Helen Durant Art Show Sept 23 & 24

Helen Durant is having an art show/sale this weekend at her house.
Sept 23 - 7-9pm
Sept 24 - 1-5pm
1966 Butler Way
hdurant47@aol.com

House of the Week

It's no secret that JD and I love Charleston and Savannah. We love the history, the beautiful houses and the graciousness of the coastal cities. This house was built in 1762 as a double tenement and has been converted into a single family house. It's for sale here.

Bedroom Before & After!

Remember this fun bedroom we worked on last spring? (The after is pictured above) We finally took photos this week - we are very excited about the finished room.

This project started because the client redid her master bath and the master bedroom did not work with the gorgeous new marble bathroom. Her previous bedroom colors were muted creams and greens. She wanted a bright, cheerful, fun room, but we wanted to balance that with the new marble bathroom (grays and whites) and make sure it was still a restful room. Her favorite color is purple so the wall color is a pale purple and the curtains and bed linens are periwinkle. Here is the master bedroom before:









And the room after!










The view to the master bath.








Above, beautiful detail in the bathroom.




Our friend Leo

House of the Week

A Neel Reid eclectic style house built for Jesse Draper in 1922. It is a next door neighbor to this house of the week from two weeks ago, and is a combination of the Neocolonial and Greek Revival styles.








The floorplan:







Hope you all had a relaxing Labor Day weekend!

Nancy Astor's Cliveden House

Nancy Langhorne Astor was the third oldest of the five Langhorne sisters (Lizzie and Irene being the older two and Phyllis and Nora the younger two). They grew up in Virginia, first in relative poverty in Danville, and then once their father made his mark in the railroad business, at the wonderful house outside of Charlottesville called Mirador.

Nancy first married Robert Shaw in 1897, but they divorced in four years. She then returned to Mirador for a short time. While traveling in England she met Waldorf Astor, whom she married. The Astors were one of the wealthiest American families of the time. They had moved to England to live. Waldorf's father, William Waldorf Astor, gave his estate, Cliveden, to Nancy and Waldorf in 1893 and this is where they lived and raised their children.

Cliveden is a massive house and estate, in contrast to her sister Phyllis' Eydon Hall . The house was built in 1851 and was designed by architect Charles Barry in the Italianate style. There have been several houses on the Buckinghamshire estate, which sits above the River Thames. The first was built in 1500's and was a hunting lodge. In 1666 William Winde designed this house below for the Duke of Villiers. Today only the arcade remains, the rest was burned by fire in 1795. The house was in ruins until it was purchased by the Duke of Sutherland who rebuilt the house in 1851. Today it looks largely as did in the late 1800's and is a hotel.











Nancy Astor is remembered not only for her beauty and fiesty personality, but also because she was the first female member of the House of Commons, representing Plymouth.


Nancy Astor, by John Singer Sargent