Nov 25, 2009
Sonic Youth, Edith Wharton and Uri Gilbert
When I do book signings and lecture/slideshows for Restoring a House in the City, invariably one of the first questions I get is how I found the 21 houses in my book. There is no short answer as each house–and how it came to be included–has its own story. As a former editor at House & Garden and Martha Stewart Living, I had many contacts in the interior design and architecture community and I cast a wide net. I called everyone I knew and looked at hundreds of houses before choosing the ones in my book. I sifted through emailed photos and whenever possible scouted homes in person. I’d visit a city or town–Boston or Savannah for instance–and make a targeted scouting trip where I would visit as many as fifteen houses in a weekend. There were so many wonderful houses. The final selection came down to variety–I wanted the book to include a range of architectural styles, locations, decorating styles and renovation approaches.
One house, in Troy, New York, astonished me both in the beauty of the architecture and in the way the restoration and décor capture the original spirit of the home which dates from the 1850s. Check it out on p. 42 of Restoring a House in the City, in the chapter titled Forgotten Grandeur. What’s Sonic Youth and Edith Wharton got to do with it? Here is the back story on how I discovered this wonderfully preserved house. http://bit.ly/6v8DrJ
