Design writer Phyllis Van Doren on Ken Kellogg's architecture. See below. |
“...Seeking
the personal and unique in home furnishings is delicious prospecting...” --Phyllis Van Doren
HAPPY TRAILS—Magazine journalist Phyllis Van
Doren is not shy and retiring, but last week she did retire from her day job,
one she’s held for the past 35-years at San
Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles. Recently,
the staff of the slick 36-year-old shelter publication tossed a hail and
farewell luncheon at the newly redesigned Oceana restaurant at the sunny
Catamaran Resort on Mission Bay.
Publisher Mark McKinnon gladly picked up the check.
Phyllis Kessel a.k.a. Phyllis Van Doren |
They came up with enough so everyone
seated around the table could read one ‘graf in Phyllis’ honor.
When asked what she planned post
deadlines: “I’m going to rest. Do some
traveling: Enjoy Paris, San Francisco, Upstate New York and where ever.
“And in between I’m going to work on
a website about my husband (the late, great jazz guitarist Barney Kessel),
where readers can share his legacy and music (on CDs).”
Whatever she chooses to do we will
take for granted that she will do it with style, creativity and elan. We will miss the sophistication of her
writing in the magazine but take comfort that she is busy designing her well
earned retirement.
As soon as her Barney site is up, we
will post it.
In the meanwhile, enjoy a few design
riffs by the Dean of Design Journalists on the West Coast:
Standing Strong
Some
might call the architectural brutal. It
is certainly direct and dramatic. The
front of the house juts its jaw out in defiance of the elements. The ocean is tough here. Architect Ken Kellogg is apparently daring
nature to knock this house down.
Life After Paris
A
Bankers Hill cottage of flowers and France: Vintage sounds of concertina and
plaintiff French lyrics waft through the jacaranda-shaded house and out into
the brick-paved courtyard. The faded
barn-red exterior of the 1920s coach house where Hank and Lois Mathews live
gives no hint of the memento-filled interiors with. The voices of Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour,
Jacques Brel and Juliette Greco coming from a CD player are perfect counterpart
to rooms overflowing with French antiques, blue-and-yellow Provencal fabrics
and collections of china.
Art in the Pines
The
air was crisp and clear, the meadows succulent with new green growth after the
rains, and the distant hills and mountains seemed to have been dipped in
indigo.
Happy Days
With
her masses of blonde hair piled high, comfortable in the tie-dyed or hand-woven
flowing skirts, coats and lots of beads, Carol Martin exudes creativity and
charm. She’s an original, sort of Lady
Ottline Morrell meets ‘70s funk and flash.
California Dreamin’
Or
is design going to be lost in translation along with Bill Murray? A White Christmas—unlike the ones you used to
know despite being snow-deprived, San Diegans can, on occasion, dream our
December into a blanket of white.
Ode to Coronado
When
elegance ruled Coronado princes called, mansions sparkled, and the Spreckles’
house saw it all: In 1888, the Hotel Del
Coronado was like a magnet pulling in the sporty and well-heeled. Elisha Babcock stood at the bow of a small
rowboat, legs braced against the chop of San Diego Bay, ready to jump ashore on
a low dune—grass—whiskered spit called the Peninsula. At the oars, H.L. Story looked back on a
young New Town acros the bay somewhat obscured by the smoke of cooking fires
curling from stovepipes.
Design Riffs
I
took a week’s sweep
through the perennial
verdure, Greek Revival
architecture and Finger
Lakes of western
New York before
fall painted the trees
in high color.
Enduring Class
Antiques
Roadshow is more than 30 years old and though television is overrun with pawn
porn, picker slickers and the less discerning, heirloom antique are more
precious than ever and mix so well with the new.
Fall Fashion
Like
the political season it’s running with, fall fashion 2012 is downright sassy
and outspoken. Remembering for me,
December is a month of dreams and memories.
Many of them rise, and then disappear like a puff of smoke from a
childhood long past.
Homes of the Year
The
somewhat vertical ascent up Mount Helix to this Home of the Year, owned by
Susan an Lawrence McIntosh, feels a little like a trek up K2 without the ice.
Artistic Spirits
At
home with arts patrons Maurice and Charmaine Kaplan they dine with Nakashima
and Anderson, sit by the fire on Newman and contemplate Henry Moore. They didn’t move to San Diego until 1985, but
it is hard to know how we ever managed without them.
Imagemaker
Over
the ages the camera has been thought to capture a person’s soul. In his own way photographer Tim Mantoani
captures the soul of photography itself.
Chris Puzio
Tables
and walls in the Barrio Logan live/work studio where he dreams his designs are
filled with the miniaatures of his invention.
You can almost feel how the sharp geometric shapes and cellular ovals
and circles, multiplied hundreds or thousands of times, breathe life into the
organic whole of a shape yet to be built.
C’est Le Chateau
It
was to become a place where dreams are stored.
SPEAKING OF STYLE
The New Yorker editor David Remnick reminds The New Yorker’s biannual Style Issue is
appearing this week. The venerable
weekly takes a look back at the magazine’s history of fashion writing starting
in 1994.
In that inaugural issue Adam Gopnik
considered the question of why fashion matters. There’s money to be made, of
course, but Adam decided that, in large part, fashion matters because it’s fun.
“Pleasure is the one product always worth buying,” he wrote. Other style shapers over the years are once
again published this week are Janet Malcolm, Nick Paumgarten, Judith Thurman,
John Colapinto, and others. All get
close to some of fashion’s foremost practitioners, and reveal its conscientious
capriciousness as a serious business.
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