In a winter scene in a city garden, Jon's plum-and-green garden house is quite handsome

Seattle’s historic Georgetown settlement isn’t really known for being a residential neighborhood, but rather for the fact that a freeway runs through it, a bunch of warehouses populate its main streets and – oh yeah, if you look really close, there are a few pretty amazing lanes where Early Seattle architecture still stands.

Behind one of these cottages is an irresistible gentleman’s oasis, its exterior painted dark plum with pine-needle green trim. It has a comforting hip roof overhead, on top of which is a decidedly non-urban weather vane.

Jon Dove, the gentlemanly owner of this garden house, is an estate gardener and talented plantsman who grew up in Georgetown as a kid and found that as a grownup, he didn’t want to leave. Jon has restored and revived a 1905 cottage-style farmhouse here, planting a voluptuous, beautiful tangle of a garden in front, on the side, and in the back.

I first met Jon through Jean Zaputil, my good friend and garden muse. They had volunteered at the Washington Park Arboretum display at one of the flower shows and found they were kindred spirits. One July, many years ago, Jean and I went on the Georgetown Art & Garden Walk – a walking tour put on by the neighbors rather than one of those fancy affairs with shuttle buses.

We stopped by Jon’s to visit his postage-stamp-sized garden filled with perennials and shrubs as tall as me. Glorious! Around back, a one-car garage occupied a too-important chunk of space, similar to the way my husband’s baby grand piano occupies a too-important chunk of our living room. (It’s there, it’s nice to look at, but it’s in the way.)

Jon Dove, showing off his old-new garden house

An Old-New Shed

Here’s how I returned to Georgetown to discover Mr. Dove’s Delightful Garden House.

Daniel Mount, another gentleman gardener (and a superb, dreamy writer, too – check out his blog), invited me to have tea when I came to Seattle. This was going to be tough, due to my schedule. But Daniel dangled the carrot from a stick: “We could meet at Jon’s – I want you to see his new shed.”

Oh, Daniel. You definitely know how to tempt a shed aficionado like me!

So after finishing up a photo shoot with David Perry (for our new book project – more on that later), and before joining my friend Jan Hendrickson for a lovely dinner, I made my way down I-5 to Georgetown. Jean was supposed to join me, but since she had just logged six or seven hours helping us as a stylist for the aforementioned photo shoot, she needed to take a pass. Of course, since she lives in Seattle, she can go see Jon anytime.

A work-in-progress photo, courtesy of Jon. This shot illustrates how the carpenter cut away the side of the garage to create a covered porch

Jon says it started to bug him that the useless garage was taking up a chunk of space otherwise deserving of something more attractive. As is the case with many people (I should know – I live in California where it happens for everyone), the garage was just a repository for stuff. After not looking at or using that stuff for a decade or so, Jon wondered if he really needed it after all. Voila! Out with the junk, in with the garden antiques.

To get there, Jon sketched out a new floor plan for the squarish building. He intelligently carved three useful spaces out of the 20-by-20 foot structure. Its back section is separated by a wall (and door) to a long, narrow area for bicycle storage, garden supplies and tools.

The original sliding garage door opens to the alley, so this application was a perfect way to leave the utilitarian stuff facing away from the garden.

Left with about three-quarters of the footprint to work with, Jon then sliced that space into two sections – one larger, which becomes the main interior room; and one smaller, which is the corner that juts into the garden.

Finished with a brick floor and fanciful bracket-trim, it's a sheltered spot to sit in any weather.

He worked with a carpenter-friend to cut away an exterior side opening and “doorway” in that corner, essentially creating a covered porch. It is now carpeted with a pattern of recycled brick, set in sand.

By adding decorative corbels to the upper corners of the two openings, the space feels like a grand porch beneath an overhanging roof. “I wanted to be able to sit outside even when it rains,” Jon says. Cozy, comfortable, thoroughly delightful.

Now we shall step into the inner sanctum, through the French doors and into the room where tea was promised. A glance at Daniel’s face revealed that he had a secret I didn’t know quite yet. Inside, I understood why he was grinning. I forgot about the promise of tea and drank in the decorative sitting room.

Jon is a scavenger, like many of us. He found large, divided-paned doors to enlarge a tiny window space into a picture window. In the winter, it’s nice to see the bones of the garden revealed. What stands out is a graceful, curved metal bench, its lines echoed in the arched canes of chalk-white ghost bramble (possibly Rubus thibetanus).

A peek inside: Elegant, refined, inviting

Jon used plywood to cover the floor and then sealed the inexpensive material with clear, water-based semi-gloss Verithane. The light colored wood floor contrasts nicely with the dark, stripped-down ceiling beam (original to the garage).

An oversized vintage brass lantern hangs at the peak of the room, dominating the scene in a very pleasing manner. Because of the ceiling’s volume (I’m guessing it’s approximately 10-feet tall at its peak), there was plenty of space for Jon’s carpenter to add an upper ledge where birdhouses are now displayed.

Against one of the two solid walls is a garden bench painted pea green. Daniel somehow obtained the bench from the set of a Chekhof play and brought it here as a gift for Jon. The three of us started dreaming about moving the bench to the covered area outdoors so as to make room for a daybed. But then, maybe not, because everyone who visits Jon will yearn to nap in this garden house (me included).

UPDATE: Jon sent me this note last night. . . reading it put a smile on my face:

Oh Debra, I forgot to mention after your visit, I moved the bench from inside the Garden House to the porch. I then moved the my guest bed to the Garden House, I spent a night out there, was cozy. Looking forward to spending summers there. You’re a whirlwind of great inspiration.

 

Again, thank you!

 

Jon

Above the bench is a fantastic objet – a cast iron circle that measures about 48 inches across. There’s a mirror at the center, which reflects the garden’s foliage and flowers into the room. Turns out, the scrappy piece of metal was once the base of a stove that Jon took out of his home when he modernized it. He saved it – for no inexplicable reason other than it was strangely shaped and interesting – and, voila! Now it’s this dramatic wall detail. Ironically, an old mirror from a vanity or hutch fit perfectly into its center.

I'm glad Jon hung onto this until he found a perfect use for the cast iron circle, cum mirror frame.

It’s amazing how many great design ideas reside inside a few hundred square feet, including some recycled toile ceiling-to-floor draperies that Jon inherited from friends. They add style, warmth and privacy when pulled across the French doors. I’ll let my photos show you some of the other nice details Jon has added.

Jon says he spent around $5,000 to $6,000 for construction (labor and materials) and about $2,000 to have the garden house painted. To me, it seems like a great investment that adds a whole lot of character, interest and function to his urban garden.

Finally, I couldn’t take my eyes off of his collection of architectural miniatures that fill an old canning cabinet. The cabinet is ancient, dating back to the very first settlers in Georgetown. The Horton family platted Georgetown in the 1870s. A friend of Jon’s rescued the wood cabinet from a home once owned by the Horton daughter. The square-head nails hint at its pedigree.

The shelves are filled with tiny wooden buildings that Jon cuts from scraps and covers with beautiful, intricately painted details in black – windows and doors, of course; but also molding, corbels, cornices, all rendered with tiny brush strokes.

Here are some close-up details of his whimsical, wonderful miniatures.

A Woolly Pocket wall of succulents adorns the retail shop at Descanso Gardens near Pasadena

Designed in Los Angeles, fabricated in Kansas, and soon to hang on a wall near you, the Woolly Pocket is a soft-sided planting envelope that makes it possible to have a lush wall of vegetation without having to hire a structural engineer.

Vertical gardening is all the rage, so here’s a way to bring plants into your home (indoors or out) with a breathable fabric container that is easy to hang and maintain.

Fill the 15 x 24 inch pocket with a little potting soil, plant it with lush greenery and allow the vines or foliage to spill over the top edge. Combine multiple pockets to create a living wall as is shown in these photographs.

WHAT IS THE WOOLLY POCKET?

Miguel shows off a 5-pocket Woolly planter

I met designer Miguel Nelson at his studio in Culver City earlier this week and took a tour of Smog Shoppe, his event space where the Woolly Pocket was created.

Miguel was trained as a sculptor, but he obviously thinks about sculpture in a completely different way than artists whose work stands on a pedestal in the garden or in the foyer of a home.

The type of sculpture Miguel conjures is an entire building and outdoor courtyard that contains green events. He and Sherry Walsh, his wife, retrofitted an unsightly garage used to do emissions tests on cars (thus, the clever Smog Shoppe name).

The analagous blue-green plant palette nearly covers the exterior of Nelson's Smog Shoppe event space in Los Angeles

Used for private and corporate events, the warehouse-y space needed to be softened up. And so Miguel and his brother Rodney created huge wall-hangings with pockets and stuffed them with succulents, tropicals and other plants that cascade and drape. The hangings look like those large shoe-organizer pocket panels, but are oh-so-much more elegant.

Over two year’s time, the plants have thrived, nearly obscuring the concrete block walls and the black wool pockets. Once partygoers started asking if they could buy the planting system for their own homes and gardens, Woolly Pockets was born.

A detail shot reveals how happy these plants look

Instead of wool felt like the original system, Miguel and Rodney now use an industrial-strength USA-made felt from recycled plastic bottles (it is available in chocolate brown, black and cream – with a promise for more colors in the future). The pockets have a built-in moisture barrier that allows the plants to breathe while keeping moisture off your walls or floors.

The blogosphere and a few design magazines have discovered Woolly Pockets, which are priced at $49 for a single. Multiples range from $125 (3-pocket, 68 inches) to $188 (5-pocket, 112 inches).

Miguel’s eco-publicist, Corey Scholibo, is convinced that this green gardening solution will capture the imaginations of non-gardeners. It is a cool interior design application that is at the same time retro (think indoor plants of the 1970s) and futuristic (plants will save the planet!).

“You can now garden any time, anywhere, with little or no skill,” Corey says.

Interior walls of the courtyard are planted top-to-bottom

The team is inventing all sorts of new iterations of the Woolly Pocket. There is a Vagabond, which I wrote about last month for LA At Home (think “Garden Container meets Handbag”) and at this weekend’s Accent on Design in New York, Miguel will introduce a 5-sided wee-woolly tabletop planter and a gorgeous, free-standing 6-, 8- or 10-sided planter that has zippered sides so you can unzip sections to accommodate sculptural tree branches poking out. Those items appear to be ideal for the interior space and are a lot more attractive than some of the plastic, clay or faux planters I see hanging around garden centers.

You can mostly find Woolly Pockets online, but Miguel expects to sell through several retail channels by later this year.

“I see all these amazing living wall installations in public spaces,” he points out. “But you never read about a vertical garden you could have yourself. Now, even with just one Woolly Pocket, you can grow plants on your wall.”
With a cluster of them, arranged like a giant patchwork quilt, pretty soon you can have your own living, green wall.

I have four dark-brown Woolly Pockets to try out and I’ll report back soon on how they are doing. I’m going to hang them outside to try and mask some of that ho-hum tan stucco we’re so lucky to have here in SoCal.

In a setting of snow on the last day of 2009, the Phipps Conservatory makes a grand statement

An amazing garden under glass, The Phipps Conservatory is a delightful destination in the heart of urban Pittsburgh.

I visited last week when the outdoor daytime weather averaged 20-degrees Fahrenheit.

But once we walked indoors, of course, the “season” changed. Blooms more likely to be seen in my Los Angeles backyard were thriving in the conservatory’s dozen-plus “rooms,” including the tropical-like Palm Court, Fern Room, Orchid room and Sunken Garden.

The Desert Room looked oh-so-familiar to me, with agaves, aoeniums, aloes and opuntias poking through the sand-colored gravel floor.

This was a new combination to me: Ti plants (Cordyline sp.) with Poinsettia

I visited on New Year’s Eve day and was delighted to learn that the Phipps actually remains open until 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, welcoming those more interested in a serene, candlelit celebration than louder festivities.

Right now, many of the plant displays here are dotted with glass sculptures by an artist named Hans Godo Frabel, who is know for his “realistic and otherworldly glass figures.”

Chihuly's brilliant chandelier in mimosa yellow hangs from the ceiling of the new entry

Glass of a different sort was presented here in the past – the Dale Chihuly sort – and a few of his pieces remain in the permanent collection, which my photos show here.

My son Alex, who is 12, was very intrigued by Frabel’s alienlike glass creatures, as well as by his realistic glass flowers and salamanders. We took lots of “alien” photos.

One of the eery glass aliens by Hans Godo Frabel

Fortunately, these disparate works of art were grouped together to present little stories in distinct wings of the conservatory. Otherwise I would have been completely confused.

In the 2000 book Crystal Palaces: Garden Conservatories of the United States, Anne S. Cunningham profiled the remaining major glass gardens. She wrote:

“Phipps Conservatory is a reminder of Pittsburg’s greatness in the time when Andrew Carnegie and Henry Phipps helped transform the American landscape with steel, steam engines, and civic philanthropy. Among his many contributions, Phipps (1839-1930) gave the city a conservatory “for public instruction and pleasure” in the newly developed Schenley Park.

When it was built, the Phipps Conservatory was the largest of its kind in the country. The shimmering Romanesque-style edifice made of steel, cypress, stone and glass reached 64 ft. tall and covered more than 43,000 square feet. It was originally filled with plants chosen at the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago. Writes Cunningham: “. . . the entire tropical plant display was shipped by train across the Midwest in time for the debut of the conservatory.”

From the height of fame to unfortunate neglect, this place barely survived subsequent decades. Sadly, the glorious conservatory fell into disrepair during the Depression. According to Cunningham: “by the 1930s, rats and weeds competed for space; a savage storm in 1937 damaged the big glasshouse and destroyed the greenhouses in back. By 1940, WPA crews had reconstructed the production houses, but the conservatory continued to suffer from natural deterioration and inconsistent community support.”

The Phipps’s renaissance  came in 1993 when a private foundation purchased it and began to restore and revive the grand garden under glass. The Phipps seems to have come full circle with the 2009 highlight of hosting President and Mrs. Obama and the G-20 summit last September. The conservatory was the site of the opening dinner and reception for the world’s leaders. How wonderful that a garden was the backdrop for this powerful gathering.

The rebirth of this grand conservatory is indeed cause for celebration. Here are some impressions from our visit last Thursday:

Gourmet food, exotic tea blends and a library of design books fill the new Rolling Greens in Hollywood

Last Thursday, a vintage tire shop in the heart of Hollywood was the setting for a festive pre-opening bash thrown by Rolling Greens, its new tenant.

Designers, landscapers and horticulture fans gathered to sip, graze, explore (and shop!) at the hottest new garden emporium in Los Angeles. My editors at Garden Design magazine asked me to attend and check out the happenin’s.

Rolling Greens’ second location is the brainchild of owner Greg Salmeri and his colleague and creative director Angela Hicks. The original store in L.A.’s Culver City is a distinctive nursery, home and garden destination, formerly only for the trade, that opened to the public in 2004.

Tire dealer-turned-garden emporium, in a historic, weathered building that's full of character

For his new outlet, Salmeri snagged the lease on Town Tire Company, a weathered brick building that has been a Hollywood landmark at the corner of Beverly Blvd. and Gardner Ave. Built in 1930, the iconic structure was originally a food market and then in 1963 became a tire store.

“I’ve had my eye on the Town Tire Co. building for years and dreamed of opening Rolling Greens in this incredible space,” Salmeri says. “In this new location, we’ve expanded our offerings into home categories beyond what we offer at our Culver City location.”

Greg Salmeri

Salmeri and Hicks turned the tire shop’s unpolished attributes into appealing design elements for Rolling Greens. There are big metal garage doors that roll up to connect the indoor spaces with the fresh-air ones. The original concrete floor has been cleaned up and the exposed brick walls sandblasted. Once covered over, several huge glass doorways topped with half-circle transom windows have been exposed to invite sunshine into the 1,000-square-foot bed and bath department. The cash-wrap counters are clad in 19^th century pressed-tin ceiling tiles. The “color greenhouse” is a glass-and-steel dividing wall that encloses an area for indoor plants, including orchids and ferns. Panes of amethyst and bottle green glass replaced broken sections, creating a vintage greenhouse backdrop at the center of the store.

READ MORE…

Uncle Wilco, as he is depicted on his web site, We *Heart* Sheds (well, this was a holiday version from 2007)

Here’s some background about SHED OF THE YEAR and its creator Uncle Wilco, a cyber friend who lives in the UK in South Wales, and is the creator of We (Heart) Sheds and several other projects.  I was thrilled to discover that I was not alone on this quest for finding and documenting awesome backyard structures, that many kindred spirits existed on this globe to share my journey. Here is the original story I wrote about Uncle Wilco nearly two years ago. A memorable quote about his Shed of the Year contest:

. . . the British have a love affair with the shed, so really it’s just snowballed. I was lucky to do a few radio interviews. I got the impression they thought I was a nutter . . . ! But at least people realise that I have a passion for sheds, so that’s all that matters.

Imagine my surprise when Wilco asked me to join his illustrious team of judges to represent as the International Judge for the 2010 Shed of the Year competition! The event culminates with an announcement in early July, during National Shed Week, and I’m eager to participate. I’m hoping to get over to the UK to join the others, but at the very least, I will do my part on this end. I encourage any of my readers to submit photos and enter. That is all it takes!

Thought I’d kick things off by telling you a little more about the competition. In the words of Mr. Wilco himself:

Q. You started Shed of the Year in 2007, right? So you’ve had 3 winners!
What has surprised you most about the scope and diversity of sheds
around the globe?

Tony's Roman Temple took honors in the 2007 Shed of the Year contest

A. I have run readersheds since 2001  and thought it was time I should celebrate all these great sheds. So I started Shed of the Year. The last three winners have been very different: 1) A Roman Temple,  2) A Pub Shed, and 3) a Cabin. I look forward to shed of the year 2010 — it could be a workshop or studio or even a hut. That’s the thing — we don’t know until the public have voted and the judges have made their decisions for Shed Week 2010.

Q. Who does Sheds better, the UK shed aficionados or the North American ones?

A. Well, I am biased. UK sheds Rock- or should I say UK Sheddies rock. But you US sheddies have a different view on sheds. The UK history with sheds as mainly a man thing is very long and it’s the sheddies that make readersheds.co.uk

Q. Can you please describe “wossname” and how I can explain it to US readers?

A. I am not great with words , so I tend to fill in things I can’t think about with “wossname.” So it’s a term in the UK, like a thing or a “wotsit,” when you can’t think of the real word!

Here's where Uncle Wilco hangs out and enjoys his home brew

Q. If you had to spend your final days inside your own shed, what three essential items would you need to bring with you?

A. That’s very difficult. I would say family and friends and  my dog, but as for items it would have to be some home brew (beer).

Q. What kind of swag can I expect for being a Shed of the Year judge?

A. What, the glory of being a judge in the World’s most favourite Shed competition is not enough?

Q. How many entries have you had from North American shed owners (in past years)?

A. Well, it’s not just North American sheds. It’s International, too. We love sheddies from the Americas, Canada, Europe and Australia and New Zealand. You can view all the international sheds entries (199 of them to join the 1200 UK ones) here.

Q. What else do you want my readers to know?

A. That we are welcoming entries to Shed of the Year 2010 now and would love to have some more  Stylish Sheds added. All I ask is that the sheddies add a few good images — including external/internal shots. The more images the better, so the public can get a  good look.

Thanks so much Uncle Wilco – I will do my best to pump up the entries from the International contingent. See you soon.

Here’s a story that ran in the Los Angeles Times last month. It’s about a few of Stephanie Bartron’s projects to remake her clients’ ugly concrete patios into more attractive – and sustainable – backyard features. The best part of the story is learning how easy it is to turn this technique into a DIY project of your own. The LA Times also features an awesome in this photo gallery. Read on . . .

The basketball-court like patio has been repurposed by scoring and slicing 4-inch bands to create a grid pattern

If landscape designer Stephanie Bartron has her way, California’s sea of patio concrete is going to start shrinking.

When the Los Angeles landscape designer eyed her clients’ slab behind a 1940s Atwater Village bungalow, she knew the concrete had to go. New hardscape and plants would have done the trick, sure, but digging out all that paving was costly and, the the waste would just end up in the landfill.

So, Bartron took a different approach. She hired a professional industrial saw operator to slice up the 20-by-20 foot patio into a grid of 18-inch squares.

The result is a new focal point for the garden, resembling evenly-spaced pavers divided by 4-inch bands of grass. When it rains, the storm water percolates into the ground rather than streaming down the driveway and into the street. Little material was thrown away. But the biggest effect was aesthetic. The repurposed patio no longer resembles a basketball court, nor does it dominate the tiny lot.

A power saw with a diamond blade slices up a sea of concrete

“By cutting it up, I changed the scale of the concrete from a big slab into an attractive backyard feature,” the designer says.

While his two children play nearby, owner Caleb Dewart, a television producer, likes to lounge beneath the mature orange tree that Bartron saved.

“We’re really happy we didn’t have to tear this up and start over,” he says of the patio. “And we like using what we have rather than being wasteful.”

Bartron’s approach solves myriad design challenges, and the designer has artfully sliced up several ugly patios and driveways for clients. Environmentally conscious homeowners like reducing the waste associated with redesigning a landscape. Budget-conscious clients like getting a lot of bang for their buck.

The once-ugly carport slab is reinterpreted as a lovely courtyard and seating area designed by Stephanie Bartron

According to Kenny Grimm, sales manager for Oxnard-based Independent Concrete Cutting Inc., this kind of project requires an experienced operator to cut concrete with a diamond blade, 37-horsepower saw. Cost: $140 per hour, plus travel charges.

“We’re seeing more people re-use their existing material because recycling your paving is an affordable alternative to hauling it away,” he says. “You can get a lot of cutting done for around $1,000.”

For yoga instructor Lucy Bivins and cinematographer Eric Schmidt, Bartron recycled front-yard concrete into useful elements, including garden benches and a prominent water feature.

The couple inherited a gray slab when they purchased a Mt. Washington house designed by architect Barbara Bestor. The concrete had been installed by a previous owner as part of a carport, Bivins says. “It was very bleak and unattractive,” she says. “A real eyesore.”

At Bestor’s suggestion, she and Schmidt contacted Bartron for design help.

Narrow bands of concrete now form the edges of a modern koi pond and fountain

“We asked for shade trees, an outdoor gas fireplace and some type of fountain,” Schmidt says. “Stephanie turned the unused space into our outdoor living room, which in just a few years has been filled by a canopy of shade trees. It’s a favorite place to sit with our newborn son, Hugo, listen to the fountain and watch the trees move in the wind. It calms him down every night before bedtime.”

Used to working with old, cracked paving, Bartron was fascinated with the newer concrete. Four-inches thick and embedded with rebar, it covered 400 square feet between the street and her clients’ front door.

Coming up with a savvy design that created little waste was “like solving a big jigsaw puzzle,” the designer says. “This material was in great shape, but we wanted to turn one giant slab into many smaller elements for a bold and inviting garden space.”

Bartron chose a rectilinear motif to echo the architecture’s lines, slicing the patio into 1-1/2-by-4-foot sections. She layered the cut-out concrete in the form of an L-shaped seating area, the bench backed by a new, horizontal-plank fence. Narrower slices of concrete stacked four levels high form the edges of a contemporary fountain and koi pond. Cross sections reveal aggregate-like detailing when sanded smooth.

You can see the interesting texture in the cross-sections of cut concrete

Bartron left some of the concrete in place but carved away planting strips to accommodate low-growing, drought-tolerant dymondia, a silver groundcover. She also removed enough patio to create two large beds for Eastern redbud trees (Cercis canadensis), carex and fescue grasses, and New Zealand flax. Evenly-spaced concrete bands serve as a walkway from the front door and adjacent bubbling fountain to the L-shaped seating, which has a gas-piped steel fire bowl designed by New York artist Elena Colombo .

“It’s a very sexy entertaining space,” Bivins says. “Whenever we have people over, we end up around the fire bowl. There can be 10 of us here and it still feels intimate.”

She praises Bartron for coming up with a money-saving design that also enhances the architecture.

“It was very crafty of her,” she says. “She took our lemon and made lemonade.”

Cutting up the patio

Another view of the lush transformation of this garden

Want to slice up your patio? Landscape designer Stephanie Bartron says it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s possible to make small cuts using a power hand saw with a diamond blade, but you should take safety precautions such as wearing safety goggles and heavy gloves. Large-scale projects, such as the ones shown here, are best left to professional contractors.

Draw a map of your patio and think about where you want to place furniture. Table and chair legs need to be placed on an even surface, not in the spaces between concrete.

Dig along your patio to determine the concrete’s depth and the edge type (uniform or jagged). Newer concrete may be even, but old patios tend to be rough-edged. The type of edge may determine if or how the cut pieces may be repurposed.

While marking your pattern with chalk, note of any cracks, chips or score lines. If possible, tweak your design to eliminate these blemishes.

If the concrete is prone to cracking, Bartron suggests cutting it so the remaining pads are standard paver sizes (18- or 20-inch squares). “That way you can pull out a cracked section and install a replacement paver,” she says.

The stone steps of La Foce's terraced garden draw the eye upward, towards two large Italian cypresses

I’ve barely been home from Italy for 24 hours and despite jet lag, I am still alert enough to post my first report about the two week trip to Tuscany.

One of the most memorable days was our tour of La Foce, a Tuscan estate and garden with influences dating to the 15th century when the property was built as an Inn (“Osteria”) by the Hospital of S. Maria della Scala.  It is located in the town of Chianciano, about 30 minutes southeast of where we stayed in Montisi.

“Foce” (pronounced Foe-CHAY) means “opening” or “meeting place,” and its origins are traced to the Etruscans. The name refers to the osteria’s location as a stopping place where two prominent roads intersect. The roads were traveled by pilgrims, merchants and travelers who sought rest from their journeys at La Foce.

READ MORE…

Bauer Pottery Company, Los Angeles

Thanks to my friend Cristi Walden and her “Merry Band of L.A. Archivists,” Wednesday added up to a very big Design Adventure. It meant putting a few hundred miles on the Volvo, but that’s part of life here. And anyway, I have NPR and my catch-up calls to friends in Seattle (with a head-set – I’m safe) to keep me company.

We arrived at 11 a.m. in a dusty town waaaaay east of me. Down a vintage lane called Main Street, where stood an ancient wood-and-galvanized metal warehouse. I later learned it was once a citrus fruit-packing plant when communities like Redlands and Highland grew oranges for the rest of the U.S. (we’re talking late 19th century).

This is the worldwide headquarters of Bauer Pottery, the colorful, joy-inducing collection of dishes, bowls, platters and all kinds of awesome outdoor pottery pieces for the landscape (flowerpots, urns, orbs, bowls and much, much more). It was very hard not to hyperventilate.

Janek Boniecki, president of Bauer Pottery California, greeted us. He was incredibly gracious and spent two hours showing our group of five all that he has accomplished since purchasing the factory and reissueing hundreds of Bauer pieces for grateful folks like me.  Manufactured in California since 1910, the highly-collectible vintage Bauer pieces are hard to find and all but the most serious aficionados are starting to feel priced out of the market. Unless you’re a seasoned collector, it’s really hard to discern the difference between an original Bauer piece and one of Janek’s reissues unless you flip it over and look on the back. The words “Bauer California 2000” are stencilled on the bottom of each new piece.

Janek shows us the reissued Rebekah vase in Bauer crimson

Here’s a bit of history that Janek shared with us:

The Bauer Pottery Company of Los Angeles (1882-1962) started in Louisville, Kentucky, and then moved to LA, where it flourished. J.A. Bauer created simple, yet beautiful stoneware from the late 1880s to the early 1960s, with lines ranging from redware flowerpots to brilliantly colored dinnerware. Bauer Pottery was a staple in American homes for many decades.

Inspired by the weather and the lifestylesof Southern California, Bauer Pottery created many different lines for the home and garden. These new styles and rich colors were introduced soon after the Depression, and it wasn’t long before all the major pottery companies in the United States began to follow with their own interpretation of Bauer’s vision.

Today the work of J.A. Bauer has been reintroduced to the home by a ceramics studio based again in Los Angeles. Just minutes away from the site of the original plant, the new Bauer line is being reproduced using some of the original pieces and models, with an emphasis on items that were manufactured by Bauer during the 1930s and ’40s.

The broken rim and top portion of an original Bauer urn

"Ali Baba" jar, in satin white, inspired by Terry's broken urn

The story of how Janek saved Bauer begins in 1996 when he had a candle-making business. He was working in the film industry and wanted to start a business of his own.

“I started making candles in my basement – in a tiny, little 200-square-foot space,” he explains. Janek used colorful, inexpensive flowerpots to contain his candles. He ordered the pots from California Design Works in Highland, housed in the 36,000-square-foot fruit factory on historic Main Street, where Bauer now resides. 

According to Cristi’s friend Terry Freed (who was part of our group), he urged Janek to stop making pottery in Bauer colors and instead reissue the original designs. Terry used to own an L.A. shop called Fiesta Specialties. “Janek brought me a ceramic planter with a candle in it and I said, ‘forget the candle,’ make the pottery,” Terry says.

Janek shows how the stackable bowls can mix-and-match

Two years ago, the owners, Debbie and Marty, sold their factory – building, machines, kiln and operations – to Janek. They worked with him for several years to develop the Bauer reissues and stills show up three days a week at the factory, which is a pretty cool business transition model. 

Cristi and Terry have befriended and supported Janek by lending him some of their original Bauer pieces as the basis for reissues. We saw the broken shard from a once-gorgeous Bauer oil jar that inspired a wonderful new pot (Terry’s partner Michael broke it accidentally, so they made lemonade out of that lemon and let Janek study and copy it).  The original pots might sell for $800-$1,000, but the reissued ones are $300-$600, depending on the size. Similarly, collector Linda Roberts, another one of our Merry Band, lent Janek a tall, slender Rebekah vase as the model for his new ones. The 22-inch reissued vase is $250.

It’s pretty mind-boggling what this tiny company is doing. Janek says there are 110 styles made in 15 different colors (classic Bauer colors, including Bauer Orange, Bauer Yellow, Turquoise, Federal Blue, Lime Green, Midnight Blue, Mango, Crimson, Teal Blue and Chocolate Brown – and all content to mingle, mix, and match with one another, plus a few new ones that I’m sure I’ve forgotten to list here).

We followed Janek downstairs to see where much of the ceramic casting and molding takes place. To get there, he led us into a freight elevator original to the century-old building. The lift is powered by water, making it the oldest water-operated elevator in California. It wasn’t fast, but it was a smooth ride.

The bottom of every piece has Bauer 2000 on it

Downstairs, we saw shelves and tables and stacked with the unfired pieces. When you observe the “blanks,” without color added, you really can appreciate the graceful shapes and lines of Bauer’s original designs.

Terry showed me one large planter that he remembers seeing in Desi Arnaz’s nightclub on old “I Love Lucy” television programs. Actually, there were two of them because on the set, one planter was turned upside down as a base for the one containing a plant. That reference to “I Love Lucy” gives me a perfect mental picture of the Bauer pottery vibe – then, and now.

My little Bauer-and-Mosaic installation

For those of you in the Los Angeles area, here is the best news. Janek holds occasional sales of factory seconds and samples. He started them last year and when news got out, there were 500 people lined up to buy the cheerful pottery. If you’re wondering whether I got my Bauer fix, the answer is YES. I didn’t leave empty-handed. In fact, I came home with a trio of garden orbs in Bauer colors. These orbs are new from Janek. They were never part of the original Bauer line, but are fired in several colors from the Bauer palette. So the large, 15-inch orb is lime green; the medium, 12-inch is pale blue; and the small, 8-inch is turquoise. I have them grouped in the garden with my lovely mosaic orb by Vashon Island, Wash.-based artist Clare Dohna. The effect is quite pleasing to my eyes!

And finally, a gallery of our visit:

A “specimen grass planter,” a prototype glazed in satin white

An 8-inch oil jar and a jumbo urn prototype

The block-and-case is the “master” from which all molds are made

Janek shows us a piece that’s ready to be fired

Janek illustrates how a bowl is formed by machine

The raw clay, ready to turn into Bauer pottery

Cristi and Linda with Janek

Thousands of pieces of pottery, ready to be fired (see kiln, right)

A Bauer flowerpot, glazed and ready for the kiln. After firing, it will be the teal color of the sample in Janek’s hand

. . . in an intimate, domestic setting illuminated by flames, candles and carnival lights.

The September Issue

Thanks to ample layout space and the 4-color gods, today’s Los Angeles Times HOME section devotes a whole lotta real estate to my feature story about the indoor and outdoor kitchens of hot documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler.  If his name doesn’t ring a bell, I refer you to the The September Issue, the documentary feature film that opened last weekend in New York and opens in Los Angeles and the rest of the world on Friday. The film follows the legendary Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her creative team as they put together the fashion magazine’s most important issue of the year – in this case, the September 2007 issue. The expanded online photo gallery is here.

Debra and R.J. on location in his outdoor dining room

Every good thing that has happened to me since moving to Los Angeles comes through meeting interesting and talented people who, in turn, lead me to more fascinating and gifted ones. I met R.J. through interior designer Lory Johansson, whose studio is called Just Joh. I met Lory indirectly while profiling a Malibu garden designed by Scott Shrader for Garden Design magazine. Lory designed the interiors for Scott’s clients and I mentioned their collaboration on choosing materials for the indoor-outdoor elements in my text (that piece appeared in January, called “Sunset Soiree.”).

During the editing process, I received a message from the Garden Design fact-checker saying that Lory would love to show me one of her outdoor projects. We connected by phone and arranged to meet at R.J.’s Hollywood Hills property this past February. It takes a lot of time to scout gardens. It’s kind of like buying futures on the commodities market. You have to spend a few hours on the freeway, usually in crummy traffic, on the off-chance that the architecture, interiors or landscape you’re scheduled to visit will be a worthy candidate for publication. For some reason, after speaking with Lory, I had a hunch the trip to R.J.’s wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

Designer Lory Johansson and me. The photo is a little blurry because it was taken without a flash by candlelight. We're happy that the shoot is over!

The property is just stunning, high in the hills above Beachwood Canyon and literally under the HOLLYWOOD sign we’ve all seen in a million movies and TV shows. It’s a circa 1924 Spanish Colonial Revival home, which R.J. acquired in 2005 and has subsequently restored with Lory’s brilliant design skills. Big but not imposing, the house sits on three-quarters of an acre. There is a beautiful garden with a swimming pool, strolling paths, a lawn for croquet and square-dancing, a secret garden and other intimate spaces. You can’t see that now, though, because photographs of the garden are under wraps until Garden Design’s March 2010 issue (photographed by the very talented Jack Coyier). That’s right. First the Los Angeles Times. Then Garden Design. See how lucky I was connecting with Lory?

At the outdoor pizza party featured in today’s LA Times, freelance photographer Ringo Chiu, who shoots frequently for the newspaper, captured the festivities through his lens. I tried to stay out of the way while also surreptitiously “art directing.” Anyone who has worked with a newspaper photographer over the years (this comment is for you Melanie Munk) knows how impossible it is to get them to do what you want. And even more impossible to style a shot as you would for a magazine or book. However tough that “dance” can be, Ringo at least humored my few suggestions (ie, shouldn’t we light the fireplace? how about the candles? let’s move that dead potted rosemary!). He did a great job and it was fun for me to snap a few shots of him at work, shown here.

Photographer and Filmmaker

You can draw a lot of inspiration from this story for your own garden. The best tip from Lory is to go bold with color. She designed the entire outdoor kitchen, benches, fireplace and privacy wall with a white stucco finish, like R.J.’s house. But when it was finished, Lory says she stood at the opposite end of the garden and looked across the pool to the too-white scene. “It looked like Greece instead of Los Angeles,” she lamented. Lory knew color would lend heightened drama, especially in the outdoor setting.

The day before R.J. was planning to host his first big al fresco pizza party, she couldn’t stand it. Lory went out and ordered gallons of paint – rich, deep, paprika-terra cotta red – and got the crew started painting. When R.J. came home and saw what was going on, she promised him that if he didn’t like the result, she would pay to repaint everything white again. (Can you imagine how many coats of white paint it would take to cover dark red?).

Let’s just say Lory’s gamble paid off. You have to read my story to see what R.J. says of the decision to keep it.

After researching and reporting this story, I have two new items on my own garden wish list. Number one: I need to buy a 100-foot string of carnival lights to suspend around my own garden. Number two: I desperately want my own wood-burning pizza oven. But only if I can have Chef Alberto come over to cook for me!

Here are more of my candid party photographs: