La Ronda UPDATE

The hearing of the local commission is on Wednesday, June 3rd at 6:30PM in the Lower Merion Township Building on Lancaster Avenue to decide the counties' stand on the demolition of the Addison Mizner designed mansion. Please attend and show your support if you are in the Philadelphia area!

http://www.lowermerion.org/index.aspx?recordid=1671&page=51

Save La Ronda!

Recently while reading the Elements of Style blog I came across the plea to save La Ronda. I have to admit I had no idea what La Ronda was, but I instantly recognized the building as one that was designed by Addison Mizner, the famous architect, as his last commission in 1929. The current owners, who wisely are remaining anonymous (trust me, they'd be getting numerous phone calls and emails from me otherwise!) wish to tear down this architectural treasure for something slightly smaller, more modern and 'with air conditioning'. Seriously - tear down a gem so you can get something as basic as air conditioning. With a little ingenuity and a good architect & mechanical engineer you could have AC anyway. NEWS FLASH -that is not an excuse to tear this place down. And I have to ask -why did you buy it in the first place?

image courtesy of 'road less trvled' on flickr.com

Admittedly the house is immense, measuring in at 14,000 sf and at one time had 27 servants to tend to it. That can't be easy to take care of I'm sure- but look at what you're taking care of!The house is filled with beautiful details that are painstaking to reproduce and rarely are. The house was $3,000,000 to build back in the 20s (more than what the current owner paid for it) -imagine what it would cost today? Tear it down? What?!

A grass roots effort has started to save the mansion through their local conservancy group, Lower Merion Conservancy and a cause that I support annually, The National Trust for Historic Preservation. I'll let you know if something comes through that we can help save this place. Currently it looks like the only way to save it is for a conservation minded purchaser to step forward. I've contacted numerous members of the local commission and they all say any buyer who intends to keep the mansion intact has their full support. The current owner paid only $2.5 million for the mansion, how much do you think it will take to make them release it from their deadly grasp?

Watch a video that sums up the mansions plight nicely HERE.

Learn more about Addison Mizner HERE

Images where not credited are from the Philly.com article which you can read HERE.

Save our Urban Centers!

While reading this months Preservation magazine (magazine of the national trust for historic presevation) I came across a plea to save a bank by Louis Sullivan (whom I've blogged about recently here). Of course, Sullivan is a great architect. He was a key innovator in the modern movement and was mentor to such great architects as Frank Lloyd Wright and generations of students. However, I think this is bigger than just this one bank and I'm really upset! Of course, I'm going to blog about my feelings on the matter and I hope you take the time to read this unusually wordy post from me!

Our nation's cities were decimated by city planners in the 50s-70s. They are only now beginning to regain a little strengh and the sense of place they once had thanks to preservation efforts. The powers that be in Cedar Rapids, Iowa are planning on destroying what is left of their historic urban center as well as a NATIONAL ARCHITECTURAL TREASURE in a strategy they feel is a cost effective way to combat nature (building levees).

One of the fundamentals of urban planning is to work with what the land is giving you, in many cases to the advantage of the city! Look at places who have prominently featured rivers and waterways in their recent revitalizations: Chicago, Austin, Pittsburgh, Providence and others are feeling the benefits of creative solutions. Older cities that are based on water management also prove to be popular and successful: Stockholm and Vienna as examples. What do we know about levees? Well...look at how well they worked in New Orleans. Is that a long term or even a creative solution?

So much good work has been happening in the past 20 years to save our nation's architectural heritage as well as our urban cores; to let Cedar Rapids continue on this OUTDATED path of destruction is monstrous. PLEASE join with me and sign the petition to make city planners of Cedar Rapids, Iowa consider alternative ways to manage flood waters and save their urban core! Sign the petition online HERE, I have!

Thanks to Hello Beautiful blog and Fred Camper for letting me use the photographs of the bank.

When ugly things happen to pretty people

Lets talk, Nicole Kidman. You're one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. Why are you doing this to yourself? While pregnant, you stopped your 'treatments' and you were back to your old self; you even gained a few much-needed pounds. So why?? I'm one of your biggest supporters but if this is the train wreck we're headed towards - I'M OUT!
PS if you don't know what I'm talking about -look towards the mouth region.

Blackle

Did you know Google has a homepage with a black background?

http://www.blackle.com/

A black background saves a lot of energy rather than a white background but is also easier on the eyes (especially when your eyes are accustomed to the black screen in CAD)! I used black as the background here on my blog because I think it makes photos pop more but now this is definitely a good reason to switch over elsewhere! I just changed my computer's homepage from google to blackle!!

Check it out!

Trash

Yes, this is the outside face of a landfill. Puente Hills

So today I'm taking a break from the 'pretty' and talking about the Important (notice, capital 'I'!!). I read this really interesting article about where our trash goes after we dispose of it and the ramifications of our trash-based society (oh, thats a broad statement in so many ways!). In the May 2008 issue of GQ was an important article entitled 'This is paradise' about one of the largest trash dumps in the country in CA, Puente Hills.

The inside face of Puente Hills after a day's work has been covered with 12" of dirt

The process is incredibly complex and sophisticated. There are trash engineers out there who are passionate about their craft and are interested in the entire cycle of life and how our trash fits into that. These are SMART guys - at one point in the article someone mentions how our politicians should be coming from trash engineering (that would probably be an improvement)! All the gasses and juices released from the landfills (eww!) are being turned into electricity at these more sophisticated sites. The circle of life is continued.

the 5 steps of trash

I won't transcribe the entire article here (but it's definitely worth a read and i've linked to it below) but I think the important issue here is that every single thing that you get rid of without thought, takes many many people to get 'put away' and a lot of energy and SPACE. But the thing is - it NEVER goes away. It's there forever. So much of this waste can be recycled or more efficiently even, reused! So next time you throw something away, think twice. Can it be donated, recycled, resused in another way? And next time you're at the store, do you need a bag? Can you carry it or resuse a bag? Do you really need to put a plastic bag around those apples at the store? Do you need that twisty tie; and if you do can you reuse it later?

Here is 'Big Mike' -one of the characters interviewed in the article. A day's worth of trash at this ONE site is so enormous, you can't even imagine. Waste, Waste, Waste!

Read the entire article online HERE. I also have scanned the article into a pdf, please email me if you would like a copy of it.

Doris Duke Gardens at Duke Farm

I first heard about the demise of Doris Duke's indoor greenhouse at Duke Farms in NJ from Aesthete's Lament a few weeks ago when he blogged about 'paradise lost' -since then it has been written up by many different areas in the press and getting a lot of negative attention. The trustees have decided to tear down these greenhouses which housed her international gardens that she worked long and hard on for years because they are energy guzzlers (supposedly) and they want to create a model of ecological conservation and sustainable environmental practices at Duke Farms. From what I understand -she left this farm in memorium to her father to be used as a sort of horticultural workshop in trust to a board of trustees. They are taking this mission and sort of changing how the farm started out. Is change a bad thing?I have very mixed feelings about this. While I am saddened by the loss of these fantastic gardens and their place in history, the creation of this new ecological conservatorium if done correctly will bring a lot of good to the field of ecology.

Doris Duke

This brings out the larger question: where does history stop and research continue. Should places such as Duke Farms be frozen in time or become living / breathing / changing places. Museums after their foundation constantly expand their collections and put additions onto their spaces; occasionally even move the collection. What was Doris's intent upon creating Duke Farms? This is where the contention starts. It's a shame some sort of compromise can't be reached -such as keeping this building complex and turning the remaining acreage into the model of ecological conservation and sustainable environmental practices that the trustees invision. In the future -will generations bemoan that the greenhouses were torn down, or will they find that what has replaced them more useful and important? That is hard to know. Back in the day when Pennsylvania Station in NYC was torn down (a big kick start for historic preservation) many people were opposed to the tearing down of that beautiful structure and still miss it to this day. The current Penn. Station is hideous and not even functional. Will the same fate be true for Duke Gardens? Or will whatever is coming next be so important that we will not even remember Doris's gardens....only time will tell.

Judge for yourself and read more about it online HERE, HERE, or HERE.

Mrs. Meyers

This weekend while doing some shopping I noticed that Target has started to carry Mrs. Meyer's products! If you're not familiar with them - the company produces all natural and aromatheraupic ( is that a word?) cleaning products. You can be green, health conscious and help your nose as well! I already love washing dishes, but this geranium dish soap makes it even BETTER!
My 2 favorite scents are geranium and lavendar. I know, geranium doesn't sound like it would smell good -but it DOES! Target is still light on different 'flavors' and had mostly lemon verbena (which I do NOT like!) but I was able to get some laundry detergent in lavendar. In the past I was getting Mrs. Meyer's products at whole foods which carries a very large variety of products and scents. They also come with great packaging so you're not stuck looking at an ulgy box or bottle. I think Martha would approve!!

The mount continues

Curators are still desperately trying to save 'the mount' from foreclosure. I've made my contribution, have you? It's tax deductible AND they only will take your money after your pledge if they raise enough to save it.

I loved this image of a hidden door from the husband's study into the wife's study.

Read the entire article about the house and why it is important here at Slate. Via Stylecourt.

Old school glamour

Do you know what I miss? Glamour I'm talking 1930 -1940's movie glamour. We know that it's made a comback in interiors (hollywood regency, mirrored furniture, Miles Redd ) but what about in personal style? Even movie stars go to walmart in flipflops and baggy sweatpants. You never saw Grace Kelly or Fred Astaire go ANYWHERE in either of those items ( and I'm sure they'd prefer Target to Walmart anyway! ).
That is why I love Dita Von Tease. She may be the burlesque queen but she has STYLE in spades, even while stripping I'm sure. Just to prove my point, these are pictures of her out and about -some candid shots and some from special events. Total knock-out, knock-down GLAMOUR ( I'm not screaming, it just deserves all CAPS ). You just know she has a beautiful mirror-encrusted decadent bathroom ala. Miles Redd and a huge paneled walk in closet.

Maybe we don't all need to walk around totally 'done' -but no more grubbiness ok, take some time with your appearance! Life is too short to be so ugly!

If Dita is too old-fashioned for you - we'll always have Posh!