During the last few weeks as my life creaked its way to back to normality, I did much planning of the country house that looms large in my imagination and which, despite all my attempts at getting us to reconnoitre lake and mountaintop, we have yet to buy.
It's the English half of me, I think, that longs for a house in the country - I read somewhere an acerbic comment that when Brits make a pile of money they all head for the country, heads filled with notions of joining the gentry, to refurbish every bothy, parsonage and manse in sight - whereas the American half rather would like a snappy little cottage, fit only for ourselves and a couple of friends, atop a gusty dune by the ocean. The Celt, raised as he was by parents who for various reasons lived in the Scottish hinterland, considers the countryside nothing more than psychical and cultural wilderness, brimming with rain, flies and shit. Undeniably, the countryside does have a lot of each, but my relationship with a romantic idea remains strong despite me knowing that, were I there, I'd probably spend a lot of time sloshing, swatting, dodging and squelching. The Celt, as I say, does not think as I do.
I can accept that one might, romantically, wish to connect the interior of a country house to its surroundings - give a nod to the spirit of place, as it were. I accept, also, that in the language of design there is a degree of cant - conventions and pieties that seem to express an esoteric level of connection. For example, the once de rigeur phrase bringing the outside in has been supplanted by a more mystical honoring of the landscape beyond the windows - a paying of tribute, nymph-like, to the trees, the streams, the flora and fauna. What it means, of course, is that wicker, grass, rust, distressed paint, driftwood, flour-sack pillows, litters of herbal, avian and floral motifs, even a jelly-jar or two, aflitter with lightening bugs, cosy up together with hand-adzed beams, reclaimed barnwood walls and floors, faded oriental carpets, crusty antiques from
Our friend Will emailed to tell me about photographs of David Whitcomb's country house that he'd found and another friend kindly lent me the book. I recognized it immediately, of course - somewhere here there's a box of clippings amongst which is the original article about the house - I was so impressed thirty-odd years ago, when I saw the photographs for the first time. In fact I still am, and it's quite clear that Mr Whitcomb had no truck with a gimcrack pantomime of country life. His house, a converted mill, which he enlarged with a stainless-steel structure as simple as a child's building block, became his year-round residence after he gave up his city apartment.
I could bang on about Mr Whitcomb's sense of place, his appreciation of the structure of the old mill, his taste in furnishing it, and how the more contemporary room, the steel studio, has stood the test of time, but I don't need to - its clear from these photographs.
And it's clear to me that this is precisely the kind of house I would like for us to inhabit. Oh, I don't necessarily mean a mill-house, though that would have its charms; rather, a house comfortably and amply furnished, cognizant of infirmity and youth, and with those most valuable of commodities: space, peace and quiet.
Photographs of David Whitcomb's country house from Architectural Digest: Country Homes by Daniel Eifert to accompany "original text adapted by Cameron Curtis McKinley." The Knapp Press, Los Angeles, 1982.
I am glad that you liked it. I love his combination of the rustic, and the clean and simp!e. And to think, this is 40 years old?
ReplyDeleteWhile the picturesque old mill would be tempting, the windswept dune looks more attractive every day.
ReplyDeleteI'm with the Celt who "considers the countryside nothing more than psychical and cultural wilderness." My dad was a gentleman farmer. He had a place in the "country." In retrospect it was nice and he dearly loved working in the dirt. But I didn't enjoy it so much until I was old enough to drive the tractor. So maybe the Celt will need a tractor.
ReplyDeleteI rather hanker after a country house for the peace and tranquility I presume it will bring, especially as an antidote to the madness that is Bangkok. Indeed we go every year to live that life. But perhaps in a better way. It belongs to somebody else, and we do not have the responsibility to maintain it, (both in terms of cost and effort, and both of which are substantial). Indeed we are off very shortly and I am champing at the bit. But as last year, we are dividing our time away, and spending two weeks in a cottage, which looks idyllic, and also in the much grander establishment, which is a bit of a handful, but as I say, is not of any concern to me, for the reasons aforementioned. I know if the day ever comes when we decide we can live in two places, the second one will be somewhere in between the cottage and the castle.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful, peaceful place to creak around in/be creaked at in. A country house should be first a dream of many years, a pleasure-dome even if not particularly stately. The reality inevitably contains at least some of what your Celt describes, but maybe the dream doesn't have to vanish. In Ile-de-France there is almost no alternative but to travel or go to a country house and follow the general exodus in August, esp. with restless children! I’ve just spent weeks with my scampering spider-worked walls and door casings à la crotte de mouche and these things did in no way alter the bucolic bliss.
ReplyDeleteHow many interesting points you have raised in your thoughts. Firstly, in the pull between the Brit self and American self, perhaps a blending of the two in a country house will never quite satisfy, as the see saw is constantly tipped differently depending on whim, circumstance and surrounding people. So the only answer I see to that dilemma is that you will simply need 2 country homes - one to reflect each mood.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, your point about the rustic sacks, etc. brings to mind the interesting penchant of current fashion, and of how it is so often taken OUT of context. So that a high rise apartment in a bustling city may well have a spirit of a Belgian country manor of the 19th century even though it has no bearing.
And when the interior IS in context with the surrounds, it is fascinating to ponder why this sometimes works, and why it sometimes feels contrived, as if done by a stylist. Perhaps it needs a little hand of humour, which appears to pervade in your beautiful example by Mr Whitcomb. {Eg. adding a Roman bust to a bedroom furnished in a country house is quite witty - and is not what one would expect.} So perhaps you need to add wit to your dream list of space, peace and quiet.
Oh Blue, our clip files look so alike! This has always been a particular favorite of mine. This is the second version---the old ell burned, and the stainless steel addition that replaced was designed by good friends, the late David Morton and his partner Thomas Cordell.
ReplyDeleteWMTwiggs, thank you. Will, I loved it then and I still love it. As you say 40 years old but as up to date today as it was then. Thank you for telling me about it.
ReplyDeleteThe Devoted Classicist, thank you. I know exactly what you mean!
ReplyDeleteTerry, thank you. I don't think a tractor would make the countryside more attractive to the Celt - pity, really.
ReplyDeleteColumnist, thank you. I agree about the cost and responsibility of a second place. In our case it would not be to escape the frenetic pace of Atlanta (Atlanta is not that fast-paced or even turbulent) but it would be just a bolt-hole for a few days or longer. When it happens, or if it happens, the buying of a second place, it will have the same spaciousness of David Whitcomb's steel addition - his studio.
ReplyDeletegésbi, thank you. Spider-scampered walls and fly-spotted door casings - not quite the romance of the countryside - but not enough to worry me and the Celt either (I don't think). Wherever we live or vacation there are always other inhabitants, some not always to our liking, but they belong as much as we do. Weeks in the country! Very much to my taste and I'm glad to read you enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteBlue Fruit, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe pull between the Brit self and American self - you're right about the see saw constantly tipping, but there is a dominant twin, as it were. Each could be satisfied, I think, in a smallish 20,000 square-feet contemporary addition to an isolated fisherman's shack - similar, in many ways, to the beautiful houses and gardens you have shown recently on your blog.
The evocation of other places, other times, and occasionally other people's ancestors - Provence in a Texas suburb, Second Empire Manhattan, Tuscany in the Cotswolds - all rather silly, in my opinion, but it all reflects our aspirational times very accurately.
"And when the interior IS in context with the surrounds, it is fascinating to ponder why this sometimes works, and why it sometimes feels contrived, as if done by a stylist" - the answer there, I'm sure, is that it done by a stylist or by someone very influenced by magazines. Wit, I think, is unconscious and is inevitably bound up with personality and what one likes and finds fitting. Arthur Smith, if I read the photograph right, once used a Roman head as a shower head.
Always good to hear from you!
The Down East Dilettante, thank you. That our files are similar does not surprise me one bit. I just wish I could find mine my boxes and the more I look for them, the more I fear they are long gone to the recycling bin. I shall ask my friend Will if he knew David Morton and Thomas Cordell.
ReplyDeleteYour beautiful interiors are a far cry from my own little cottage by the sea so naturally distressed from years of dogs and children. What began as a romantic hide-away in my 30s has had to adapt to our family population boom and a wide range of personalities and interests. Jelly jars brimming with wildflowers now share table space with Ipads and laptops (we added cable two years ago) and I still loath the mess of cords snaking all over the floor. What I didn't foresee, all those years ago, was how that place would define our lives. The mosquitoes are still terrible at dusk...but don't give up on your dream.
ReplyDeleteI have a house in the city near where I work, one in the country, a new log cabin on 58 forested acres, and one on the desert with a swimming pool. I love having enough money to all of that.
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