Iconic Inspirations at Kitchens.com

Kitchens.com is a great resource for kitchen design and renovation information. The site's full of practical advice and great ideas. It's also run by some of my favorite people on the editorial side of the kitchen and bath industry.

Back in March, Kitchen.com's editor, Kim Sweet, asked me to participate in an editorial project they were working on. I was honored and said yes before I knew what exactly I was getting into.

The plan was to find well-known kitchens designers (who? me?) and pair us with an influential person outside of the industry. Based on a phone interview, we'd then design a fantasy kitchen for our iconic partners. The plans would never be build so we weren't constrained by such mundane things as budgets or production schedules.

I was paired with chef Ann Cooper. Ann's known as the Renegade Lunch lady and has made it her life's work to improve the quality and healthfulness of kids' school lunches.

Ann lives in the Rocky Mountains, entertains a lot and as a chef, is used to being around commercial equipment. She wanted something transitional, a room where she could cook and entertain at the same time and like everybody, she wanted a lot of room. There needed to be a fully functioning outdoor kitchen as well and it needed a charcoal grill and a wood-burning pizza oven.

I drew a plan in SketchUp and Kitchen.com's incredible renderer Kevin took my basic drawings and made absolute magic out of them.

The house was to be in the mountains and I wanted to honor the location and have the final room be rustic but not primitive. I used an inset, flat-panel cabinet in an off-white painted finish. The counters around the sink and part of the island's wall are in Carrera marble and the rest are in stainless steel. The island that I morphed into a table is an homage to the great Johnny Grey. He built an arced piece of marble into a kitchen and it's haunted me for the last ten years. I hope my version of it did some justice to the original.

The other designers who worked on this project were Cheryl Kees-Clendenon, Kelly Morrisseau and Ann Porter.

Here's Cheryl:

Here's Kelly:

Here's Ann

I know and admire all three of these women and it's a privilege to be included in any group that involves them. Now that it's finished and now that I see whose designs are part of this project as well, I'm struck by the same question. Why did you pick me? Those three are accomplished, award-winning designers and I'm some schmoe with a big mouth. Whatever the reason, this has been a real thrill so thanks go to Kim, mark and Kevin at Kitchens.com and of course to Ann Cooper for being such a good sport.

You an see the rest of this article and see Cheryl, Kelly and Ann's designs on Kitchen.com's Iconic Inspirations.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy 143rd to all of my Canadian friends and readers.

Christopher Dresser: not my great-grandmother's Victorian

See this tea set?

Teapot and Creamer, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

What year would you think that was made? How about this one?

Teapot, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Both of those objects date to around 1880 and they were designed by Christopher Dresser, a man regarded as the world's first, independent industrial designer. I saw both at a retrospective of Dresser's work back in 2004 at the Cooper Hewitt in New York. The museum displayed a collection of Dresser's creations in an exhibit called The Shock of the Old. The exhibit then moved on to London's Victoria and Albert Museum where it was called Christopher Dresser: A Design Revolution.

Vase, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Linthorpe Art Pottery, Yorkshire

I was reminded of that exhibit because I'm working on a post with the marketing folks at MOMA on exhibit they have coming up about modernist kitchens in the early 20th Century. That's coming next week, but I want to dwell on Mr. Dresser here today.

Toast Rack, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Prior to seeing those teapots at the Cooper Hewitt, I'd always though that modernism was strictly a 20th century impulse but as you can see from Dresser's work here, modernism's roots dig well into the 19th Century. So even though the conventional wisdom holds that household objects from 130 years ago didn't look like this:

Decanter, Christopher Dresser c. 1879

Manufactured by James Dixon and Sons

Dresser's popularity at the time shows that the Rococo mishmash of ornamentation that most people think of when they think Victorian wasn't universal.

Footed bowl, Christopher Dresser c. 1885

Manufactured by Elkington and Company

Dresser was an industrial designer, his work was meant to be mass produced and to sell. Of course some of his projects were more typical of the time. But what interests me about him are his projects that look forward to a new era all together.

Decanter, Christopher Dresser c. 1879

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

He was from all accounts an interesting man. He was a botanist by trade and was awarded his doctorate before he traded in his study of plants for the study and creation of objects. It was through his observations of the economy of plant design that he started to rethink the decorative arts. A trip to Japan in 1876 altered his views on ornament permanently. His willingness to look to the forms of other cultures, notably Japanese and Arabian, and to integrate them into his work spawned the wide acceptance of these forms and styles.

Toast Rack, Christopher Dresser c. 1881

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

Like many of his contemporaries, Dresser was involved in the movement to reform design. Remember that the later 19th Century was a time of great reform movements. The wealth generated by the industrial revolution spawned a class of people who were determined to reform and reinvent their entire society. Design reform was of a piece with sanitary reform, prison reform, workplace reform, etc. The Victorians reformers were going to improve the lot of everybody. Design reform was an attempt to mass produce tasteful objects for the middle and lower classes. Dresser's unadorned objects were not only new, they were less-costly to produce and his sensibilities fit the time when he lived to a T.

Chair, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by Chubb and Company 

for the Art Furnishers' Alliance

Christopher Dresser was a household name in England by the time he died in 1904, I don't think it's a stretch to say he was the 19th Century's Philippe Starck. He was a fascinating man and you can read more of Dresser's biography on the British Design Museum's website.

Tureen, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

Manufactured by Hukin and Heath

I'm old enough to have had a great-grandmother who was keeping house at the time when Dresser was plying his trade. I wonder what she would have thought of his take on their times, the Victorian Era?

Fan, Christopher Dresser c. 1880

for the Art Furnishers' Alliance

Cabinet hardware by DuVerre adds the finishing touch

I've long admired DuVerre hardware and it's both a pleasure and an honor to sell it now. DuVerre takes a different approach to what's all-too-frequently a mundane afterthought and makes it the center of attention. How can something like this not be the attention grabber wherever it's used?

Though most often used on cabinetry doors and drawers, this hardware's beautiful enough that it could be used anywhere. I can see it on furniture, on closet doors, even used as hooks in a bathroom or master suite.

DuVerre works with such design luminaries as Clodagh, Christopher Smith, Scot Laughton, William Harvey and many more. The results of these collaboration are unlike anything else out there. Here are some more terrific examples of what's available.

You can see the rest of their collection on their website and if you're ever interested in having any of these selection in your own home, I can help you with that. That wasn't too obvious was it? Anyhow, don't settle for an afterthought, use DuVerre for a real finishing touch.

St. Petersburg's Signature is a signature building

A year ago a building down the street from me got its certificate of occupancy after a nearly two year build. I can see over downtown from my living room windows and watching this building rise from ground was two year long thrill. The building is called the Signature and it's a waterfront condominium tower and street-level work/ live space. The building's a stunner and made all the more so when its compared to the usual dreck that gets built on waterfronts in the fair state I call home.

The Signature was designed by architect Ralph Johnson from Chicago's Perkins + Will. I cannot think of a more thoughtful and interesting building on Florida's entire west coast.

The complex is actually a complex of lofts and storefronts that ring the tower and all told the project takes up a whole block of downtown St. Pete.

I see the building from its northern elevation and when viewed from the north or the south it appears to be a monolith ringed with balconies and topped with a true roof.

Seen from the east, the building all but disappears. The leading edge of the tower comes to a perfect, 372-foot tall leading edge that faces the water. The architect designed the building to be an homage to the boat sails in the marinas downtown and his homage works. This is a 36-story building that's 372 feet tall and it appears to be as graceful and airy as any sail could ever hope to be.

In a fit of thoughtfulness, the building's orientation minimizes the blocked water views in the neighboring towers and it leaves a surprisingly small footprint on St. Pete's rightfully bally-hooed, accessible waterfront.

I walked around it the other afternoon and caught some of it's more pleasing angles. Things being what they are in the real estate market here, there are still units available in the Signature and at this stage of the game, the prices start at $185K. That's about a third of the entry-level asking price made available pre-construction. By local standards, that's an unheard of asking price. The building's extremely well-built and the level of finishes the builder built into the units is surprisingly good.

In every way imaginable, the Signature is a signature building for my beloved St. Pete and its place along waterfront marks a real departure from what's expected out of St. Pete. This was after all, once a city referred to as "God's Waiting Room." My how times have changed.