Lila's Blog

class war at 40 Broadway

2009-06-18T17:25:00.004-04:00

Last week a preservationist friend gave me a big blue button that says “Newport Needs Its Past”. Evidently someone was giving them out at a recent city council hearing on whether or not Newport should hire a new historic preservation officer to replace the one who vacated the post last fall. You’d think that filling the post ASAP would be pretty much of a no-brainer for a town whose economic lifeblood is historic tourism & whose future fortunes are almost entirely dependant on the success of that industry, but alas the world is not always a rational place, and numerous and vocal are the objectors to this plan. Their arguments run along the usual predictable lines. Can’t afford it. Don’t need it. Too much government interference in private life. No one’s going to tell ME whether I can replace a window, etc. Like so much else in life, increasingly (to me at least) these arguments seem to be less about the ostensible subject under discussion – i.e. the filling of the vacant position – than a thinly disguised battle over other issues, in this case between the economic interests of blue vs white collar Newport, the people with the chain link fences pitted against the people with the wrought iron fences. Both sides believe that they should get the final say on how things look around here. And it strikes me – committed preservationist that I am – that the opposing side does indeed inadvertently raise some very uncomfortable theoretical questions for us vis-à-vis our “Newport Needs Its Past” campaign: Who’s past are we preserving? And whose past are we erasing in the interests of saving whatever it is we deem worth saving?

I think you could make the argument that Newport is as architecturally rich as it is precisely because every period was allowed to express itself, because new things were built on top of old things, existing buildings were repurposed, utilitarian and cosmetic fixes were patched in willy-nilly with little regard for aesthetics and controls…which of course resulted in exactly the kind of organic aesthetic that the Wrought Iron Fence People now want to protect. But ironically, it was precisely the Chain Link Fence Person mentality that brought this aesthetic into being – the patch it up, make it do, make it work, piece it together approach favored everywhere by the working poor, for the simple reason that they can’t afford to adopt any other. For every William Vanderbilt that summered in Newport, there were fifty Irish maids who made his life possible. For every John LaFarge or William James who lived and worked here there were a hundred illiterate fishermen who’d never heard of them. From 1639 on, every cultured illustrious Newport inhabitant has been shadowed by a crowd of thousands of working class nobodies. Slaves. Servants. Fishermen. Seamstresses. Grocers. Carters. People who lived in small cheap houses in poor neighborhoods and saved pieces of string & old newspapers and never gave a thought to the aesthetics of architecture or the picturesque, because they would have been luxuries so out of reach & impractical that they weren’t even understood to be options. Chain Link Fence People everywhere, of every era, usually find survival more to their taste than aesthetics.

All of which brings me back to paradox of the button again. Yes, Virginia, Newport Needs Its Past. Newport needs preservation. But let’s not be stupid or naïvely idealistic about it. Let’s not pretend our commitment to preservation isn’t preventing other social truths from being expressed. Let’s not pretend that a lot of class conflicts don’t lie at the heart of this debate. And let’s not stop asking ourselves how true to reality – to any reality, of any period – is a preserved Newport, and if a preserved Newport is even an authentic one?

The Kindness of Strangers

2009-06-09T14:55:00.005-04:00

Where I live there are two beaches. One is accessed through two little footpaths and the other has a small, gravel resident parking lot and boat launch.

The area is filled with wild sweet peas and beach roses. The neighbors have set out big pots along the lot edge and planted geraniums, too.

Some people who know the area like to take a detour off Scenic 1-A and drive along Seaview Avenue to take in the view. It is a slightly sloping hill right down to the sea. If you love the bay, it is pretty impressive – you can see from Portsmouth to Jamestown. We also get birders who sit by the roadside with binoculars to watch the herons and egrets.

Recently, my neighbor was plating geraniums in the lot and a woman drove by for a look at the bay. She made a comment about the flowers and my neighbor said that she wished she had more because the few she had did not deter boaters from dropping trash into the flower pots. (I know, hard to believe, but some people are really thoughtless – even boaters) That was it and the woman drove off.

A little while later, the woman returned with a couple of dozen geranium plants! They were donated by Wickford Flowers. It turned out she works there. We don’t know her name but we thank her and Wickford Flowers very much. What a nice thing to do!

Lila's Movies - Daybreak

2009-06-03T09:25:00.000-04:00

Beautiful waterfront property in Jamestown, Rhode Island.

Coastal Living Newport Regatta

2009-06-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

Lila Delman Real Estate is proud to be an official partner of the 2009 Coastal Living Newport Regatta, July 11-12.
For more information and to purchase tickets to the weekend of events, please visit www.coastalliving.com/regatta

A Wonderful Place In A Calming Location

2009-05-29T12:06:00.014-04:00

A real center of the community in Wickford is the library.

The statistics say it is one of the busiest in the state and from what I can see, that is very true.

I’m there at least 2 or 3 times a week and the place is always a beehive of activity. Patrons range from toddlers to seniors and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

Not only do they have any book, movie or music CD you could desire but they have so many wonderful programs and activities for all ages. Art exhibits, French practice, music performances, guest speakers, knitting for kids, walking tours through Wickford by local historian Tim Cranston, poetry reading and discussion and book discussion groups. There is also internet access and a quiet study room.

The setting is wonderful, relaxing and contemplative. Waterfront on Academy Cove, you can sit in the meditation garden or walk down to the footbridge to see what the ducks are up to. I’m sure your local library is just as wonderful (I also LOVE Narragansett Library) but if you would like to explore a bit, try Wickford. Then you can go into town and have a sandwich and do some shopping.

Happy Birthday, Lina

2009-05-22T14:36:00.009-04:00

I wanted to wish someone very special an Extra Happy Birthday. It is not everyday that you turn 8 years old.

This is an extraordinary child. She is so great at finding sea ice that she discovered an entire little beach on Wild Goose Point and we are always sure to add to our collection whenever we can. We like to keep it around the house – inside and out. It must be those big, blue eyes.

She also is very, very good at taking care of little dogs. She makes them feel safe, loved and comfy in their little beds. I don’t know what I would do without her help sometimes.

When Halloween rolls around, Lina is sure to come up with a great costume. She usually has 2 or 3 different looks up her sleeve and we never know until the big night which look she will choose. This past year she was an unbelievably convincing Senorita. Don’t you agree?

Lina has an artistic nature and she loves arts and crafts. Who else (besides Mia!) could make a huge, walking puppet of a dwarf hamster (named Daisy) out of an oversized leaf bag? She is also on the cutting edge of sidewalk art. She has a knack.

She is a great soccer player, swimmer, gymnast, fantastic reader and an all around excellent student. She is very hard to beat when we play the memory game. We have 2 – one is of old fashioned French tools and the other is of toys. You would think it is easy but believe me, it is not. She always beats me fair and square.

But most of all, she is my darling and I want to wish her an Extra Happy Birthday!

Captivating the Heir Apparent

2009-05-18T11:38:00.008-04:00

There are certain houses that seem to attract just the right buyers. They started out their lives looking beautiful and somehow have remained so and even grown more lovely. They may have been around for a long time and no one has ruined them with well-intentioned but bad remodels.

While I do not know the entire history of this house but hope to find out more, I do know that the past 4 owners have included 2 architects, 1 interior designer and 1 landscape architect. Pretty impressive if you are looking for a house with a pedigree of good taste. It definitely shows with this house where less is more.

The landscape mastermind for these 2.7 acres was a professor at Harvard and designed the land to be beautiful but trouble-free. Very low maintenance. And the man who mows the lawn has been doing so for the past 25 or 30 years. He knows every square inch of the parcel which includes an in ground pool surrounded by hydrangeas and sea grass and fenced garden beds for growing vegetables. There is even room for a proper clothesline.

It is adjacent to South Kingstown Land Trust land and is waterfront on Perch Cove which opens up into Potter Pond - which means there are some wonderful opportunities for bird watching and enjoying the beauty of nature. It is also in the vicinity of Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge (640 acres), Matunuck Management Area (145 acres), Moonstone Beach and more pristine spots conserved for us to enjoy.

I have no doubt that the next owner of this beautiful house will appreciate it for what it is and will bless the day they found this treasure.

Six degrees of separation

2009-05-05T15:06:00.005-04:00

By now most of us are familiar with the “six degrees of separation” concept, the notion that everyone on the planet is pretty much related somehow. You know…Barrack Obama turns out to be related to Thomas Jefferson, George Bush and Vladamir Putin are actually distant cousins, the person sitting at the next desk is descended from the Romonovs, etc. Well something kind of strange happened recently – call it an amazing coincidence of sorts – that started me thinking. What about the six degrees of separation between buildings?

This is what happened. I had a client who was purchasing a house at 28 Channing Street. Right about the same time I got a new listing for a house at 18 Congdon Ave. The two houses are in the same neighborhood, two or three blocks apart, and my buyer actually looked at both houses. So far so good. He put in an offer on the Channing St house, and to his delight, it was accepted. Meanwhile, to my delight, my listing at 18 Congdon was also put under contract. Even better. But this is where it starts to get spooky. My buyer, in his excitement about buying the house on Channing, went over to City Hall and did some research on the property, going all the way back to the moment it was built. And what he found was this: that the person who had built 28 Channing had done so while living at 18 Congdon. The two houses had a six degrees of separation type link and we – my buyer, my seller, and me - were the connective tissue.

Fast forward to later the same week. I was trying to find some background info on Moorland Lodge and kept running into a blank wall. Then I came across an entry for it on the National Register District website, claiming that it had been built by Vera Scott Cushman, heiress to the Chicago department store fortune of Carson Pirie Scott. Now the Carson Pirie Scott building in Chicago is one of THE most famous buildings in the history of American architecture, designed by Louis Sullivan, one of the very first skyscrapers, one of the very first buildings to ever employ a curtain wall, etc. It’s totally landmark, ultra famous with the scholarly set. And then it occurred to me – there was a six degrees of separation thing between the CPS building and Moorland Lodge! They’re relatives – once via Vera Cushman, and once again via me noticing the link. It was incredible. Believing I’d possibly stumbled upon one of the greatest secrets of life ever, I became more and more convinced that there might be an invisible network of relationships connecting seemingly disparate buildings. Could it actually be that a system of secret architectural energetics mysteriously underlay the everyday visible world? If true, I was so THERE…

So I started looking for these connections everywhere. And finding them. I didn’t even have to leave Vera Scott Cushman and Moorland Lodge far behind; it turns out that Cushman went on to live at Avalon out on the Drive, which in turn became the Van Alen estate, which in turn is what swallowed up Wrentham House and put it under a spell for decades…which means that Moorland Lodge & Wrentham House are sort of like distant long-lost cousins, reunited by their present day Lila Delman-client status. Or how about Berry Hill, next door to Moorland Lodge? Prior to being Moorland Lodge, a structure belonging to the Berry Hill estate stood in that location, although whether the earlier building was demolished to make way for Moorland Lodge, or was just radically rebuilt & enlarged is an open question. But either way, it would seem there’s a family connection of sorts.

Postscript. I’d finished writing this blog, but hadn’t yet pulled the photos so I could publish it, when I came across an old 2007 issue of Food & Wine magazine a few weeks ago. It had been floating around the back of my car ever since, and the other evening I finally got around to bringing it inside. I set it down on my kitchen table and casually glanced down at the label on the cover, and what I saw froze my blood. It was addressed to an occupant at 17 Chestnut Street, a house I had just listed two days before.

I rest my case.

Culprit Revealed

2009-05-02T10:57:00.011-04:00

Every spring I await the beautiful tulips in my gardens. And for the past few years, something very strange has been going on – someone or something is snapping their pretty little heads off!

It is a precise chop right at the top of the stem. Every morning, very early, I look out to see how they are doing and invariably the morning comes when I see the damage done. A beautiful tulip head just kind of flopped over.

The first year I saw it, of course I blamed my dog, Ollie. At the time, he was an only child so he got all the blame. I just looked at him and shook my head because he can’t help the fact that he tromps all over everything in sight - and if a cat should happen to sit outside the fence and tease him, all hell breaks loose – delicate flowers or not. I lost 3 or 4 tulips that way the first year.

But last year, I was looking out the window and actually saw what was happening. A bird – I think it was a mocking bird – swooped down and with the precision of a fighter jet – sliced the head off the tulip! I couldn't’t believe what I was seeing. I had never heard of this and have only seen it the one time. The bird didn’t even stop to admire his handiwork – he flew right off without a backward glance.

This morning, history is repeating itself. One of my little tulips chopped down in her prime. I wondered if anyone has had this experience and wondered what the heck was going on. Now you know!

Lila's Movies - Current Listings

2009-04-21T16:56:00.001-04:00

Enjoy this film showcasing some of our current Luxury Listings.

Lila's Movies

2009-04-15T16:49:00.008-04:00

Recently I have been creating Power Point presentations on a few of our properties to share with clients. Today I had an official "lightbulb moment" and decided to make a few of these slide shows into movies. Here is the first installment of Lila's Movies, which I hope will become a regular feature here on our blog. Enjoy!

Actress Anne Archer lists Rhode Island Residence

2009-04-08T20:55:00.006-04:00

Anne Archer and Terry Jastrow, Celebrity Couple List Rhode Island Sporting Club Residence with Lila Delman Real Estate for $1.1M

Lila Delman Real Estate announces the offering of the Rhode Island golf and yachting residence currently owned by world renowned actress Anne Archer and her husband Terry Jastrow for US$1.1M. The luxurious golf residence is located within the Carnegie Abbey Club, a private waterfront sporting estate just outside Newport, Rhode Island.

Anne Archer and her husband, executive producer Terry Jastrow, bought the 1,600 square foot townhouse new in 2003. It is uniquely designed to emulate the interior of a super-luxury yacht, incorporating design features and furnishings of the highest quality. It is the only residence designed to capture both west facing views over Narragansett Bay and east facing views of the golf course. The residence may also serve as two separate one bedroom homes, great for guests and family visitors. It also features a fully equipped kitchen, two bedrooms, two baths, a powder room, a wet bar and water views.

Anne Archer, nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Michael Douglas’ tortured wife in “Fatal Attraction” 1987 is perhaps better known to all of us for playing opposite Harrison Ford in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” Archer is currently co-staring in the new series “Privileged” and will be seen in a new romantic comedy “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”

Terry Jastrow is a winner of seven Emmy Awards, having produced and directed some of television’s most prestigious and important sports programs over the past 25 years. These included the Super Bowl XIX (1985), the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby. He also produced 6 Olympic Games and was producer of ABC’s Sport Golf Series.

Lost and Found

2009-04-07T18:14:00.004-04:00

LOST & FOUND

I recently received an e-mail from someone who contacted me by way of a Google search! Truth be told, I was not the person they had been searching for, but rather, it was their friends, whom they had lost contact with over many years.

The text of the e-mail I received tells the story best:

“I Googled John & Jane Doe (names changed) because a bunch of us have lost touch with them. We would very much like to reconnect and noticed that they wrote a nice testimonial on your behalf. Is there any way that you could get in touch with them and let them know that the "Gang" has been thinking about them and wanting to know how they're doing. It would be much appreciated.”

I forwarded the e-mail to the client who had written a wonderful testimonial on my behalf for having assisted with their various real estate needs in the past. The client was extremely delighted to be put back in touch with their long-lost friends and immediately responded to the outreach!

Again, we witness the beauty of the Internet – friends lost & found!

2009-04-07T18:14:00.001-04:00

Back to the future

2009-03-29T17:30:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago I attended a Newport city council meeting, held for the purposes of reviewing the Historic District Commission’s task force recommendations on how best to improve &/or streamline the city’s historic preservation procedures. During the course of the discussion, several of the participants expressed concern about new preservation guidelines potentially impacting owners of non-historic properties, which as near as I can tell gets defined around here as being anything built after 1940. Why, it was asked, should the owners of undistinguished, dated buildings like 1950’s ranch houses be subjected to the same preservation standards as the owners of important historic Victorian or Colonial homes? Why couldn’t they be exempted? Why did they have to suffer the same amount of fuss and expense and oversight that dogs the owners of more historically prestigious buildings?

A couple of days later, by chance, I had to go see my dentist, whose office is over on Gibbs Ave. He’s a smart man – film buff, Buddhist, Obama fan - and I always enjoy talking to him, even if it is usually just about my teeth. Anyhow, on my way over, I noticed some construction taking place a few doors down from him. For as long as I’ve lived in Newport that particular lot has been occupied by a large, low, clean-lined and expensive looking brick ranch house. Now two new bombastic, view-blocking McMansions were rising up out of the dirt instead. Too bad, I said to him, that they had to tear down that house on the corner. He laughed. Oh, it doesn’t matter, he said, it was just a 50’s ranch.

Does nobody in this town GET that today’s 50’s ranches are tomorrow’s historic properties? Today’s present is tomorrow’s history. We are tearing down the future’s past. Fifty years from now these buildings will no longer be ranch houses, they’ll be Ranch Houses, and people will be snapping up what few are left standing and restoring them to within an inch of their lives. Not to mention selling them for a lot of money. The 50’s ranch speaks to and is expressive of its own historical moment as surely as Colonial houses represent the 1700’s or Victorian houses reveal the 1800’s.

The pattern of architectural destruction is dismally predictable…Throughout the 19th century Colonial buildings beyond number were torn down because they didn’t conform to the new aesthetic standards of the Victorian era. Then the Victorian buildings got torn down because they didn’t conform to the more modernist standards of the 20th century. When I was a child I used to hear otherwise intelligent & sophisticated people speak approvingly about tearing down those “hideous old Victorian piles”. Down with the Victorians! Down with the Colonists! Down with the past! Then when I got to Newport in the late 1970’s, the old workers cottages of the early century were the excrescence requiring immediate removal. Now the mid-20th century buildings are what’s being torn down. Meanwhile, the buildings that have managed to survive this ongoing architectural auto-de-fe are being breathlessly restored and preserved, from whence they will be traded on the real estate market with the kind of fervor inspired in children by Pokémon cards. It makes my head spin just to think about it.

Because the bottom line is this: the vast majority of these “historic houses” – whether Colonial, Victorian, or Early 20th – have no actual intrinsic historic value other than the fact of their survival of the wrecking ball. They are significant only in that they managed to escape the destruction that eliminated so many of their peers. Most are not architectural masterpieces. Washington didn’t sleep there. They were homes built by and for tradespeople, the middle class, the everyday Joe. They were small shops, farms, schoolhouses, vacation places. The vast majority were not designed by architects, but were simply erected by builders and carpenters with absolutely no artistic agenda in mind, just a job to do. A great deal of what we are so frantically trying to preserve is nothing more than the vernacular architecture of previous eras. Indisputably our sense of our own past would be immeasurably poorer without these buildings. So why are we so determined to deprive the future of us?

My Inheritance

2009-03-27T10:35:00.004-04:00

One of my most precious possessions, what I call my inheritance, is a recipe written in my Nana’s own, European handwriting, for a cake with chocolate frosting.

A simple, not too sweet, Swedish cake (the sesame seeds give it away) and the chocolate frosting, homemade and yummy but what would now be deemed gourmet. No mixes or additives to make it big and puffy. Just really good.

Ada Helena (my namesake) and Knute Salem came to the US through Ellis Island with their firstborn child. Eventually they made a life for themselves with five children. All served in the Navy during WWII, even my aunt. She was a Wave. And my father was quoted several times in the book ‘Flyboys’ by James Bradley. I have my father’s Medal of Honor (awarded for personal bravery) and Distinguished Flying Cross (awarded for extraordinary acts of heroism while in flight). If you read the book, he is Robert ‘Swede’ Akerblom.

But look at this. In my Nana’s recipe, one of the directions is to ‘beat while you sing three stanzas of “Seeing Nellie Home”. Not beat 3 minutes or 200 strokes. No MixMaster or Cuisinart, just your own voice and timing and voila! The cake of your dreams. Try it! (I don’t actually know that song, but I keep meaning to look it up)

If that isn’t the sweetest thing ever, I don’t know what is. Jag Alskar Dig, Ada.

Only in Rhode Island

2009-03-24T20:10:00.004-04:00

"Only in Rhode Island”

A couple of weeks ago, one of my associates in the Narragansett office told me that her husband had just purchased a new vehicle and that it was “loaded” with top of the line features. Shortly after buying the car, he was playing around with some of its many features. When using the GPS system, he pressed the “home” button, curious to see if the previous owner might have plugged in a home address. Turns out, he did. The husband made note of the address and later “Googled” it. The search results brought him to the Lila Delman Real Estate website.

It turns out that the previous owner of the car is one of my sellers! Only in Rhode Island!!

Staying Centered

2009-03-22T13:31:00.011-04:00

What keeps us centered in a shifting world? What are our escapes? And can we still go there?Radio and Newspapers are filled with the bad news, but they are also powerfully comforting resources.

My constant escape, and where I find my extra boost of daily comfort, is WGBH public radio in Boston. Years ago, I began to listen to morning pro musica host Robert J. Lurtsema, the birds! his voice! his long pauses! Now, The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor (weekdays at 8:55am) is my morning pause, for these five minutes, just following the school drop-off, is topped-off with the Poetry Foundation's poem of the day, this 5 minute program is completely blissful.
Sunday afternoons with Sound & Spirit weaves history, myth, and spiritual traditions together with music to take listeners on a journey around the world and through the ages. Great adventures are in store with Marco Werman's THE WORLD program, a joint production of BBC and WGBH.

Finely textured and woven together, GBH is all about outstanding programming that somehow has a power that keeps me centered, no matter what time of day, no matter what is happening.

In print, the Financial Times, is also a great escape, it's pink! The FT offers more than dismal financial news, it offers unique perspectives on lifestyles from Dubai to the great estates of the English countryside. In her article No problem too small by Suzie Boyt , she writes:

--- Some friends of friends who live in a massive, thriving, stately home once confessed to me that because there were so many members of staff – some of whom had been in the employ of the house for more than 50 years – they had no privacy. They had no down time, no sofa suppers, no dressing gown life. They must all emerge from their bedrooms, including the five children, washed, brushed, and dressed for the stage, as it were. Their breakfast is never grabbed in the kitchen but always served in the dining room, yes, from silver-domed dishes. They’re not quite allowed to get their own cups of tea. If they do, there may be mild scolding and hurt feelings, recriminations.-----The thing is, the chefs are so temperamental. They freak if I’m not hungry. If we go out for dinner, they sulk for days. If one of them isn’t happy, the whole household knows about it. You can practically tell from the other end of the street when they’re in bad moods. I dread coming home sometimes. I wish they would just go away. It’s like there’s a mountain of angry food constantly hovering over my head trying to attack me-----

Imagine that. No sofa suppers! Angry chefs!

Do you have an angry chef? Please share, or share you favorite WGHB program!

Little Known and Liking It

2009-03-16T09:51:00.018-04:00

While doing some research recently, I came across this great article in the New York Times Escapes section all about Tiverton.

Tiverton is one of those towns that is easy to miss or dismiss because it is not on the 'island' and often takes a backseat to its neighbor, Little Compton. Yet it has the same rolling meadows, historic stone walls, sparkling salt water beaches and thousands of acres of conserved land like the Pardon Gray Farm,
Ruekers Audubon Preserve, and Weetamoe Woods.

There are only 4 stoplights in all of Tiverton! You can spend a whole day just browsing the shops and art galleries in Four Corners. Then get an ice cream cone at Gray's. You won't be sorry.

Tiverton is less than 30 minutes to both Newport and Providence. And highway access to Boston is right off Main Road and you can be in Boston in an hour or less.

You can find houses in all price ranges. Even if you are not thinking of buying a house, I would recommend you spend a day in Four Corners and see what a treasure it is.

A Rising Tide

2009-03-06T17:59:00.017-05:00

One of my favorite truisms is the phrase 'A rising tide raises all boats'.

Just think about it - if your neighbor has good fortune, be happy! because in the great scheme of things,
his good fortune will eventually reflect on you. Did your neighbor sell her house and yours is still on the market, how great! Our economy is getting better! Did your neighbor get a great job, and you are still unemployed, wonderful! Your turn will be up very soon.

There are many examples all around us of positive things happening in the world. Babies are being born, people are getting married,
people are buying houses they love, and life goes on. Spring is coming and if you look under the snow, like in my yard, you will see
the daffodils and tulips already making their way into the world just like they do every spring. How beautiful!

Don't give up - and a rising tide does raise all boats - because we really are all in this together.

Instant Karma

2009-03-01T13:45:00.007-05:00

This is just a little story but it is absolutely true. Sometimes things happen in life that reinforce what you already know to be true.

When I was a young woman living on the East Side and putting myself through college, taking classes at RISD and URI, I spent a lot of summer days at the beach. Although I am a Narragansett Beach person through and through, when I lived in Providence I used to go to Horseneck Beach 3 or 4 times a week. At the time, there was a $5 fee - worth it for such a pristine, beautiful spot.

I was living paycheck to paycheck, I had no money saved and was down to my last $5 bill. What to do? Go to the beach and have no money until payday or save the fin and buy food and be responsible.

Back and forth I argued with myself and in the end, I decided one glorious day at the beach meant more to me than 3 or 4 days of mediocrity.

This is the part that always amazes me when I think of it – I got to the beach and waded in to the waves, and I swear to you a five dollar bill came towards me on a wave! My mouth dropped open, I grabbed the fin and KNEW I had made the right decision. Always follow your heart.

This image is always top of mind with me but I was thinking of it in particular because during these somewhat difficult economic times, it is easy to forget that we have to give back to the less fortunate. Don’t forget to feed the birds, donate to the needy and share whatever you can.

I promise, it will all come back to you!

Ten hopeful signs of spring

2009-02-26T12:31:00.006-05:00

1. January glacier recedes from memory

2. Cadbury crème eggs display at the register in CVS

3. Snowdrops poking out of the thawing dirt

4. Evil army of Marshmallow Peeps invades local stores

5. Parking ticket on your windshield

6. Proliferation of Canadian geese

7. Welcome back skunks and raccoons!

8. Resident parking stickers on sale at City Hall
9. Wall of flip-flops at Old Navy

And last but not least…

10. PASTA BEACH now open for the season!!

Wine Tasting

2009-02-22T14:59:00.007-05:00

A friend of mine, Dave, had a wine tasting at his house this weekend. What fun!

The owner of a small vineyard in Massachusetts, he produces and sells his wine under
the label of Alfalfa Farms. But the wine we tasted at the party is labeled under Wild Goose Point and Unkin and Funkin.

The benefits of wine are well-documented by now and taken in moderation provide all kinds of health benefits. And the plants are so beautiful – he has a couple of vines in his yard and now some of us neighbors want them in our yards, too.

With a son-in-law, Luke, who also produces his own wine, I have plenty of opportunities to taste different wines. Luke and his family have been producing wine for generations but they haven’t labeled theirs yet. Unkin and Funkin will be hard to beat.

Another great thing to do is visit Sakonnet Vineyards in Little Compton, just south of Tiverton, and in 3 seasons you can sit outdoors and enjoy lunch and sample the wines produced there. It is truly special and something I love to do. The atmosphere is wonderful.

You don’t really need an excuse to gather friends and neighbors together but a wine tasting is lots of fun and you get to hear what other people think of various flavors and characteristics.

My favorite? Unkin and Funkin Pinot Noir.

The art of empty houses

2009-02-12T14:25:00.006-05:00

Susan Gustavson’s recent post about modern & contemporary art reminded me all over again what it is that I love best about art: how it compels you to see the everyday in a completely new light. All art does this to some extent, but contemporary art – because it lacks much of the pre-conceived intellectual baggage of “historical” art - can be particularly good at surprising you into it. The wonderful thing is that the experience then becomes a ball rolling down hill, and everything starts to look startling and new.

When I first started studying art history, I spent a lot of time looking at art & at art images, and that way of seeing – the looking at art way - soon began to bleed into my regular life. I’d be walking around town not thinking about much of anything, and all of a sudden the Platonic ideas behind the everyday forms would come screaming out at me. The essential truth of a row of rooftops would suddenly be revealed; they were an endless series of intersecting triangles. A random assortment of buildings would be reduced to nothing more than great big blocks of color. A branch bending over a sidewalk would bisect a familiar scene, turning regular houses and driveways into components of an elaborate diagonal composition, and the clouds overhead were perpetually morphing into fantastically complex shapes, like the designs on Persian tiles. It got to the point where the vision switch became so intrusive that I actually wondered if I was going crazy, but eventually I just stopped worrying about it. And after awhile my perceptions adjusted and I settled down. But I miss it, miss the intensity and freshness of that kind of seeing.

So I’m a fan of anything that can temporarily restore it to me, which is why I found myself driving to the MFA up in Boston last month to see the Rachel Whiteread show. For those who are unfamiliar with her, Rachel Whiteread is a British sculptor who uses what is usually regarded as negative space – often in an architectural context - as her subject matter. Sounds complicated, but it isn’t. Simply put, she makes plaster casts of empty space. An early piece of hers, “House, consisted of her filling a derelict London building with cement and then stripping away the shell of the building, leaving a solid concrete cast of the empty space inside. Empty space became densely full, dense matter disappeared, reality was seen backwards, as if in a mirror. Much of what she does involves the space found within boxes, containers, architectural space. How often do we see the empty space we spend our lives inhabiting? For those of us who are realtors, how often do we seriously reflect upon the nature of the empty spaces we sell, or think about the voids that constitute our primary product?

Her installation that I went to at the MFA differed from her usual work in that the empty spaces stayed empty. What she did was to take hundreds of old dollhouses and fill them with light. The interior of every house was completely empty, save for the light, which became in effect a kind of sculptural soft cast of the interior voids. House after house, all glowing, all empty, piled on empty wooden packing crates, hillsides, towns, cities of them. Solid empty space made visible. I’ll never look at a street of empty houses in the same way again. And that, I think, is a good thing.

Who Gets To Call IT Art

2009-02-10T09:32:00.009-05:00

One thing that most people agree on is that the best art of any era reflects exactly what is going on in society at that time. The best music, paintings, dance and film have a way of always being in the moment and synchronized with each other even when the individual artists are working independently of each other and do not know each other.

Looking back over history, it is easy to reconstruct this phenomonon, even though things do not happen in the exact order of our art history books. There is always overlap and things get a little messy but for the most part, art defines each era precisely right across all art forms. Could you imagine Philip Glass' music being created at any other time other than in the late 20th century? The repetitive nature of his music is just like the repetition in an Andy Warhol print.

I was thinking about where we are these days. Without the benefit of hindsight, it is more difficult to define. But if you look back since the Abstract Expressionists morphed into Pop Art (going from humorless and angst -ridden to downright amusing - think Jackson Pollock to Andy Warhol), what have we done?

TV, in- your- face billboards and neon signs have given us a different persepctive than, say Rembrandt had. Remember Barbara Kruger's biting images superimposed with type? Kind of like an advertisement, but not. Lots of people said, Oh, I could have done that. But the fact is, they didn't do it. She did. No one would deny that she is a great artist.

When the color copier was first introduced, some photographers started to use it to make art. It seemed like a natural progression for them, to use new technology. Now some of those prints can be found in most museums. Certainly, blogging is a way of expressing oneself. But could it be called art? Who gets to say, this is art, this is not? There was a panel discussion among IT users and artists in London. It is very interesting. It is a hot topic among curators and art editors now.

I think we all tend to think the artists of the past were more impressive, more talented, greater somehow than those living in our own times. But I bet there are young artists out there right now, on the cutting edge, who are making art on the internet with words and images and whatever else moves them to create. Art does not necessarily equal pretty. It is an expression of the moment in whatever medium the artist chooses.

Have you heard of Twittering? Well, there is going to be a Twestival on February 12 so you can take part, if you like. It is like blogging only faster, shorter and more immediate. Where the heck will this all lead? What is next? I can't wait to find out.