Houses Gardens People: 5/1/09

Jonathan Dedman Dietz's Burma Photos

On Thursday I went to the opening of Jonathan Dedman Dietz's photography show at the yet-to-be finished new space which will eventually house the Dallas Contemporary. Dietz, who is Nancy Dedman's grandson and a talented photo journalist, documented his travels to Burma.

I love how these waiters were dressed and posing in front of a photo of a turbaned Burmese man. They were appropriately dressed for the heat -- there's no air conditioning yet -- and I was not. I wore a sweater. What was I thinking?

Nancy Dedman, sporting a summer sweater, too, but looking crisp and unwilted despite the humidity, told me that her favorite photo was this one at far left, of the man inside the wheel, "Because it wasn't staged. Everyone thinks it was because it's so dramatic, but Jonathan captured it just as it happened," she said.

(I apologize for the lack of photos -- my camera has been broken. But it's finally fixed and so next time I'll have better photos for you. I borrowed these from someone who attended the show.)

The warehouse was decked out like a Burmese palace. Michelle Nussbaumer did the styling and I think she did a great job, don't you?

A Burmese boat cleverly turned into seating....

Later in the evening, this turned into a dance floor, with guest DJs Capera Ryan, Jennifer Miller, and Bernard Nussbaumer. I wish you could have seen architect Richard Drummond Davis and Contemporary director Joan Davidow swing dancing -- it was worth the price of admission!

The party was a fundraiser for the museum, which needs to raise another $200,000 to finish the building. Kari Schlegel chaired the event -- she's so young -- and I wonder if this was her first. Kari is definitely someone to watch.

Partying With Gabriel Barbier-Mueller

This is the cool hallway leading to one of the residences inside the Azure, where Gabriel Barbier-Mueller threw a party recently. The way it's carved and lighted, it's a little like swimming underwater in a coral reef. This was intentional.

I took my camera and shot some photos before the sun went down, and before it got too crowded.

View from the 17th floor. The aqua blue glass 31 story high rise was designed by award winning Vancouver architect James Cheng.

With the economy the way it is and so many new buildings going up, the Azure is making some amazing deals on its luxury apartments including leases.

Pitchers full of tequila and OJ, the drink of the evening. Can you imagine what that lavender-lighted hallway looks like after a few of these?

Gabriel Barbier-Mueller. I first met Gabriel when we were both 20-something and he hired me to manage a tiny international book and magazine shop he started just so that he could have books and magazines in French and German to read. That hasn't changed (International Press closed back in the 90s). You still can't find a place to buy good foreign language books and magazines. (Another thing that hasn't changed -- Gabriel's baby face. He still looks like he's in his 20s.)

It was the late 80s when we worked together, and Gabriel had just built the Rolex building downtown and renovated 1530 Main St., which is now The Joule. It was one of the first historic renovations of a major downtown building, and way before its time.

Allison Hayden, Bo Parker (center) and Jeff Parker

Blair McWay

Gabriel and Ann Barbier-Mueller's beautiful daughter, Nina. When Ann was pregnant with Nina, she'd come by Gabriel's penthouse office at the top of 1530 Main to visit once or twice a week. She'd often stop on the way out at the bookstore on the first level and buy a handful Toblerone chocolates from me.

In the 80s, I think you could only buy Swiss made Toblerone from Kuby's Sausage House or Gabriel's International Press. That's how un-international we were.

Take a look at their name tags.

Laura Mendenhall and her great Tory Burch apple red patent bag.

Julie Morris has been working for Gabriel since the very beginning, and is now CIO and Executive Vice President / Director of Acquisitions at Harwood International. Twenty years ago she was sweet and beautiful and smart, and she's still all those things, only with a much bigger title.

Gerald Dunn (above right) and I had an interesting conversation about the economy, and he recommended reading Rolling Stone's story about AIG. Here it is.

Azure's balconies are so chic.

...a view towards the west and overlooking American Airlines Center.

Elizabeth Madory (left) and Mynan Feldman

Laurence Henry left; Devin Rambie

Wade Andres; Lori Lamb; Michele Whiddon

The smashing lobby of the Azure doesn't feel particularly residential, although that may be the point.

Limestone, glass and blonde Barcelona chairs -- the lobby pays homage to classic International Style design and architecture, which has always been a favorite of mine.

This spectacular primitive suit of armor in the lobby is from Gabriel's private collection. Check out the amazing Barbier-Mueller family museums in Geneva.

Just When You Thought You'd Seen It All

I didn't make it to New York for Design Week, but NYMag did.

Ann Williams' Hill Country House is for Sale

$2,950,000

in classic Texas vernacular,

the 10,000 square ft. house has limestone porches and walls,

a guesthouse, a barn, and dog kennels. It's set on 17 acres.

Highland Park native Ann Williams, whose Hill Country House blog has been a longtime favorite diversion, is selling her rambling estate outside of Fredericksburg where she and her husband have lived for almost 15 years and raised their children.

When Ann and her husband Mike announced back in 1995 that they were moving from their house in Preston Hollow to the town of Fredericksburg -- leaving Mike's anesthesiology practice, and the so-called good life, behind -- their friends were horrified.

"We had a lovely home, we drove nice cars, and Emma (their daughter) went to Greenhill," Ann wrote to me in an email recently. "One of Mike's younger associates asked him if we were crazy. His words were something to the effect of, 'You have made it -- you have all the things I am seeking.' He thought we had lost our minds."

Their first home in Fredericksburg wasn't this grand. It was an 800 square foot farmhouse on 80 acres.

They put their kids into public schools.

Says Ann: "There are lots of affluent people who have second homes here and they are quite beautiful. We are part of the community, however, and our kids go to school with the children of our plumbers, our electricians, our housekeeper, as well as the children of the doctors and lawyers. We go to church with people of all socio-economic levels, and we love it. We chose to move here for the beauty of the hill country, but also so that our girls would grow up in this environment.

"By Fredericksburg standards, it is large and a little ostentatious for my comfort. It really needs a full time caretaker and I have discovered that is not what I want to do with my life. So, to truly enjoy it, the new owners need to have lots of help so they can have fun with it!"

"We have been here for a little over three years," says Ann. "It has been a fun house to share with others. We have hosted Christmas parties and lots of teen age parties. The back yard is huge and the pool has been a great source of entertainment for kids every summer. I love interior stone and this house has a ton of it. It is a classic Hill Country house built with amazing materials and details. But, it is more house than I want to manage, AND I still want to build again.

"There is no one favorite memory - just good times in the backyard, eating on the screened in porch, and cooking in the huge kitchen with friends. We have an annual Christmas party and have about 8 couples - good friends who cook together, stay late, drink wine and talk around the dinner table, and at this point, are all aging together! We have been here long enough to have seen kids grow up and leave home for college and the military and it is quite special."

To see more details on the house, go here.

Atlanta Homes is Fabulous and Online!

If you are like me and love gorgeous homes and well-done magazines, you'll want to bookmark Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles magazine because it just went online.

It defies every preconceived notion you may have had about Atlanta (okay, every preconceived notion I had about Atlanta). It's fresh and sophisticated from start to finish.

This is in large part due to Editorial Director Clinton Smith, who worked his way up from assistant editor 9 years ago. I got to work with him briefly at Southern Accents, when I freelanced a couple of stories for them and he had been lured away -- briefly -- as an editor there, before going back to Atlanta Home.

These Locally Made Tassels Are Like Jewelry

....and there's a reason for that. Keep reading.

Victoria Fahardo lives in Rockwall where she works out of her house handcrafting drapery tie backs, key tassels, chair ties, and lamp finial tassels out of gold and semi-precious stones

such as Chinese azurite (blue mixed with green), light and dark aragonite (yellow and burnt yellow), bamboo coral, and red howlite.

When she moved from Colombia to New York 30 years ago, it was to work in fashion for Donna Karan, where she designed and developed handbags, belts, shoes and other accessories. After 17 years working for Karan, she went back to school to study jewelry-making.

and then, at age 50, she moved to the Hamptons to work as an interior decorator. At 57, she got married and moved with her husband to Rockwall (she loves it here in Texas, by the way), and with the urging of her new friend Robert Rutherford, began her first collection, which she called Custom Made Antiques.

the entire first collection was inspired by a single earring.

Some of her pieces are crafted from pewter or brass.

Rutherford's picked up a part of her line, and Cory Pope, who opened his new showroom with her work, picked up another part. I first saw it when I was at Cory Pope's, looking around right before they opened. It looked just like jewelry to me, and so when I contacted Victoria about doing a story on her tassels for Modern Luxury (the story is out now, in their May issue) I wasn't too surprised to learn that she also made jewelry.

The cords and tassels are silk

So many people buy her passmenterie for their homes and end up wearing them around their necks, she says. Tassels don't fall correctly on the body, she says, so to answer the demand, she has just created a small collection of jewelry, inspired by her passmenterie. You can see some of the first pieces, below:

She's designed them so they lay flat against the chest, and are made with gold chains instead of silk around the neck and for the tassels.

To view her jewelry collection, contact her via her website for an appointment. To buy her passementerie, ask for it at Cory Pope or Rutherford's.

You Gotta Love Diffa

What were you doing 20 years ago?

Two decades ago, the founders of DIFFA, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last Saturday night at the Anatole, were desperately trying to save themselves, their friends and the world from AIDS.

The night after the party, I tried to explain to my 18-year-old niece what DIFFA was all about. After going into the whole, Design Industry For Fighting AIDS thing, I just settled on the bottom line: people in the fashion and interior design business got together all over the country when their friends started dying of AIDs back in the 80s, and decided to do something about it. And they did it by designing and auction off a bunch of denim jackets each year. There's no cure yet, but being diagnosed with HIV is no longer a death sentence. The money from events likes these has gone to save a lot of lives. So thank God for DIFFA.

A bevy of beauties at my table, hosted by Sherle Wagner: from left, Debbie Doyle, Tiffany McKinzie (young interior designer to watch, I hear) and grand dame designer Harriet Adams, who is a hoot. Tiffany is wearing a 65-carat emerald in the cleavage of her Valentino gown (hello, Angelina Jolie), courtesy of Joe Pacetti.

Joe wasn't at our table, but he was definitely there in spirit. That multi-colored necklace encircling Debbie's neck (at right) is nothing but diamonds -- the stones were blasted with lasers to give them brilliant color. Who knew.

This year's event was chaired by John Ahrens and Mark Stafford.

Also at my table were the inimitable Cole Smith and Sherry Hayslip. Sherry looks fabulous, doesn't she?

Michelle Nussbaumer gazing at the spectacular stage design...

and Bernard Nussbaumer.....

Our table host Will Kolb of Sherle Wagner was one of the evening's Style Council Ambassadors. Michelle just decked out the front of her store in fabulous Sherle Wagner wallpaper.

Bernard, a music video producer and director, just got back from Portland, Oregon where he went to coffee school. Have you ever heard of such? He's opening a Peace Coffee franchise in Frisco, a longtime dream of his to give back to the environment and the world...

The friendly face of Barney's New York in Dallas, Gary Jackson

The entertainment! I wish I knew who this was. I looked through the DIFFA brochure a million times and still couldn't find any mention. If anyone knows let me know.

Greg Clark in an Armani jacket and Gucci pants.

Will showing off his bespoke jacket and diamonds on loan from Joe.

including this watch from Harry Winston.

and this 600 carat pave diamond cuff.

Attorney John Reoch sashayed by, posing long enough for me to take his picture...

Val Harris and Christopher White having a blast....

Geoffrey Henning, who designed Val's beautiful citrus colored dress.....

I liked what he was wearing, so I took his picture. This is Grant Leeds, who hit the thrift stores right before the party and pulled together a Club Monaco black and white flowered shirt and black and white plaid H & M tie.

This is Jamie Jo Hayes (left) and Kandis Hutchinson, who just had a baby two weeks ago. You'd never know it from how great she looks.

Kandis' husband Bill Hutchinson, who said he couldn't wait to get back home to be with their new daughter. "This is Kandis' second night out in more than 9 months. I don't think she's ready to go home yet," he said.

I liked what they were wearing, so I took their picture, too. At left, Leah McCann in a dress by Abi Ferrin; and Breah Herzog in a creation that only she could wear, by Nicolas Couture.

While roaming around I bumped into Jack Sealy and Angie Barrett, whose spectacular apartment in One Arts is finally finished...

A denim jacket by Marilyn Stewart for auction.

Brian Bolke, who was desperately seeking someone lost in the crowd...

A detail of silk carnations on a denim jacket designed by Kay Unger

Debbie in a dyed python wrap (up for auction) and Will in a silk jacket embroidered with dragons, which he designed himself and had made by a tailor in Beverly Hills. And yes, that is a rope of diamonds around his neck.