METROSEXUALS AT HOME

The traditional buying trip to the showrooms has been the wife with the decorator, the husband’s input being $$$ and comfort. John Gregory tells me now that sales are twice as hard to close now, because the man wants design veto as well. He even had a man tell him he didn’t care if the chair was comfortable, he just wanted it to look right in the room. I guess we have to rethink our “what men want” idea. But, there is a distinct age cutoff. Men over 50 still want comfort and value, under 50 want the right look, the newest style.

GRIN AND BUY IT

OK, so I went to Angie’s garage sale yesterday…out with the old, in with the cool. As I walked in a lady on her way out said to me, “I’ve never seen such an expensive garage sale in my life!” Well, just because Angie was selling her Murano glass chandelier for $22,000, or a set of four beautifully framed Matisse lithographs for $28,000, a few antique knick knacks and Waterford crystal and more. It was all pretty good stuff. I even spied a Baccarat perfume bottle given as a thank you gift from a charity auction long ago: $95. How do I know that? Because I have the very same one!

POWER

Power Properties has renovated all these old ghettos on Gaston, and done the same thing. Tropical plantings, a huge outdoor entertainment center with fireplace and bigscreen tv, and colored glass accents. Good cosmetic surgery and party down!

Christine, where am I going with this subject, or where am I going physically? I don’t see a problem with a joining of Tuscan and Indian styles, why not, I don’t think their governments hate each other, and the mosaic decorations sort of work together. Italo-Indian food would be great, mmm all that spice.

DECORATIVE CENTER LITE

The Decorative Center had its annual Celebration of Design party last night, and there were at least 27 cars in the parking lot. Hello, Dec Center marketing department! I remember when you couldn’t find a parking space for blocks. Scott + Cooner lit up the parking lot with Foscarini lighted pendants, a three piece orchestra with a fabulous singer, and fine Italian seating outside where the cars weren’t. S+C just continue to inspire us with new products. The new Bracelet Chandelier from Foscarini is truly a jewel.

In other news from the other end of the parking lot, Henredon introduced a new collection from Barbara Barry. How many collections does that woman have in her? It’s actually quite stylish, still using light fabrics and dark wood, but the wood tones are a little warmer, and she has introduced the loveliest shade of blue I’ve ever seen. Not spa blue, but cooler, grayer, and just a hint of periwinkle. Go see it.

PARADISE FOUND

They were lining up at 4:30 p.m. tonight to view Power Properties’ new Paradise III on Meadow Park Drive just off Meadow Road near Central. The Power people have taken a 60’s style garden apartment complex — you almost could hear Bob Dylan in the background — and converted to 45 residences ranging from $130,000 to $300,000. The homes are spacious, well-appointed with marble, stone, Jacuzzis, W/D closets, all the goodies. Best of all, Power has kept the garden courtyards where the hip have always congregated and enhanced them with lush landscaping, fireplaces, spas and tented rest areas — very Los Hadas.

So why the line? Power was giving away gifts to the first 100 people in line – Ipods, restaurant gift certificates, Starbucks cards and movie tickets. (One guy, a Realtor, was thrilled with a month of lattes!) I still don’t have an Ipod, in fact, what is an Ipod? Is it anything like Izod? Oh well, maybe I’ll win one next time.

(PS: I have to cook for ten this weekend, so you guys won’t hear from me for a few days. I’ll be in the tub with Helen Corbitt.)

JACQUE AND BUBBLY

Peggy, I had lunch today at Salum and Abraham Salum is putting your cardamom in the iced tea. The restaurant is wonderful, and I am VERY picky about my iced tea. Oh, I have those little Buddha fertility dolls everywhere, glad to hear I am in style!

Speaking of, I’ll tell you who the latest hot Real Estate sales star is going to be: Ms. Jacque Wynne. Jacque, widow of Toddie Lee and the Corpus Christi native who started Cattle Baron’s with Patti Hunt in 1974, has returned to Dallas from Aspen because, and she says I can quote her, “there are no men in Aspen. Well single men.” She’s signed with Allie Beth Allman and her very first listing is a $6 million dollar home in HP. (A second for even more is in her couture-clad hip pocket, and she beat a top local Realtor to the punch!)

She’s gorgeous and fun and loves champagne and knows everyone in Dallas. So don’t be surprised when you see Veuve Clicquot on my expense account, Christine…OK?

TEXAS TUSCAN RIP?

If Peggy Levinson says India is the new Tuscany, does that mean Texas Tuscan is dead? Is it possible that everyone in Dallas might stop building theme park Tuscans? Including me??? Yes, the D Home Showhouse was Mediterranean-inspired and no it would not have been better as a cobbled together Taj Mahal, but the next time we do a showhouse (hey Peggy, where do you think you’re going?) I think we will have an examination of conscience about the architecture. That’s Catholic for no more Texas Tuscan.

And you are right, I would never post this publically.

THE NEW TUSCANY

Is India the new Tuscany? Obviously, geographically speaking, that’s an impossibility, but all signs are pointing that way. In the last few years, (Tuscan age), you could hardly go in a house without seeing glazed pottery in varying states of wear in gold and green, now every interior has a Buddha head or dancing Shiva. Gold and amber colors are giving way to silver and shine, and hot pink. As Diana Vreeland said, “Pink is the navy blue of India.” Indian skirts and blouses are on all the mannequins, and you probably have shoes that are decorated with sequins. Aged walnut tables are being replaced by inlaid rosewood with ivory and ebony, and I’m seeing intricate marquetry everywhere. Finally, after I mentioned cardamom as a new spice yesterday, Stephen Pyles talked about using it today in an article. So, not only are the jobs going to India, now design and fashion are there as well.

OUR LITERARY TOWN

I know this is really Peggy’s terrain, but Jim Williamson at ID Collection just emailed me that ID was fortunate enough to do the stage design and decor for The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and The Barbara Bush Texas Fund for Family Literacy at A Celebration of Reading at the Meyerson last night.

Said Jim: “We had photo’s with the Former President and First Lady, as well as meeting such famous and best selling authors as Khaled Hosseini, Jan Koran, Mike ” Coach K ” Krzyzewski, Arnold Scassi, and Tom Wolfe.”

My God, all that talent in our sweet town? If you read the Frontburner, sharp Nancy Nichols noted that some bigwhig was in town at the Mansion…and know we know why!!!!

Jim says they raised over $800,000!

TUSCAN TREASURE

Karen Fry had a smashing turnout last night in one of her Preston Hollow homes. More than 150 Realtors gathered at her 5842 Waggoner listing, a 6500 square foot spec home built by Tuscan Custom Homes. The clever Briggs Freeman super star had food and wine from City market spread across the kitchen counters and real wine flowing at the bar. (Loved the merlot!) Preston Hollow super sales tycoons Mark Cain and Rick Adams from Prudential popped in, as did many beaming faces from B-F including Pam Brannon, Nancy Dunning, Linda Faulkner, Leelee Gioa, Robbie Briggs, Charles Freeman, and countless more. Allen Kendall Grieswell, the dapper builder, has two more specs for sale on the same stretch of street between Preston and the Tollway, all are in the $1.8 million range and loaded. His company, says Grieswell, builds a few high-quality properties per year in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow. Just another example of how consumer’s demand for fresh new properties is the driving force behind all this tear-down fever. One of the agents told me her clients told her not to even call if the listing doesn’t have high ceilings and the smell of freshly cut wood lingering.

OK, I am going to try this link stuff to the builder’s web site — keep your fingers crossed! Didn’t work. OK, check out www.tuscancustomhomes.com. I’ll be here playing with my computer.

TEAR DOWN TEARS

What goes around always comes around: our old house on Park Lane and Hollow Way is on the market for…are you sitting down…$1.9 million! (Prudential Properties, listing agent John Brosius.) We sold that home in 1998 for just under $1 million. Now we fear that our old homestead will be, at long last, torn down. Lots are the hottest commodity in the market in all of Park Cities and Preston Hollow, or so the agents tell me, and I’d say that if this property pulls anywhere near that price, that will be huge proof.

5511 Park Lane is a two-story home on 1.25 acres with 4 bedrooms, gameroom, 3 full baths and 2 half (we added the second half bath when we added the huge laundry room in the early nineties) outside shower, a pool, spa, tennis court where my husband played almost every weekend, and a beautiful garden room attached to the home. Plus I’m sure the present homeowners have updated just about everything.

When we left Park Lane we, moved a home off our Ricks Circle lot to build our six thousand square foot McMansion – I craved high ceilings and a Viking. We also wanted a little less property (1 acre versus 1.25) as the empty nest was approaching. So now I know how the previous owners of our present property must have felt: that fence where Buster got his head stuck one Mother’s Day (Buster was a Golden Retriever, not a kid), the game room where the Bush twins tried to climb out during a slumber party, the dining room where we had all those wonderful family dinners and parties, gosh, that will all be reduced to rubble and dust.

Maybe I can buy a brick or two for old time’s sake.

JUST FOR GRINS

So the invitation, sent via e-mail by PR man Bill Armstrong, says “Out with the Old and in with the Cool.” I am guessing that this is not a thinly veiled reference to Bill Barrett but to the objects that Angie Barrett will be selling at her estate sale, October 28 and 29, from 10 to 3. I am waiting to hear back from Mr. Armstrong as to whether the sale is open to the public. In any case, her address is 3301 Beverly.

HERMAN MILLER

Herman Miller opened one of their six design centers nationally on Oak Lawn in Dallas last week. Their 50,000 square foot refurbished showroom is in the building at Oak Lawn and Stemmons in yet another metamorphosis. This building started as a Linen Warehouse in the late 1970’s in the time when linen warehouses were really tacky as opposed to being really cool now. Then it was a grand new home for Gerry Hargett when he moved out of the Dallas Design Center, (some say it was the middle of the night), after that the showroom of Beacon Hill furniture and fabrics upstairs. Anyway, the current reincarnation is modern and open with free form floating walls and curved spaces. This organic direction is a wonderful juxtaposition to the basic cubicle system that Herman Miller is all about.

CHAIR PERSONS

Danny Kamerath is a local who designs chairs. You can see his first one-man gallery show at Clampitt Creative Center between now and October 21. I once had the privilege of wandering his house and meeting his chairs, each of which is named after a family member or friend. When he describes the person who inspired each chair, there is an alternatively pleasing and unsettling sense that each of us has a chair twin. This caused me to muse on what kind of chair I might “be.” One thing I know: it wouldn’t be a knock-off.

REAL ESTATE

Hey guys, this is my first chance to blog after that great trip to New York City (on a private jet) to try out all the new goodies that will be at the Palomar High rises… after that work out at Exhale I could not move. (Yes, even my fingers hurt!) So here I am all back in one piece.

Did I tell you they flew us out and back on a private jet!

OK, so the real estate world is humming along. I am hearing that the hurricane in New Orleans may be moving our home prices up a notch or two. Last night, at Herman Miller’s opening — Peggy, did you love that showroom? What do you call that, a showroom? It was so expansive and that wall by J Prichard Design was gorgeous.

I digress. Last night I met the Herman Miller district rep from New Orleans now Baton Rouge. Poor man, they lost their ENTIRE home. It was filled with water, black mold, etc. And I was talking to my good friend Pam Brannon, who used to work for Herman Miller but now sells real estate with Briggs Freeman and she says that they are definitely seeing prices going up here because of Katrina.

OK, I’m having lunch with David Nichols next week so I’ll fill you in on all the buzz in a couple days. Meantime, did I tell you that David was with us on our press junket to NYC ON A PRIVATE JET!!!!!!!!!!!

MARCY PAUL

One of the design center’s most interesting and loved friends died Friday after a 15 year struggle with Lupus. Marcy Paul started the art gallery at Boyd-Levinson, had a mirror line at Hargett, and did custom framing and matting for Neal Stewart, Jan Showers, Cathy Kincaid, and many others. Her eye for detail and talent never faded even as she fought like hell against her disease. I will miss her quirkiness and humor every day.

SLOCUM STREET

The first break in the depressing Indian Summer heat wave just happened to be fortuitously on the evening of the Slocum Street antique walk. Designers, decorators, and antique lovers were strolling through the shops enjoying the cool evening and all the shops dressed up for show. The food by Doug ? and Chris Wanger’s flowers at Joe Minton’s were superb, and Newport Collection finally got some ambient lighting, thanks to Mel Williams. Blair, you’ve got to lose the plaid shirts!