Arranging Beautiful Farmhouse Flowers. Spring at the Farmhouse Cottage. A New York City Rooftop Garden – with a Front Porch & a Screen Door That Slams. A Serious Perennial Problem (Thanks to Tasha Tudor). The Case of the 18th century New England Farmhouse. In this case, the project was a dilapidated farmhouse he had discovered in a small historic town on the coast of southern New England.
The house had been slated for demolition. It was no wonder. A Red Hook, Brooklyn Townhouse Restoration. Steeped in History, Red Hook has been witness to everything from the Battle of Long Island in 1776 to being what was known in the 1990’s as one of the worst places to live in the United States.
In between, it was developed as the port of New York’s main deep water docks where ships unloaded their goods into warehouses, American industry such as flour mills, sugar refineries and brick yards thrived and hard living was at it’s worst. Fifteen years ago when New York sprawl went looking for the next best neighborhood to reinvigorate, it found Red Hook just a hop, skip and a jump from the newly trendy Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. This waterfront community with stellar views of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty attracted artists looking for lofts, families wanting large, affordable homes and even stores that wanted big, easy-to-get-to retail spaces like Ikea and New York’s famed Fairway Market. The American Heiresses Who Revived Britain's Country Homes. The much acclaimed past television series, Downton Abbey has brought more than just the English country home to our attention.
It has accurately depicted an aristocratic lifestyle that was clinging for survival in the early 1900’s and sometimes found financial reprieve from wealthy Americans. The stories behind these ‘marriage mergers’ and influx of wealthy Americans and heiresses to Britain country homes were fascinating and up until now, untold. Clive Aslet, British Architectural and Lifestyle Historian, has written An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams which features such Americans as the Astors, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Selfridges, Hearsts and others who helped save many a English country home so that they could live to see another day. Clive Aslet ‘Clive Aslet is an award-winning writer and journalist, acknowledged as a leading authority on Britain and its way of life. The Love Shack. Way back around the turn of the 19th century on the tip of Long Island’s North Fork, folks trying to escape the summer’s heat would put up small beach cottages overlooking the eastern most edge of Long Island Sound.
Summer nights were hot but not on the bluffs where there always was a constant breeze. Families would move there for the summer -merchants from as far away as Manhattan to local farmers who sought refuge from the still, inland hot and humid air. Wooden stairs built into the sides of the cliffs would lead down to clear sand and rock beaches where families would cool down, play, launch their sailing skiffs and rowboats, fish and just ‘be’. Life was simple. DoxGZS XkAILDX8. A Seaside New England Farm House - Artisans List. An Island Cabin on Georgian Bay - Artisans List. Laura’s family always had a cottage.
They started with a wartime-era beach cottage moved onto a fishing camp in Georgian Bay, beach cottages on the southern east coast of the United States and a cottage in the Bahamas. “I was very blessed to have been raised in the cottage culture,” she says. When they decided to search for their own island, they were well aware of the work that goes into a second home and purposely set out to find something rustic and simple. They didn’t want this home to be work, they simply wanted to kick back with nothing to do when they came to the island except to kayak, swim, boat, suntan, picnic and entertain their friends.
The 1930’s house, a typical lake cottage, originally was part of an American ‘club’ where groups of families from the United States would create a colony of summer cottages on groups of clustered islands so the families had privacy, yet were a short boat ride away from each other. The Small House Movement is Here to Stay! The Little Blue Bungalow. Living Big in Cottages & Reconstructed Barns.