Designtripper

Everyone works up such a frenzy about the Olde Bell Inn (me included) and it’s certainly not without merit, I assure you. All rush matting, peeling paint and bartenders wearing suspenders without irony, it’s the single best inn experience I’ve ever had, period. But its sister inn, The Crown–just 20 minutes away by car–is pretty spectacular, too. Owned by Tej and Sarina Dhillon and designed (in the same modern coaching inn vernacular) by UK designer Ilse Crawford, there are a lot of aesthetic similarities, starting with the peacock fabric-upholstered fireside armchair and creaky, worn floorboards. With the same High Wycombe chairs, the same (belted) Welch woolly blankets, the same liberal smattering of sheepskins, it’s a near replica tucked inside a slightly newer skin. Because it’s only about 500 years old, a spring chicken compared to the oldest coaching inn in England–the Olde Bell’s claim to fame. The Crown is famous for something else: It’s the recognizable location of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Two years ago almost to the day, we spent an extra-long weekend visiting both, a trip that provides endless fond memories of gray skies, cozy fireside pints and chilly November walks. You won’t want to leave the inn (especially if you have a room with a soaking tub), but trust me on this one: Make sure to wander beyond Amersham’s cluster of tony shops and restaurants. Just beyond the town square, we discovered a walking trail that begins behind the 12th-century stone church of St. Mary’s, where bright green moss-encrusted tombstones and craggy trees look less Bronte (than the Olde Bell’s moors), more Sleepy Hollow. The footpath follows along a small stream into a forest of tall trees and gigantic holly bushes before splintering off into a handful of paths. We pick the right one, and standing above the town at dusk (sunset: 4:15pm in November), the small lights twinkle an outline of the town and everything is perfect.

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Sculptor, photographer and designer Blake Simpson’s small five-room desert motel has just the kind of back story I fall for every time: a nearly derelict structure he gut-renovated himself–thoughtfully and by hand–over the course of the past nine years. With previous high-profile jobs like furniture designer for Marc Jacobs, the consummate craftsman attended to every little detail–the doors, windows, walls, floors, gates, and a lot the furniture was created on site. The result is pretty impressive: a hand-built hideaway with a decidedly laid-back, masculine vibe and sloppy-modern aesthetic (in a good way; not the rigid, sterile kind, all clean lines and right angles). Inside, mid-century chairs, globes, typewriters and record collections strike the right balance between decor and distraction. And outside, the thing to do is plant yourself in one of the mismatched lawn chairs on the beautifully landscaped desert patio to read all day under the shade and talk all night beside the fire. At least that’s what I’d do.

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Last winter, we traveled to Sayulita to stay in designer Patrizio Fradiani’s latest vacation home stunner–a run-down house and garage he and his partner bought on a vacation-high whim and spent eight months rehabbing (he spent a week every month there, working around the clock). I couldn’t post extensively about it here, because I was on assignment, writing about it for CS Interiors. By the time it came out in print, the weather was spring-like, so I decided to wait until a Mexican getaway felt more relevant. I recently spoke with Patrizio, who said reservations are filling up quickly for the winter months, so if you’re at all interested–it’s perfect; do you hear me, perfect?–I highly recommend making some early travel arrangements. You do not want to miss this.

High in the outdoor living room of the bright orange villa–three floors above ground and 100 above sea level–there’s a soaring view of the Pacific Ocean and verdant mountainous skyline. The tops of houses, palm trees and climbing fuchsia bougainvillea give the distinct feeling of sitting in some sort of luxe tree house. Inside the two structures–which Fradiani connected with a walking bridge–four simple, luminous-white bedrooms are decorated with furniture and textiles from local markets. They are the only rooms with real walls. The rest of the 2,700-square-foot spread is dedicated to the fresh, open air. The kitchen, dining room and living room all sit on the third floor, under a thatched roof, and there’s a small soaking tub up there and a set of hammocks with pinch-yourself vistas of jungle, garden, rooftops, ocean.

At almost any time, day or night, the sounds of the surroundings drift through with the breeze–a drum band, a cacophony of roosters, a truck peddling gas with music and loud-speaker announcements, kids playing soccer nearby. The pool on the ground level, surrounded by one of the most vibrant gardens I’ve ever seen, feels intimate and private, and if you get bored with the endless pleasure cycle of lazing about–nap, pool, eat, hammock, repeat–the town, which is a short walk down the hill, has a laid-back surf vibe and authentic culture that sets this fishing village apart from busier, tonier resort towns. Take a hike through the jungle to reach one of several off-the-beaten-path beaches (the main public beach is pretty busy); the payoff is remote, sprawling and unfathomably gorgeous.

The Details
Four bedrooms with queen beds and in-suite bathrooms. Prices range from $1,850 to $2,950 a week, depending on season. Rent it at casadoschicos.com.

[Photos: All photographs by Bob Coscarelli]

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In high school, I traveled to France with the sole purpose of visiting the Henri Matisse museum in Nice (his hometown!). As my mom and I approached the red museum doors, we we were devastated to find it closed for renovation–and we still talk about it to this day. Imagine my surprise when the farmer hosting us in the foothills of the western North Carolina mountains told me that the artist Alex Matisse, the great grandson of Henri, lives down the road, where he makes beautiful, functional pots in a wood-burning kiln. We took a self-guided tour of Alex’s outdoor studio, nestled in a clearing, surrounded by trees and wildflowers. He left some pots on his front porch for us to view and maybe buy. Walking in the huge kiln, smelling the wood ready to fire up pots not yet molded, seeing the cream hues of clay pots waiting to be glazed, and knowing that all the materials, tradition and craft in his art were rooted in North Carolina brought me so much joy. It was so inspiring to witness the preservation and exploration of traditional American craft.

Before traveling to the East Fork Farm, we stayed in a sweet, light-filled studio in downtown Asheville with 15-foot tin ceilings, a grand piano, a wall of mirrors, dozens of beautiful green plants and the best sunlight. The studio is one of many on an old market alley that used to be full of merchants, farmers, butchers, crafters and wholesalers. Today, the street is occupied by artists, dance studios and galleries. We ate several meals at the Early Girl Eatery, a from-scratch restaurant that gives children a bucket of toys upon arrival (genius!). Around the corner from our studio, a mural depicts a family of honeybee and poultry farmers, and a Parsons-dropout opened a cool shop called Royal Peasantry, which sells handmade clothing, jewelry and accessories made from feathers, leather and beads.

On the way home, we drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped in Virginia to admire the New River and eat at the Palisade Restaurant, a local food eatery housed in a former general store with all the dark wood shelving, tin ceiling and exposed brick intact.

The Details
East Fork Farm is located 25 miles northwest of Asheville. Two cottages (sleeping 2-4, $125/nt or 2-6, $150/nt). Cottages feature handmade stoneware, outdoor cedar soaking tubs, views of sheep grazing on rolling hills, a dozen farm fresh eggs, and a taste of mountain farm life.

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Progress report: We just finished painting the walls at Honor + Folly. This week, we’re starting to move in furniture, and collaborative creative projects from local designers and artisans continue humming right along. Almost everything inside will be for sale. Thanks so much for all your support and enthusiasm!

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Sometimes a photograph makes you want to climb inside. Transported. That’s how I feel about the travel work of Gemma Hart Ingalls and Andrew Ingalls, the talented duo behind The Epicures, a beautiful online travelogue dedicated to their far-flung photography, which has made its way into magazines like Food and Wine and Martha Stewart Living. This particularly gorgeous, wanderlust-inducing trip to coastal Uruguay will have you climbing rocks, riding horses across the rugged landscape and eating seafood with your hands–in your imagination–in no time. A guiding report from Gemma and Andrew about the experience:

Once you head east beyond the high rise hotels and yacht culture of Punta Del Este, Uruguay’s coastline is peppered with beautiful and sparsely populated beach towns, and vast farmland rich with wild horses and flocks of birds farther inland. About 45 minutes east of  Punta is Jose Ignacio, a  chic beach town full of modern vacation homes and beaches crowded with umbrellas. This town was a bit too sceney for us, but we would recommend staying at Posada Del Faro is you want to check it out for a night or two. It is also worth a trip just to visit the fantastic restaurant La Huella, right on Playa Brava. They have a massive wood fired oven and cook all manner of the freshest seafood.

About an hour drive along the inland road (the coastal road is not yet complete) will take you to La Pedrera, a sleepy beach town full of surfers and families vacationing reminiscent of Montauk before the crowds. We stayed in a simple but pleasant yurt at Puebla Barrancas, an ocean front property with a nice restaurant. If you can spring for one of their luxury cabins, I would recommend it, as they are closer to the ocean and the walk from the yurt and tent cabin area is lengthy. The hotel beach was spotless and deserted, and it was a lovely 10-minute walk along the ocean brought you to the surfer backpacker town of La Pedrera for more restaurant choices and supplies.

[Photos: All images by Ingalls Photography]

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There are so many things to say about Paris. I’m not sure I can add much that hasn’t already been rhapsodized to death. It both embodies and defies its stereotypes (yes, those stylish French ladies do wear a lot of stripes! yes, those baguettes are a little bit like heaven! no, French people aren’t all elitist snobs!)–visually, emotionally… gastronomically–and can completely take you in, make you love or hate it, depending on the block. The most special part of this trip was exploring a new neighborhood– one that we stayed in, thanks to expat Anne Ditmeyer, who already wrote about the Hotel Amour on designtripper.

For us, it wasn’t just about the hotel, although for the record, it’s everything Anne promised it would be plus a little more. It’s stylish yet markedly unfussy (in a “we’re way too cool to care about interiors, perhaps you might enjoy the ironic Micky Mouse statue at the front desk with a giant penis”-sort-of-way); really, really laid back (as in “you might wait a half an hour before we take your order, but we promise, it will be totally worth it.” It usually was. And the servers all wear football jerseys, strangely, and denim skirts, yet somehow it doesn’t feel nauseatingly contrived), and the grandest of all perks, it’s located in the center of the 9th arrondissement, which is full of the most beautiful food shops I have ever seen. Charcuterie stacked to the ceiling, sausages wrapped in towers and hanging by twine. Fresh fruit pyramids. I could smell the strawberries from half a block away. Patisserie after patisserie, each one more delicious-looking than the last. Endless fromage shops. There’s even a shop solely dedicated to confiture, La Chambre Aux, which sells confitures, marmalades and chutneys in infinite combination: raspberry with flower, clementine with vanilla, fig with cognac, pear with ginger. There are so many great restaurants in Paris, but we hardly left our neighborhood for food, unless it was to take our bulging market bag to a destination park for a picnic. And they close the street on Sundays, so you can do your shopping!

I have been to Paris a handful of times, but this neighborhood made me fall in love with it again. Like experiencing it for the first time. Is that another Paris cliche? I think I’m OK with that.

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From the top: 1. Stumbled upon the Parc de Bruxelles at night and it was glowing neon blue and green with these colorful pendants strung in the trees, and a bunch of street acrobats doing some rogue nighttime jumping and rolling–most absurd, magical unplanned part of the trip. 2. Store called Hunting and Collecting. Sort of a scrappier Collette in concept. 3. A bedroom at the Musee Horta Museum–the home of Belgium’s father of Art Nouveau architecture. I got scolded for taking photos, but not before I captured this beautiful wallpaper (and a urinal that unfolds from a bedside closet!). 4. Like every other significant historic building at time of visit, the Grand Place was under construction. I love how colorful the scaffolding crutches are! 5. After a morning at the daily flea market at Place du Jeu de Balle, we grabbed breakfast at this fantastic cafe on the square filled with locals. 6. Best find: K.Loan, an industrial-leaning antique shop on Rue Blaes. Most beautiful, well-styled vintage store I have ever seen. 7. A long-standing institution of a beer hall, Mort Subite was named after the sudden-death card game obsessively played by a bunch of bankers 80-something years ago. 8. The cathedral at Grand Place all lit up at night. 9. Brussels has amazing street art. 9.  10. A reco from a friend: “Find the pomme frites stand (the one that looks the most ridiculous) and eat fries where kings have been killed.” Duly noted.

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With three big bedrooms and a shared living room and kitchen, the Concept Hotel should really be called the Concept Inn or B&B. But semantics aside, the place is perfect. Even its inconspicuous perch above a chocolate shop smack in the center of Grand Place–a location I would usually eschew for its touristy appeal–felt charming and not the least bit cheesy. It was really something special to come home at night, the square of Gothic, Baroque and Louis XIV 15th- and 17th-century buildings all lit up with glowing gilt, and quietly let ourselves in through a dark, closed chocolate shop. An ancient, rustic wooden spiral staircase let us up to our room like a secret passageway, where we could admire the spectacle high above foot traffic.

The owner, Arnaud Rasquinet, who rents the space from the government is not a designer; he laughed when I asked him. The space is so old and beautiful, he explained, that the interiors need very little–a few pieces of simple furniture, lamps and some well-chosen framed photographs and wooden antiquities that he picked up at local shops and flea markets. His first “hotel” fills up so regularly (Le Coup de Coeur) that, about a year ago, he decided to open a second one down the street. Every morning the guests sit around a table in the kitchen (one of the most beautiful rooms) for a simple, delicious breakfast–local jams, cheese, meat, croissants, bread and fresh-squeezed juice. There’s a window of four hours to get breakfast, but like clockwork, all the guests ended up showing up at the same time every morning, each of us equipped with a different language, our few common words forming an unlikely semblance of conversation. It seemed a fitting way to start the day: struggle outside your comfort zone; make effort despite feeling a little stupid; discover commonalities and great pleasure and satisfaction. I love when a place gives you something more than a place to rest your head.

The Details
Prices start around $165 (breakfast included). Reserve a room at concepthotel.be.

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I’m going to be in Paris over the weekend and I’ve yet to find a place I’d rather stay. Sure, this historic apartment that looks like it was decorated by some fanciful eccentric with a magic paintbrush isn’t exactly a vacation rental, but it wouldn’t take much–a mattress on the floor? Right under the ceiling with painted rays streaming from the intricate cross-shaped medallion. Situated between Place Vendome and Place du Marché Saint-Honoré (and dangerously close to Colette), it’s one of the most unconventionally inspiring spaces I’ve ever seen. And even if you can’t sleep there, you can rent it for parties, photo shoots and other creative endeavors at Loft Connexion. I’ll be back next week!

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When I spent a week at Podere Palazzo almost four years ago with my family, all the fresh plantings on the grounds were teeny-tiny nubs, and a few of the spindly cypress trees had wooden tree crutches to help hold them up. We didn’t mind; the surrounding views are breathtakingly beautiful in every direction. But the owner (and my dear friend) Patrizio, who is relentlessly passionate about his native landscape, had always dreamed of having a formal Italian garden like the historical villas of Italy. “At some pont I started fantasizing of a hybrid garden that was at once formal yet more rustic than most formal gardens,” says Patrizio. “I wanted to create a viewing axis from the south side of the house towards the valley that would become an experience of its own. Most successful Italian formal gardens create not just a special oasis, curated to the max, but also an amazing dialogue with the landscape around. And that became my main goal: getting the beauty of the landscape around the house to ‘speak’ to the home with an intermediate element that was both architectural and natural.”

The formal garden project started hand-in-hand with a more naturalistic garden project for the remaining four acres. “Despite my enthusiasm and desire to get it all done fast, it has become the most fun work-in-progress of my life. Gardening requires a lot of patience and the game is in the waiting. Every year I say, ‘The garden this year looks great, but next year will be better.’ And that’s because you learn how to trim a rose bush better, learn which plants do better with the dry summers and wet winters, which are more subject to pests…” He also wanted to create a modern farm, where the grounds are not just beautiful but also edible. In the more naturalistic part of the land, where there were already Oak trees, Elm trees, and wild pear and plum bushes,  he planted 106 olive trees on one side of a hill and 50 fruit trees on the side, plus every herb you can think of.

“The formal garden is more extravagant in the plantings and aside from classic staples like Lavenders, Santolina, Viburnums, Cotoneaster, Artichoke plants, we infused it with edible herbs, hundreds of flowering bushes and roses and an organic vegetable garden that in each season grows and produces a bounty of goodies,” says Patrizio, who has grown into a self-professed countryside and garden addict. The knowledge and skill he’s garnered is so inspiring. But most of all, I love how he rhapsodizes about every single individual plant (way too many to include here). “The creeping Rosemary is a beautiful plant that requires lots of patience but is extremely rewarding (that is the creeper you see falling down on the pool rock wall). It is so elegant and slow in the way it grows down on a wall, and it blooms all year round. It also provides the only flowers in the months of January and February–how precious is that? And we use it to cook and roast in the fireplace.”

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The Marais House is as quintessentially Parisian and eclectic as they get. Situated on one of the oldest street in the Marais, the 16th-century, five-story b&b also doubles as a highly coveted location for film productions and photo shoots (including a glamorous spread with Laura Dern in W magazine a few years ago). The owner completely transformed the upscale city chateau, formerly a gold-leaf workshop where artisans crafted traditional lettered facades for storefronts, bringing in the requisite elements–a wrought-iron staircase, Venetian painted doors, and count them, eight 17th century stone fireplaces–to make it feel like it’s been like this forever. If you’re so inclined, you can even rent the whole rambling place–cellars, drawing room, planted terrace with a view of the rooftops and all.

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We finally decided on Paris. We’re leaving next week, and we just booked our tickets–which means that finding a place to stay hasn’t been exactly easy with less than two weeks notice. But can I say this here? It doesn’t really matter where you stay in Paris. In other cities, I love having an apartment so I can cook my own food and spread out a bit, but here, I’d rather take my baguette and cheese to a park for a picnic, or my book to the corner cafe and half-watch people all day long over the pages.

Nonetheless, I did find a few super charming, already booked Parisian flats for rent, including Appartement Blanc (which I spotted on Prêt à Voyager’s Where to Sleep in Paris post). Situated between Oberkampf and Marais quarters, the space was decorated with works by French designers Créations Herbes Rouges, Tsé-Tsé Associés, Serge Barbier et Design du lieu by Juliette Barbier. I love that there’s great effort in providing linens and cutlery, so you can “set a beautiful table,” and two favorite details–worn parquet floors and a small terrace over the courtyard–make it feel quintessentially Parisian.

The Details
Two bedrooms, open living room and kitchen. $220 a night with discounts for longer stays. Rent it at appartement-blanc.fr.

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Ben Lambers and Tatjana Quax of The Netherlands-based Studio Aandacht (and two of my favorite designtripper correspondents) just returned from a road trip through Spain, where they went in search of the “authentic Moor spirit.” The week-long trip to Carboneras led them through places like Gerona, Alicante and the lovely Peniscola (where they crashed in big commercial hotels, mostly), but their final destination was the El Dorado–an old throwback hotspot from the days when shooting films in this part of Spain was the thing to do.

“The barron landscape formed the ideal backdrop for westerns and movies like Lawrence of Arabia. You’ll find signed pictures of moviestars on the walls of the restaurant everywhere because the man who founded this hotel was a famous, retired setdresser who fell in love with the region,” says Ben. It’s since been sold to a new owner, which Ben thinks helped it lose some of its soul. “But with a bit of imagination, you can still see Raquel Welch comming out of the surf in her bikini. Stroll along the windy boulevard or visit the nature reservoir with it’s abandoned goldmines and scorchingly hot ghost towns.” Enjoy their beautiful photographs!

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