Save The Pearlroth House Video

Save the Pearlroth House!

Watching this video I feel equal parts sad and hopeful.
I'm saddened to see any part of this estate torn down, even the poorly-maintained additions. Just the digger approaching the recliner left by the pool distresses me. I always want to re-use everything.
But I'm hopeful that more people are understanding the value of modernist architecture and that the original Pearlroth House, designed in 1958 by Andrew Geller, will be preserved.
If enough money can be raised the house will be moved, restored and turned into a museum so more people can appreciate and enjoy it.

Blueprints

blueprints.jpg
Originally uploaded by modernemama.

Today I went to the Village Secretary to see if they had a copy of the plans for our house on file.
What luck, our file was full of permits and a full set of the original plans signed Andrew Geller, Northport, NY June 1968.
It was an overwhelming moment. Although I know that the design is made up of rectangles and polygons, I had never seen the house in one dimension and didn't fully comprehend the simplicity and the beauty of the design - one element just flows into the other.
I borrowed them and rushed off to Atlantic Blueprint in Huntington to get them copied. Eventually I will get them scanned to a cd so we will have them preserved in another format. Right now I'm waiting for Steven to get home and see the surprise.

Save The Pearlroth House

One of the most renowned mid-century modern beach houses, The Pearlroth House has been a famous landmark on Long Island since it was designed by Andrew Geller in 1959. The Modernist gem is featured in both architectural and design magazines, but it fell into disrepair and was in danger of being razed. Then Jake Gorst, the grandson of the architect stepped in and set about trying to raise enough money to relocate it to another site in Southampton, NY and to restore it to its original glory.
Exhibitions International is helping the fundraising effort to save The Pearlroth House by hosting a cocktail reception at the Center for Architecture, 536 Laguardia Place in NYC on October 27, and a tour of modernist architecture on Long Island on November 4.

Too many of these unique houses are lost each year and we have an exciting opportunity to preserve this one for future generations to enjoy. Contributions can be made via paypal and are tax deductible.
Steven and I are trying to ensure that our wonderful house, also designed by Mr Geller, remains a home for our family and for those who are lucky enough to live here after us.

Fall Color Begins

rhodo color
Originally uploaded by modernemama.

Because we can't agree on the design for anything indoors, we've been gardening again this weekend. This is Azalea Cannon's Double, just planted in the sunken bed beneath the dining room window. I also put in five hostas and an unidentified rhododendron, all bought for half-price from the local nursery. I love a bargain.
The plan here is to put in a few inches of mulch in the spring and get a couple of pallets of river rock to finish the bed.
Round the side of the garage we pulled out eight bags of ivy and planted three Little Star Junipers and two golden-green evergreens.



We are suffering from sore backs and there are probably another ten more bags of ivy to pull elsewhere in the yard. I hope the weather stays fair so we can finish next weekend.

Den Makeover

Since I can't find any inspiration for the master bathroom, I thought I would put it out of my mind for a while and tackle the den. After all that's where we spend most of our time, hanging out, watching TV, drinking cocktails. No wait, that's what the den was built for, but we keep our liquor in the freezer or the refrigerator or down in the basement. So we have this huge bar/media center in the den that effectively divides the room in two. The half with the bar in it faces a well lit area that was used for playing cards and the TV/music center faces the darker half of the room -perfect for viewing as long as there are only two or maximum three people watching TV at any one time.
I really would like to remove this whole entertainment center and put a flat screen TV on the wall and relocate the bar part to either the kitchen or the basement or the dumpster. My man thinks this is grounds for divorce. He loves this huge laminate monolith and swears that everyone except me does too. (I think they are being polite or sarcastic).
He also thinks we have a design dilemma. The center sits on the raised part of the room and if we remove it we will emphasize the diagonal, which will be weird for TV viewing. He may have a point.


It seems that we have got to the stage with this house where we are both uncertain what will work and neither of us is willing to take a chance. It all seemed so easy two years ago. What's changed?

We never stop working for you....

...and we send out our direct marketing bumpf via UPS so we are sure it gets to you.
Honestly what would you think when you arrived back after canceling your mini vacation because of a colleague's death, to find a UPS package in the mailbox? I thought it must be a vitally important document that I needed to open immediately. When I tore open the envelope and pulled out a letter from Verizon introducing their FIOS fiber optic internet service I was irritated on so many levels.
Firstly, because it was marketing disguised as an urgent mail.
Secondly, because it costs more money to send out direct mail via UPS and the consumer will be the one who ultimately foots the bill.
Thirdly, because I was so fed up with the awful customer service that Verizon provided that I dumped them in favour of Vonage more than two years ago for the home phone and for T-mobile for the cell phone last year.
Nowhere in the two page letter did it explain why I should switch my cable-access broadband to FIOS although it did let me know that I only had until October 31st to take advantage of their special offer. One thing I've learnt living in the US for six years is that if you miss a special offer there will be another, even better one along straight after.
At the moment they don't even offer Fibre Optic TV in my area so I'd have a different provider for my internet, tv and phones. That would be even more inconvenient than the present set-up, so I see no reason to change. And I'm sure when FIOS TV becomes available they will announce it by sending me another expensive direct mail.

The eldest and the best

Midge 1987-2006
Originally uploaded by modernemama.

Midge the cat died Thursday afternoon in her favourite spot in the garden. She was nineteen, born in Oxford, England, moved to Belgium when she was just a kitten and then to the US six years ago.
She was so big that the customs guy at Newark Airport wanted to know if I had a dog or a cat in the crate. She loved to spend hours outside soaking up the sunshine or sheltering from the rain. She slept with us every night until this week when she could no longer get up the stairs. If you were sad she would jump on your chest and stay there until you felt better. Even a sniffle would cause her to run to give comfort.
On Thursday she was weak but she crawled to the door and I lifted her out into the yard and took the paper and my coffee so I could sit out with her. She made herself comfortable in the undergrowth and dozed most of the day. After I walked the dogs they insisted on going over to see her. They looked at her and wagged their tails and she raised her head up. I went in to get changed and came out to get her and bring her inside for the evening and she was dead. Steve came home two minutes later.
She really was the best cat , always happy, never bad-tempered even when Cassis used to leap on her back from 10' away. She tolerated the new animals Wilba, Polly, Sadie, Cassis and Jefke although she didn't like them the way she loved her humans. She was the last animal left from the kids' childhood and the last European. She will be sorely missed

Even the bunny couldn't stand it

We had to reseed the front lawn. Over the past few weeks a large patch died off and some marsh marigolds took up residence instead. The huge rabbit that used to come out every evening at dusk decided there wasn't enough to eat so he hopped off elsewhere and looking out at a large brown patch with a few weeds that won't even flower until next spring was getting to depress us.


I asked Neil, landscaper gardener and font of all knowledge about the house and property, what we had caused it and he blames global warming, the fertilizer that went on last month and sunshine. He swears that the season is two weeks longer here than it was seventeen years ago when he took over the business. He now works well into December rather than stopping the week before Thanksgiving as he used to. He also thinks the grass used is becoming unsuitable in the North East as warmer summers make it more susceptible to die-back. Then he thinks that the fertilizer we put down may have scorched the grass but only the areas that get direct noon- 2 pm sun are affected. Whatever the cause, we applied round-up to the marigolds, raked the thatch off, dressed the soil and seeded and hopefully in a few days we will have a touch of green again.
We also removed all the ivy on the entrance to the cul-de-sac and added a couple of loads of topsoil to prepare for the stones and viburnum we are going to put there in an effort to placate the neighbors and beautify the road. I don't have a photo because my camera won't play nice and anyway who needs a photo of soil? But trust me it looks a lot better than the ivy mess that was there before.

Wilba

Wilba
Originally uploaded by modernemama.

Little Wilba hanging out in her favourite spot - the herb garden in front of the kitchen window. It was a good spot to leap out from and capture the wildlife on the lawn or the dell.
The day this was taken she brought home two chipmunks and laid them out on the kitchen doorstep. She had already been sink for thre years at that point.
Wilba was a wild Belgian kitten we found in the garden in Overijse twelve years ago. She was so tiny her eyes were only just opening. Her mother, a wild cat who lived next door, moved her from her nest because she was relatively healthy and placed her under the rhododendrons in our garden.
After we rescued her she liked to sleep on top our old dog Sam, but once she grew bigger she returned to her first love: the great outdoors. She survived three moves, including one to a new country and adapted each time without a problem. She was feisty but a great companion and even though she was a little incontinent towards the end we were all sad when she died.
Wilba 1994-2006

I said light not heat

Today's big project.......


As the days are getting shorter I've noticed that the fourteen floodlights in the kitchen give out great light but some of them also emit a fair amount of heat too. In fact yesterday evening we were eating in the kitchen and I swear my head started to fry.
I tried to do something about this problem last year and bought half a dozen low-energy bulbs to put over the kitchen table but they "sang" and it was so irritating that I took them out again and used them outside instead.
This time I replaced one 90 watt indoor fluorescent with a GE Reveal 65 watt as an experiment. It certainly doesn't singe my hair but when it is unlit it's a lilac colour and stands out like the kid with the black eye in the annual school photo.
So, do I replace all the bulbs with the GE Reveal? At $8 plus tax that'll be pricey and will purple kitchen lights be weird? Or will they set off the blue and purple Impala chairs? Or should I just try something else?
Sometimes you have to sweat the trivial details too.

Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-Tailed Hawk
Originally uploaded by modernemama.

This guy has been around a lot this summer. He must have been bugged that a lot of trees were felled after the storms, because I have never seen him on the wires before.
He or she is a Red-tailed hawk and when he flew off a few moments later the wires were really shaking. He flew right towards the house (and me) and then veered off at the last moment.
Wildlife, trees, it's definitely scary living here right now.

Danger all around

You never know what's going to hit you.
Some people won't let their kids go into the city because they are frightened of all dangers that they think abound there. Well, I'm not sure that living in the incorporated village is any safer.
I was walking the dogs down to the beach this afternoon just before the rain started. It's been a beautiful week, warm, sunny, with little wind so I thought we should make the most of the late summer weather. Just as we reached the end of the road there was a loud crack and I jumped, luckily to my right, because a large maple branch came crashing down six inches to my left. Doubly luckily, the dogs were in front of me, pulling me along as they usually do.
The crash, more like a thud really, could be heard by the neighbors back up the road. Damned dangerous these maples.

Back where we started

This time last year we were bemoaning a damp patch that had appeared on the front stairs that we attributed to the master shower. Our temporary solution was to not shower in the master and use one of the other bathrooms. Then we discovered that the boys' shower was also leaking so we were forced to take action. We caulked the hell out of both shower pans and that seemed to work until last month when the master bathroom starting leaking on to the stairs but in a different place than before.
Our solution, however, did not vary. We closed it down, the leak dried up and we continued using the boys' shower. Until this weekend when I noticed a new wet patch on the ceiling below the boys' shower. So we've stopped using that one again and as there doesn't seem to be a problem with the caulk we are facing the probability that we will be renovating two bathrooms at the same time.
Apart from the imminent expense, the mess and the inconvenience, what is bothering us at the moment is having to choose tiles for these rooms.
We spent all last weekend and Labor Day weekend looking at tiles and we saw nothing we liked for our bathroom, never mind the other one. Everything seems to be either very traditional, or Tuscan or blah. None of it would work in our unique space. So if anyone knows a good resource for inexpensive, modern bathroom tiles in NY metro area, please shout out.

Labor Day is for........

working. Of course. It is if it happens to be the only free day of the summer when you're at home, it isn't too hot to move, it isn't lashing down with rain from the latest tropical storm and you don't have visitors.
So it was that we spent all day yesterday washing windows, inside and out, including the screens. I hate washing windows because they usually look worse after I've done them than before but we still had some wood stain on the window panes from last November so we had to so something before the bad weather sets in again and the stain becomes permanent.
I've tried every method of window washing from newspaper and vinegar to Windex and paper towels. The current method involves a sheepskin mop dipped in a light solution of dishwashing liquid and really hot water and a squeegee to wipe off outside and Windex inside. I throw the upstairs screens in the shower and wash them there and put the hosepipe on the downstairs ones.
The first couple of hours flew by and then we made the mistake of taking a lunch break. That's when the sun came out and revealed that what had looked like sparkling clean upstairs windows were in fact streaked with grey. There was some heated debate about whether the marks were on the inside or the outside and who was therefore responsible but a redo was in order. We finally finished at 5 pm with the kitchen window. It is so badly washed it looks as if it is fogged. We didn't care, we didn't have the strength to go over it again.
Steven has promised to clean it next weekend but I think he will have forgotten all about it by then. It only looks bad when the sun shines on it so if I avoid the kitchen between 4 and 6 pm I won't notice it either.
The plan was to jump in the pool when we finished to cool off but as the water temperature was only 70 F I settled for cleaning the pool and Steve for a hot bath. We were in too much pain to light the bbq so we settled for chips and beer. And we didn't make it to the informal gathering down at the beach to celebrate the end of summer either.

MEM's the word

We did something totally out of character today. We actually left a plumbing showroom on speaking terms, without screaming at each other that "one of us has no taste, and it's not me", or without the despondent feeling that comes after looking at every faucet in the showroom and knowing you hate them all equally. We were so pleased with ourselves we rewarded us with lunch overlooking the water.
And what had caused peace and serenity to envelop us in this manner? The stunningly simple but arrestingly beautiful MEM bathroom faucet from Dornbracht. We looked at it and simultaneously declared it THE ONE. It comes also as a waterfall bath spout, which will make it perfect for the master bath, as well as the large spread for the basins. The only teensy weensy little issue is that we seem to have set our hearts on the most expensive faucet in the store, and we'll need two sink faucets, the bath faucet and a shower system, which flies in the face of our philosophy and promise to do this renovation as economically as possible. Still, it's a small price to pay for marital harmony, no?

Bathroom woes

It's official, we are going to have to do a total renovation of the master bath. I came down the front stairs a few days ago and noticed not only that the crack in the ceiling has got much worse and is bulging and pulling apart, but that there is a new damp spot in the middle that is an ominous blue colour. I don't know if the crack in the shower pan is responsible but as that has been there since we bought the house more than two years ago I would doubt it. I think it is more likely to be a leaky copper pipe somewhere.
A plumber once said that bathrooms weren't meant to be on the second floor and I would agree with that. I'd add that they should never be sited over beautiful waxed parquet floors. I'd be beside myself if the ceiling came down over the floor, so we've stopped using the shower in the master bath and are just using the tub, toilet and sinks. The damp spot hasn't got any bigger and it has dried out so I'm assuming it's the pipes in the shower that are the problem.
We will be spending the Labor Day weekend in the tile shops looking at options and I guess then we'll move on to looking at plumbing fixtures. As the weekend looks like being a washout I suppose it could be worse, but I was hoping we could spend it in the pool and barbequing. We don't seem to have spent as much time outside this summer as we have in the past. I can't believe that summer is over and we'll be thinking about closing up the pool at the end of this month.

Puddles

That's what we've got after four days of relentless rain. Every so often it will stop for a couple of hours and the driveways will dry off but where the new asphalt was laid on the cul-de-sac we have a large pool of water that's been there since Friday morning.
At least the smell has gone. I had forgotten what freshly laid tarmac smelt like, it's quite disgusting and hangs around forever. I'm sure this stuff isn't environmentally friendly. No one has mentioned to us yet why we had a new sealcoat laid only twelve months after the road was paved. But someone did come and remove the remaining "no entry" tape that was tied around a pole on our property. I was so tigged off I was planning to leave it there until it rotted.
In other news, someone called the police on our neighbor opposite because the contractors had started work at 7:50 am instead of 8. I wonder if it was the same person who called them on our roofers last year. The police didn't ticket these contractors though because it was after 8 am by the time they had got into the police car and driven the three houses to the "disturbance".
Strangely enough no one seems to be bothered about the landscaper two doors down who starts at 7 am every week. Or the other landscaper at my next door neighbor who comes every Saturday. Seems to me the police don't care unless someone actually makes a complaint. I wish I knew who it was.

Manners, please

I'm constantly amazed at the difference in what I consider to be good manners in the incorporated village and elsewhere. In our last country if there was to be any disruption to the daily routine e.g. closing the road to do repairs or someone having a grand piano delivered, then the police would be informed and three days before the event they would post warning notices so you had plenty of time to make arrangements to move your car or order earplugs. Whatever, it was considered "normal".
Here, not so much. Last evening going to fetch the mail we found stuck to the mailbox the following note signed by the neighbor: I have just had word that the road will be sealed tomorrow. All cars out by 8 am, should be dry by 3 pm. No sprinklers." Nice to know but this is a private cul-de-sac that we agreed to have asphalted last year. We certainly did not agree to have it top coated, and as there is no wear on it (at least on my end, who knows what damage the trucks and plant did up the other end over the past few weeks) I can't see the reason for it either. The other private roads haven't been sealcoated since we lived here.
I guess I'm just feeling a little out of control but there are actual reasons for my ire other than hurt feelings: firstly, the yard floods and two years ago the village built a 6" berm around the front of the property to keep the flood off our front lawn. With every inch of asphalt that defense is threatened.

cul-de-sac before

Secondly the neighbor across the courtyard entrance from me and I had agreed last month to build a wall at the entrance to smarten it up. We had spoken to the landscaper and ordered the boulders. Now the existing stones are buried under another layer of tarmacadam. Thirdly, since the first layer was laid, the end of the cul-de-sac has formed a nice puddle every time it rains that takes days to clear. I can't wait to see what will happen now. Fourthly, it looks like freakin' suburbia. Yuk, yuk yukkity yuk.
Oh and one more thing on the good manners front. Two cars that couldn't get up the cul-de-sac because of the crime scene tape have parked on the berm. The one that is nicely planted with hostas and day lilies. If they are reading this, please let me know where you live and I'll come park on your front lawn. Yes, I am royally pissed off.

Everyone else is busy

All our neighbors, every single one of them. It sounds like a symphony orchestra from 8 am to 4 pm. To the right hammering inside (floors I think); opposite hammering outside- replacing headers and clapboards; next door to that house is a wonderful stable conversion, they are at the shingles, windows and air conditioning installation stage; to my left new plumbing fixtures have gone in and work is being done on landscaping. Behind them, I haven't asked but a lot of heavy plant has been going up and down the cul-de-sac daily. Next door they just finished a kitchen remodel and behind us the tree guys have been doing their work. Sawing, banging, sanding, power tools.

Everyone. Except us. There is an oasis of calm just here. We are doing nothing at the moment or for the foreseeable future. And I'm madly jealous.

Everything in the garden is lovely

Well, most of it. These lilies are almost over and only the everlasting hydrangeas are still blooming. Except for a couple of tubs, I don't bother with annuals as I'd rather put the money into something that's going to give me a few season's pleasure. But it does mean that I don't have much of a summer display.
I'm giving some more thought to the side entrance of the property. Last year the neighbours wanted to "improve" the entry to the cul-de-sac but we never got around to a proper plan. I've heard via-via that an ornamental half fence is being proposed in place of the arborvitae but there is no fence that will go with our unique house so I'm sure I don't want to go down that road. I nixed the moss stone border idea as large trucks back up the cul-de-sac and it's a tight turn. The garbage truck and delivery vans already move the boulders that are there now. I don't need to spend the $$$$ it costs to lay the moss stones only to find I have pebbles after a few weeks.
Another suggestion was large boulders, which I'm more amenable to but I need to think about planting shrubs there that will fit with the stones, the evergreens and won't be destroyed by the snowplow and the sand in the winter. I'm also thinking if I want to remove the arborvitae I'll want to do it before the big boulders go in.
Nothing will happen before the fall, but these things have a habit of catching up with you if you don't have a plan.