Still in Pennsylvania for a Bit Longer


I really do plan on moving to another location, but, in organizing my magazines in a chronological order (of sorts), I keep finding more articles on more lovely homes in Pennsylvania.  What's a blogger to do?  Even after I think I'm done with the state, more articles keep popping onto the scene.  I think the homes included here are quite special.  I'm also including an image of aristochiens by Thierry Poncelet (when I stumbled upon this, I thought of Greet's earlier post on Belgian Pearls), and lastly, to stay true to my blog's name, I'm including two interesting kitchens.


This first home was published in Colonial Homes, Fall-Winter, 1976-1977, an issue from over thirty years ago yet it still holds a timeless appeal.

Lots to love about these rooms - the antiques, of course, the paneling, the paint colors, deep set windows and this conservatory at the end - in this conservatory with its soft feel of summer in the dead of winter, I wouldn't even mind the uncomfortable ladder-back chairs.  (Honestly now, have you ever known a ladder-back to be comfortable??)  If we substituted the primitive paintings with Wyeth ones, this home might be in Brandywine country.

My second home today appeared in Architectural Digest's June 2009 issue.  For many years, Architectural Digest devoted their June issue to only country homes.  I always watched for it as June drew near to find just such beauties as this one.

Just seeing these first two photos, don't you just want to move right in?  Love Pennsylvania stone houses and, to make it even better,  it's peony season.

Again, even though I like much primitive art, without it here, this could be a Wyeth home.  Love that little tavern table in front of the leather sofa.

Ditto the above comment minus the table comment.

Even though it's peony season, the fireplace is so appealing.  The dinnerware and wine glasses are lovely here and notice the peony centerpiece.

Part of an upstairs bedroom with dormer window.

Why don't more bedrooms today have fireplaces?  Love them - even in peony season.

What a great spot for appetizers and the closest image this article had to a kitchen.  I'm sure it's just outside the kitchen though.  And that wisteria.  The only wisteria I ever had never bloomed, not even once, and after ten years, I yanked it out.  Here, the wisteria absolutely makes the setting.  In my fantasy Pennsylvania house, my wisteria will bloom, bedrooms will have fireplaces, and Wyeth paintings will abound.

The owners of this beautiful home have wonderful taste and are living my fantasy.  (Yes, I'd have sheep and a sheep dog in my Pennsylvania home.)

And a barn to house my horses whose stalls my fantasy grooms would take care of.  Hope you loved this home.  I loved posting about it for you.

The first three images of kitchens presented next were found in Veranda's spring of 1998 issue.  But, before the kitchens, I found a home in this same issue with Thierry Poncelet's aristochiens hanging on the wall.  Thinking of Greet Lefevre's earlier post about this topic, I thought I'd add it here.  So, Greet, this one's for you.

Now to the kitchens.  I do remember my topic even while straying.

It is so well-equipped that I know delightful dishes are made here.

Don't know what to say about the stuffed fowl.

Great pottery on top two shelves, and great organization on the bottom two.

About this next kitchen,  I'm sorry to say that I have no source.  When I tore the pages out long ago, who knew they'd be in my blog!

Not sure these Andirondack chairs would be any more comfortable than ladder-backs, but the fireplace in the kitchen scores high.

I will be away for the next ten days visiting friends and relatives in South Carolina and Florida.  Will visit Savannah and Charleston for the first time ever, will join a house and garden tour, will listen to  a lecture by Victoria Wyeth, and will enjoy good friends, close relatives, and warm weather.  I'm bringing my camera so may have photos to share that may delay my next Pennsylvania posting.  But maybe not, I'm not the world's best photographer.

Till next time,

b

A Sculptor from Brandywine and More

Last posting, I promised a post about Andre Harvey, the renown Brandywine sculptor. While searching for his information, I stumbled across articles about Renny Reynolds, also a renown floral designer.  Since spring is in the air, I thought a posting about both men would be appropriate today.  First - Andre Harvey.

A photo of the sculptor himself (from Brandywine by Anthony Edgewood).  If you believe the pig his arm is resting upon is real, it is not of course, but one of his fabulous sculptures.

This pig, another of Harvey's sculptures, resides outside the Brandywine River Museum where it welcomes visitors.  What is it about pigs and Brandywine? Jamie Wyeth paints them, Andre Harvey sculpts them.  Whatever it is, the results are exquisite.

The sculptor's home.  The Pennsylvania exterior stonework does not show very well here, but his woody station wagon does.  (The above photo and the following ones are from Southern Accents, March-April, 1993.)

The entrance to his home.  Notice the beautiful hardware on the door and the frog sculpture in the distance.

The settee in the same foyer with his possum sculpture hanging above.

The "spare beauty" of the stairway with a goat sculpture atop an antique table.

The artist working on a much larger goat sculpture.

Turtles clamber on the dining room table and an armadillo, entitled The Relic, stands atop an English oak William and Mary highboy.  I so love highboys, armadillos not so much but sculpted ones are fine.

Living room of the artist with a ubiquitous pig sitting near the hearth.  Love the paneling in this room.  My sons tell me the paneling in my living room cries out to be similar to this, while I maintain ours needs to remain a simpler paneling.

Thus ends our visit to Andre Henry.  Wish I had more photos to show you, but this is all of them from my files.

Now onto Renny Reynolds's home in Pennsylvania.  Reynolds designs most of his floral projects in the New York City area, but comes to this "farm" in Pennsylvania to relax.  I think you'll see why.  (The following photos are from House Beautiful, March 1993.)

From the moment I saw this dining room in House Beautiful, I loved it - the massive fireplace, the sconces above it, the comfortable chairs, even his sweet dog.

Both of the above photos are of the living room. Don't you love the paint color of the paneling here and that narrow table in front of the sofa?  The topiary in the window must be one of Reynolds's designs.

Now some outside photos of the house and flora and fauna.

My resolution on this photo does not do justice to that wonderful Pennsylvania stone design.  (I need photoshop.)

Doesn't this seem like a great place to unwind?  So ends the photos from this article from House Beautiful, but I found more.  I'm sorry to say, unlike me, I tore the following photos from their original magazine, but I believe it was another House Beautiful article.  They include images of Reynolds's "potting shed" made from the barn on the property. Let's take a look.

Now, I have a potting shed and I have garden books on shelves in my den, but this building is something really special.

More of the grounds which make me long for summer, although spring is definitely in the air in upstate New York.

 I have not forgotten that  my blog is supposed to be more about kitchens, and I know I keep promising that they will appear.  So, today I will end with two kitchens, both of them in Pennsylvania.  

The above photo is from Colonial Homes, January-February 1987.  It has that Pennsylvania feel and its rooms and its kitchen are pretty classic.

 I like this house and many of its antiques shown in the photos above, but, not to be too critical, it is just too cluttered.  Could be a sign of its era.  Today, I do not think photographers would stage these rooms the same way.

On to what I think may be a kitchen more like today's, but still containing an atmosphere from the past.

So what do you think, my dear reader?  Too cluttered?  Too outdated?  While I like these rooms, I do not love them as I do the Brandywine rooms discussed in previous posts.  I think they lack the spareness which attracts me more and more as you will see when my journey continues next time.

-b

Still in Pennsylvania but forward Twenty Years

So many beautiful homes exist in this part of the country, it is difficult to leave Pennsylvania when I keep finding more beautiful homes to talk about.  Lauren Sara, designer of stylish maternity clothes and author of Expecting Style,  purchased this Colonial Revival when it was covered in "vines and weeds."  Unlike the Wyeths and Frolic Weymouth, she "gutted the interior."  She wanted a "loftlike space" in which to showcase her American folkart and beautiful antiques, and she succeeds as the photos from  Architectural Digest, June 2006, reveal.

The exterior is Pennsylvania stone, typical of so many houses in the area as seen from my previous posts.  Of the six or seven fantasy houses I would own, a Pennsylvania stone one would definitely find a place in my collection.  They look so early and have those wonderful deep windows inside.  (A girl can dream.)

So what do you think?  Do you like this spare feel?  Surprisingly, I like it very much.  It has a museum quality which allows that lovely kas (a large two door cupboard, usually with some painted decor; often  of Dutch origin) to stand out.  It would be a shame to have its beauty minimized with any busyness at all.  A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Lauren "loves everything to be seamless.  She wanted white walls with no baseboards, plaster openings with minimum trim, library shelves that seem to go on for 20 feet with no visible means of support and ebonized-bamboo floors, so dark you wouldn't know they're bamboo."  Windsor chairs are great too as is the sculpture (left of the chair) made by her son when he was four.  Note the bowl atop the kas.

Here we get a glimpse of the dining room and part of the library.  Her choice of folk art really enhances the spareness of the rooms (or vice versa).  The art stands out as it never would in an overly decorated room.

A view of the library with those long bookcases and deep windows.  I always want my tables to have nothing on them, but someone always puts car keys or remotes on them.

Here Lauren Sara poses with one of her four horses.   (She even has horses!!  Just like my fantasy house would - with a stone barn and grooms to do the cleaning of stalls.  I would just do the riding off into the sunset.  Hey, this is my fantasy.)

I admire the spareness of the kitchen, but could never live with it.  I would clutter it up with garden produce and copper pots and wooden bowls.  I do love the stainless workspace though and hanging cupboard.  I do so wish I could see more.  The chairs around the table are from Lancaster County.

In the master bedroom, a very geometric, Amish quilt hangs over the bed, and the room has a fireplace.  How much do I love fireplaces in bedrooms!  Lots.  The Windsor chair here has two writing platforms, and it is believed it was to accomodate both left and right-handed writers.  Very rare.

  

Fish decoys are displayed in this bedroom, and a "1775 comb-back Windsor chair sits at a desk with and inlaid-leather blotter."  So tasteful.

"Floating shelves that Sara designed hold shoes and leather boxes in the dressing area."  (My fantasy dressing room would look like this; my reality dressing room does not.)

Love this guest room.  While the master bedroom is beautiful, the size of this one seems cozier.  The decoys on the deep window sill, the antique basket and primitive portrait are perfect.

I'm setting my next outside table with those multi-wicked pillars at one end and a spray of flowers on the other.  Looks so inviting and a little funky.  Look at that view.

Landscape designer, Edwina von Gael "convinced her client that her house didn't need the shrubs that surround most houses."  Lauren Sara "didn't need much convincing."  She thinks it now has a "quiet, regal appearance."  It really does seem regal; it has great bones.

I hope you love this house as much as I do.  So different from the homes in my earlier posts, yet it contains so many similar elements: stone exterior, authentic antiques, and elegant taste in beautiful countryside. 

If I can find the magazine I'm seeking, my next post will be about a very talented sculptor who also lives in Pennsylvania.  Keep your fingers crossed.