Dovecote Decor's Most Popular Posts of All Time

Happy New Year!! While we take time in the New Year to make resolutions and choose direction, we also reflect upon highlights of the past. So.... looking back on the blog, here is a round-up of our most popular posts of all time. Thanks to the magic of Pinterest, these are the articles that get pinged with delightful regularity.

#1:Fashion and Decor Boldly Collide - Equestrian Style endures

By Liz Morten 

and Christine Storch

#2: Bobby McAlpine: A Sense of Place

#3  Nieuw Neo Georgian! Ruard Veltman's Mountain Masterpiece

House Beautiful has a fantastic spread on this beautiful mountain retreat in the April issue. We posted this article in August of 2010 and thought you would enjoy our thoughts on the subject as well.
Ruard Veltman collaborated with my friend "Mrs. G.," creating a spectacular home for her family of 6 in the English country vernacular of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens:  "Sir Edwin, father of  neo-Georgian architecture, please meet Dutch born, Ruard Veltman, of nieuw-neo-Georgian architecture!"

#4: Devotion: The Country Farm Estate of Blitz and Dick Reynolds

As many of you know, I live across the street from the Historic Reynolda House Museum, Gardens and village. Our pastoral, small city is highly cultural and well preserved greatly, by the perseverance and generosity of the Reynolds family. I noted in my last post, on the Reynolda Estate,  that R. J. Reynolds was a highly progressive thinker who married an educated and energetic wife, to whom he accorded a great amount of personal autonomy. The estate was purchased in her name and Kate had full control over the vision, execution and management of this self sufficient enterprise--in 1917.  R.J. Reynolds died soon after the house was completed, which was a terrible loss.

#5:  Old Long Island Estates: A surviving James W. O'Connor Playhouse

Long Island is famous for its Gilded Age Estates, immortalized by F. Scott Fitzgerald and chronicled, with vigilance by Zach L. in his blog Old Long Island.  The American Country house movement was propelled by the tremendous fortunes earned in steel, railroads, shipping, coal and oil. Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Phipps, Morgans, Pratts, Graces and Hearsts, to mention a few, erected spectacular weekend estates in Nassau County as private country clubs. Palatial homes in every idiom sprouted with architectural stables, polo fields, and Playhouses. Architect James W. O'Connor  cornered the Playhouse market. A Playhouse is a separate house, containing an indoor tennis court, occasionally a swimming pool, guest rooms, and a large gathering living room overlooking the tennis courts. This Playhouse survives today, and is one of the few private Playhouses remaining in the country.

#6: 17th and 18th Century Prints Leap from Old Volumes onto Lamps, Furniture and Fabrics

#7: Luther Lashmit's Adamsleigh: The Junior League of Greensboro and Traditional Home's Showcase House April 2013

 #8: Glorious Palm Beach and Shopping the Dixie Highway

I have been following fellow blogger, Jane Schott of Empress of the Eye, since she had her Fortuny pillow giveaway. I'm still sulking, since I was not the winner, but I've gained a bird's eye view into, literally, some of the best shopping in America. Jane is The Dixie Highway Chick, no question. Like High Point, it is a great jumble of shops and junk with some serious steals, but... you need to know where you are going. Jane knows.

#9:  High Point Market at Hickory Chair with Alexa Hampton--Video Tutorial

We have been saving the highlights from last April market to get everyone geared up for October! Watch our video of the always inspirational Hickory Chair space and listen to Alexa Hampton's take on the importance of scale in furniture selection.  We are touring with Pat Bassett who has taught me every thing I've ever needed to know about shopping High Point. 

#10: "A" List Design Destinations in L.A.: Hutton Wilkinson's Casa Contessa

The Bloggers conference was a glorious excuse to visit L.A. at the end of February. Daughter number 2 and I arrived early to see some of our favorite haunts.  The highlight was visiting Hutton and Ruth Wilkinson's new masterful Hollywood Regency Palazzo, Casa Contessa. It is next door to Tony Duquette's iconic Dawn Ridge which Hutton uses as a design studio for his fabulous jewels and his HSN reproductions.

A fantastical chandelier floats down the stairwell beneath the skylight at the roof level, like a magical underwater creature. This shot is actually looking down the stairs and the skylight is reflected in the high sheen of the floors.

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17th and 18th Century Prints Leap from Old Volumes onto Lamps, Furniture and Fabrics

I have been following Susan Carson for over 20 years in her various showroom locations in High Point, N.C. She is a welcoming, smiling pixie of a woman with a great sense of humor and vibrant energy. There is decoupage and then there is Susan's unique and evolving take on this art form. Starting with lamps, graduating to furniture, and textiles, Susan's vast collection of 17th and 18th century prints have recombined in delightful patterns that always look fresh. Chipmunks, caterpillars, frogs, turtles, leaves and acorns all magically assemble within patterns of plump, majolica looking begonia leaves or other forms to create a wonderful woodland scene.

Susan Carson's lamps styles extend across geographical boundaries and styles. There are playful country house combinations, side by side with luminous, more formal lighting that look as elegant as a hand painted Herend lamp, but for me, so much warmer.  They have an organic look, with lots of movement. I feel like these little creatures might start swirling around like the paintings in Harry Potter.

Brilliantly, in this modern day and age, Susan Carson is able to create custom pieces for her collectors employing the cottage industry tradition. Artisans work from home (in America) adapting prototypes, for custom requests. A painstaking process of choosing themes and styles takes place, as Susan scans and trims each image from her collection and assembles them with attention to scale and balance. This process takes 25-30 hours for each style lamp. Naturally, the adaptation from the original design takes less time. I always say: "More fat bees please!" 

Slowly,  Susan layers the images, waiting for the glue to dry completely between each strata, then she paints, 2 coats per day, for a total of 6-8 coats depending on the color. She looks for images that seem "happy" with one another.

The epiphany of the furniture transition created the most beautiful card table I have ever seen--anywhere. Absolutely, there is no other artist with as sophisticated a grasp of this common art form. 

I love the motion of the fluttering leaves, punctuated with marvelous beetles, moths and assorted hardwoods. 

The legs and apron on this exquisit gathering table can be adapted in several ways. Multiple color bases and themes are as infinite as your imagination. Our family loves the pieces we have collected from Susan over the years--our happy collaborations.

Custom work and artistic magic take time, but it is well worth the wait for a carefully selected piece that add to the vocabulary, and language, that characterize the well designed room. Susan Carson's designs add sentences, paragraphs and pages, in my opinion. Here are a few more images of 

Susan's incredible exploration of her craft. 

You could go Palm Beach, or Hollywood Regency with a twist

Lately, digital technology and this old time "poor man's craft" merged, creating Carson Designs new textile line. The process involves scanning high resolution prints into the computer, digitally cutting the selected little bugs, acorns, leaves, flowers or fruits depending on the theme. Susan draws out the spacial arrangement of the pattern and scale to breathtaking results.

These whimsical scarves sell from $240.00-$300.00 retail. I, for one, would spend an extra $300.00 for a frame and hang it on my wall. Sharp, contemporary, and traditional, this fantastic design reminds us that we really have not seen it all. 

Lizards, and dragonflies, and weeds--Oh My! This singular pattern and design appears to have no repeat, while the decoupage concept applied to fabric is completely unique. Beautiful in mountain houses, or country cousins, we await images of sofa's, chairs and drapes to see what designers create with this fresh, new idea.