Destinations
Treehouse Point
If you always wanted a treehouse and didn’t have the kind of dad who was into building things (Dad, I promise that is not a slight towards you), now you can live out your treehouse dreams for a few nights at Treehouse Point, a treehouse hotel outside of Seattle. How enchanting does this look? This forest looks like the ideal treehouse setting!
For more incredible treehouses, including interiors, see this past post.
Destinations
Travel Guides for Design-Lovers and Connoisseurs of All Sorts
Destinations
Strawser & Smith
Destinations
If I Were Going to the Derby, I Would Stay Here:
Destinations
Tavern
By the same team as Lucques, AOC, and Hungry Cat.
Recommendation and photos from Oh Joy Eats.
Destinations
Itinerary >> Portugal
Hotels found in the Design Hotels Yearbook 08, available here.
Destinations
Gjelina
I’ve started to see this look a lot, but I still love it. It’s a sort of an industrial meets apothecary-chic look, with chairs with wood seats and metal bases, Edison bulbs, grain sack cloth, raw wood planking, etc. The most recent example of it here….
Today, a friend in LA took me to this super cool restaurant Gjelina in Abbot Kinney in LA. Gjelina aside for a minute, Abbot Kinney is such a cool neighborhood!! I seriously loved it. As soon as we entered the neighborhood, I saw a Steven Alan store, and I knew I was home.
Ok, back to Gjelina. LOVED: the wood planking on the ceiling, the brick floor inside, the big light fixture with all different shapes and sizes of Edison bulbs, the paint color (dark grey but with brown in it, and very matte, like a chalkbooard), the light mint green industrial stools, and the different sized glass-front cabinets that make up the bar-back.
This isn’t visible at all in the photos, but possibly my favorite detail was about an 18″ tall border around the top of the wall of antique mirror set on top of a cornice that wrapped all the way around the room. It totally kept the very tall walls from becoming vast and boring, because your eye was drawn straight up to it, and then to the pretty ceiling.
Also you can’t see this in the photo either, but the big high tables have handles (like cabinet hardware handles) on the ends, and for some reason that detail totally delighted me.
And, as if the decor weren’t pleasing enough, the food was soo good.. not any one particular style of cuisine, just good ingredients turned into wonderful things. We had roasted beets with burrata that tasted like ice cream, roasted sunchokes with parsely pesto, and a gruyere, caramelized onion, and arugula pizza.
I hiighly recommend it!!!
Restaurant website here.
Destinations
Where to Have a Martini in London
The Connaught Hotel in London, part of the Maybourne Group, has revamped their bar with the help of interior designer David Collins. In fact, the Maybourne Group hired a slew of designers to refresh their three iconic London hotels with new suites, rooms, and restaurants. In addition to getting design buzz, the investment is apparently paying off, as they are still achieving occupancy over 80%.
I’m not actually crazy for the re-designs of the other spaces, but this bar is awesome. Interestingly, notice how little the furniture has to do with the overall success of the room. I mean it matters of course, but as is usually the case with restaurants and bars, it’s the scale, finishes, and lighting that set the tone…
The mirror behind the bar, the gold back-plate on the sconces, the panelling, the black reflective finish in the pass-throughs between the rooms. The black reflective finish (plastic?) also adds a little modern edge, which is nice.
Even with the furniture, what matters most here is not the style of the furniture, but rather the color and texture– here, black leather and more black leather, even on the table tops (cool, also like the nailheads on the table edge, incidentally). The density of black furniture also helps to ground the room, which is important given its super high ceilings. And speaking of scale, imagine how differently the room would feel if the ceilings were two-thirds the height…
Also interesting is the repeated use of rounded edges — on the “windows” and doorway, echoed in the mirror through the doorway, even the chairs and tables are rounded and don’t have corners. I think it helps soften what could be a rather austere or formal space.
via wandermelon travel website
And for a totally random aside, these guys would look sharp in there, wouldn’t they?
Models backstage before the Zegna show at Milan A/W.
I think this photo is really cool visually – the way you immediately notice their hands because they are all dressed almost identically and evenly spaced across the frame. It actually looks more like a contemporary art photo to me than just a snapshot backstage– it seems so tense and like it’s begging for some kind of interpretation about why these guys are together and dressed alike (if you imagine they aren’t at a fashion show).
from Wallpaper’s photos of Milan A/W 2010.
