view without diminishing the kitchen's utility.

Une Nouvelle Cuisine

2008-05-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

"This is just a test: in the event of a real kitchen..." It was just a two week stint in hell, but a real eye opener - renovation of the most central room in a house can be unduly stressful. But it's over. And from the results we've learned a lot about what we'll do in the Hawley house. Base cabinet drawers were a good idea, as was raising the counter top level two inches (substantial reduction in lower back stress). Legs instead of a toe kick allow the floor to continue and make the cabinetry appear somewhat more buoyant. Stainless steel appliances remain an impractical fetish. As for succumbing to granite counters... the color and material qualities are gorgeous but the result is that we tend to be too reverent which makes zealous cooking a bit stilted. And we were surprised that the final palette was warmer and more earth toned than we'd thought ourselves capable of. But here are the results - an updated kitchen for a mid-century house.

Getting there: Cour des Champs

2008-05-01T06:31:00.000-04:00

Overriding a host of desires, the current scheme allows the dogs to go outdoors free of concern about predators (one hopes) and leashes. That the scheme also allows privacy from neighbors is not to be underrated. Click on the plan to enlarge it.

While the drawing indicates a court that is entirely paved, the intention is to only pave circulation areas and a allow for outdoor dining - a majority of the space would be planting, limited to our favorite plants - so envision a lot of Siberian iris and hemerocallis Hyperion.

Le nom de la ferme

2008-04-21T10:40:00.000-04:00

Some progress on the design front, if one can tolerate indecision regarding the house's having either one or two stories and whether or not the scheme is based around the idea of a free-standing object or a courtyard. But in the realm of place naming we're doing somewhat better. It's down to either Deux Champs or Entre les Champs, recognizing the two fields at different elevations that constitute the property. By clicking on the links you'll hear the official West County pronunciation of either name.

[Since the above was first posted the name has evolved to Champs Marches, and may be even further transmogrified into Italian. This is not nomenclature, this is daydreaming.]

Progressing, if not Progressive, Architecture

2008-03-26T09:35:00.000-04:00

Somehow the architect as flaneur strikes me as unfortunate until I recall Le Corbusier's observation that "creation is a patient search". It is remarkable just how far the house design for the Pudding Hollow Road site has evolved without much appearing on paper - at least any scrap of paper (or computer file) that remains available. The house design has teetered between Palladian villa and Miesian pavilion, and continually returns to page homage to Australian architect Glenn Murcutt.

In the coming days postings will emerge showing the floor plan and elevation studies for what is to be a two-story one-bedroom house to be occupied for less than the entire year. Precisely which portion of the year will see the house unoccupied is yet to be determined, but a recent site visit (a trek across the snow) made it clear that the flaneur du pays does tramps about better in warmer weather.

A man, a plan [a canal - Cananamapalana!!!]

2008-03-20T07:26:00.000-04:00

Finally we're getting somewhere. The devolving has come down to a fundamental dilemma: two floors or one?

Here's the two level plan(s). The single story scheme - with the promise of enclosed exterior space - remains to be determined simply because the possibilities seem endless.

Advice from A Gardener

2007-12-20T21:48:00.000-05:00

I'd been advised that a blog needs a picture.

Here it is.

It's a watercolor of a bromeliad.

Actually it's a section of the watercolor, and thus

a section of the bromeliad.

Now, on with the blog!

Le flâneur du pays avant le vitrine jardiniere

2007-12-18T06:01:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a journey begins and almost immediately one finds oneself with a new companion who immediately reinvigorates the spirit with which the adventure was conceived.

So it has been for me: another newly created blog will become a fixed point by which I can maintain my bearings. A fellow country resident in a nearby town, a gardener, rose cultivator extraordinaire, librarian, newspaper columnist, fabulous cook and baker, mother, grandmother, wife and community volunteer, has established her web presence with the Common Weeder. I plan to rely on her postings to serve as my vitrine jardiniere, my garden window. Her web site is not so much a new companion as it is an old friend, packed and ready for travel.

In truth this is someone I have known ever since I encountered her columns, written for the Greenfield Recorder in 1989. She was living with her husband in Beijing, working for an English-language magazine about Chinese life. This was the time of the student protests in Tiananmen Square, and each day she offered a new article with fresh news. We were new to the country then, and I thought, "This is amazing! This small town newspaper has a reporter stationed in China!" Only later did I realize that she was on a two-year sabbatical from her regular gardening column (and rural life) and had seized the opportunity (taken the responsibility) of reporting back to her readers on something both timely and important, albeit not quite gardening.

Since that turbulent time (for China at least) she has continued to comment and observe, through her column, on the vagaries of life and gardening. She has also become the librarian for a nearby small town, and in so doing, avidly promoted reading programs for readers young and old - especially for the young (hmm... but for the old, too!). She and her husband are valued and much-loved friends. I fully expect that, in true gardener fashion, she will share the bounty of her latest gardening enterprise, her blog, and that we will be able to reap her wisdom as she regularly comments on gardening and life. We will heed the guideposts she has planted, and hope to emulate her take on the responsibility of gardening, building (in the broadest sense) and living.

So readers of this blog would do well to jump to more firma terra and visit http://www.commonweeder.blogspot.com and begin to know this remarkable woman.

Dawdling in French

2007-12-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

The French really are brilliant.

An English word as prosaic and fraught with negative connotations - dawdler - becomes flâneur in French. That I am a country dawdler conveys that I am someone for whom dawdling is an art form if not a profession. Why I'm just this far from being outright lazy. Yet the French have, as is their wont, a word for it. Flâneur sounds and looks so much more respectable. In much the same way bachelor seems so much less forlorn than spinster. And flâneuse appears nearly as glamorous as femme fatale! But this blog is not about gender terminology at all. Rather I'd like to document in desultory fashion my evolving views on the hard work of trying to bring order to life in the country.

Later this month we will complete the transaction that will make us the owners of seven very beautiful acres of land in the Berkshire foothills of western Massachusetts. We've lived here for over twenty years and have learned much (been taught much, really) but still know that we have far to go before we have brought order, tranquility and serenity to our life. Add the urge to be responsible (in the manner build our house and plant our garden) and suddenly the chaos of too many choices rears its ugly little head. This blog is about how we'll sort through all of that possibility and come to terms with our land and our lives. Well, our land at any rate.

So, we've begun!