CROW CHOICE

Are Joe Minton and Kevin Peavy leaving Slocum Street? Their lease, according to street talk, is up and they, like a bevy of others, are facing get-out-of-Dodge rent increases. We all know the puny margins our brethren in the trade deal with, and reasonable overhead is key. Reasonable overhead is sounding more and more like a thing of the past on Slocum Street, with plans for miles of condos and eateries on the drawing boards. I am as free market as the next man, and I suppose this all was inevitable. Still, it is ugly. And this is just the proverbial tip.

RESPONSE TO ROGER’S REQUEST FOR A RAISE

GREEN BEDS AND FROGS

Just one more thing about beds and then I’ll let it sleep - ha. Neal Stewart tells me from a recent trend consulting meeting that the next big class action lawsuit like tobacco and asbestos is going to be against the bedding industry, so some other poor lawyer is going to get mega-rich like Baron & Budd. Did you know that one of the major components of mattresses is formaldehyde? Yes, that stinky stuff for dissecting frogs in 7th grade biology is in your mattress causing all kinds of allergies and illness. The alternative is a green bed, ecologically friendly made with organic wool or latex to protect against mites. These are becoming more available, Natuzzi has a sleep sofa with a green mattress. Nitey-nite!

BURNING FOR YOU

You know how most candle stores have that “ohmygawd” gag effect? They smell a little like your grandma’s house: overpowering and sweet enough to induce cavities? Not so at Root Candles. This new Inwood Village shop smells just right. I’m not a candle guy but I fell in love with their collection of votives, pillars, and tapers. This is the first Texas store for the Ohio-based candlemaker. Hint: Don’t miss the cinnamon-scented Original Cinn candles. Tasty.

RE: HARRY POTTER SNEAK PEAK

I know one wife (Kimberly) and one editorial assistant (Hannah) who would be very grateful to snatch a few of those passes up. How much house do I have to qualify for, Candy? Christine: Can I have a raise to qualify for the mortgage? I wouldn’t actually buy, but I need to look like I have some purchasing power, ya know?

RE: HAWK EYES

Maybe you should get your bird a firearm. This is Texas, after all, and he has a right to defend his property and person!

Does it seem to anyone else that our red-tailed friends are everywhere these days? Kimberly and I stopped our walk a few weeks back to watch one swoop down from a large cottonwood and snatch up his breakfast. We were only 10 feet from him as he enjoyed his little field mouse (we skipped breakfast afterwards, though).

So be on the look out! They’re everywhere. On fence posts, on light polls, even on highway signs. And they’re beautiful.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES

This morning Derek Vanlandingham of the esteemed John Phifer Marrs design team called to tell me he couldn’t come to a little get together I am having over the holidays. “I will never be able to use this line again,” he said, clearing his throat. “I would love to come to your party but I will be in Costa Rica, decorating the American Embassy.” John Marrs will be working on the home of newly-appointed Ambassador and Mrs. Mark Langdale of Dallas. Derek is getting the residence all holiday’d up; after the first of the year the firm will execute a makeover which is now in the planning stages.

HARRY POTTER SNEAK PEAK

Want a sneak preview of the latest Harry Potter film, HP and the Goblet of Fire? Cozy up to Keller Williams Realtors Donna Parker, Monroe and Holly Carr… send them a client FAST and you will be invited to this weekend’s private screening room at the Studio Movie Grill Beltline owned by that darling Brian Schultz, on Friday November 18. Indulge your HP fantasies, and darling, we do not mean Highland Park: prizes for best theme and character costumes. A great way to build referrals and I cannot wait to see what they are serving as food – frog leg stew?

HAWK EYES

Roger, we have a pair of Red-tailed Hawks living around the Preston/Royal area. I discovered this when our Yellow-naped Amazon Parrot, Josie (she was a down-payment on a hysterectomy) made blood curdling cries one Sunday. I fled to her exterior cage to see if a squirrel was eating her. Alas, the hawk had swooped her cage and was watching from the tree. They are beautiful birds and so romantic to think of the two of them courting along Preston Road. As for Josie, for Christmas she’s getting a camouflage coat so the hawks won’t see her bright green feathers. It’s like living in the country in the middle of the city!

NOW BUY IT

Ditto on the beds: The Westin La Cantera in San Antonio sports the same fabulous beds and I almost bought one last spring when we stayed there. It’s about time hotels got the message that when we pay good money for a hotel room, we want cleanliness and a decent bed. (I still travel with Clorox wipes no matter how many stars.) Besides, this way you get to TRY the bed and pillows before you buy. Bed obsession has hit Real Estate as well: Realtors tell me the second place they spruce when putting a home on tour is the master. (First is the kitchen.) Fresh new bedding, fluffy pillows and voila — the bed looks so inviting, as if you want to buy the house and jump right in.

BIRDS!

For those who hope to sneak a peek at some of the great birds that visit our area in the fall and winter, but don’t want to attract them to the yard, try Cedar Hill State Park. You’ll find annual visitors such as the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Gold Finch, American Kestrel, and Cedar Waxwing (a beautiful, chipper, Cardinal-like bird). And don’t forget to be on the lookout for year-round residents, which include the Red-tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl, and the Greater Roadrunner (yes, they are quite fast). Get there at sunup or sundown and you’re sure to enjoy the mostly empty park with your fellow (and quiet) birders. Good luck!

YOU MADE YOUR BED. . .

Noted international hotel designer Deborah Lloyd Forrest tells me that one of the biggest trends in hotel design is bedding. Because of the attention to detail, comfort, and presentation of their hotel bed, guests are placing orders for their exact mattress and bedding from the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons upon waking up in their four star room. These mattresses are built to last longer and made specifically for the hotel company using the latest technologies. Also, the finest linen companies like Frette and Porthault manufacture for the different hotel groups. The high thread count sheets are regarded by many as a hospitality industry phenomena and are referred to in many big box retailers as “hotel sheeting’. When in fact, luxury hotels have just taken the softness and comfort of fine sheets from wealthy residences and made consumers aware of them. Thread counts just getting higher, but if the cotton is not fine pima or Egyptian, its not going to make a difference.

I JUST LOST MY APPETITE

At last month’s Tabletop Show, more licensing. Kenneth Cole introduced a full tabletop line and David Rockwell presented a bar ware line. Thomas Kinkade introduced a dinnerware line. Somebody. Please. Stop. Him.

LIVING LIKE A SPARTAN

Candy, check out the songs by this French-Finnish couple, Mi and L’au, who moved from Paris to an isolated snowbound cabin in Finland. Like the site promises, their music is bare and haunting like a Finnish landscape in winter.

DAVID GRIFFIN, GREAT HAIR

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Here I am with architect Lionel Morrison, who is designing the new One Arts Plaza 24 story mixed-use development to include 70 breathtaking condominium residences a mere stroll from the Meyerson and the arts district… we are enjoying David Griffin & Company Realtors’ new modernist offices at 3535 Travis, Suite 100. This was all last Thursday evening when Bill Lively, prez and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation gave the 150-plus crowd of hip designers, cool Realtors, an update on the state of the arts in Dallas. (Splendid.) Loved the program, food and wine but the offices are to-die for gorgeous. David Griffin & Company is the exclusive broker for the condo residences being built by the Billingsley Company.

ALEXANDRA STODDARD

Started reading Stoddard’s book, “Time Alive”, from yesterday’s Theta luncheon and have to report this: Stoddard says she has shunned technology in her Connecticut cottage. They store tea in the microwave, shut off the icemaker and dishwasher to prevent frozen pipe dilemmas, wash and dry dishes by hand, use ice trays for cubes, no washer/dryer, no email or computers, no air conditioning, no cars. In other words, pure living that is incredibly liberating and actually gives her MORE time. This reminded me of my recent interview with “>Philippe Starcke when he told me that he has no electricity or even running water in some of his homes. It is, he said, “liberating”. Here we work like mad to collect our Viking gas stoves (way more labor intensive), our two dishwashers and temp controlled wine cellar only to find our schedules crammed with repairmen! I think these people are onto something!

RE: CORAL WATCH

Judging by the countless (okay, maybe not countless, more like four or five) examples of coral at Z Gallerie this weekend, our favorite trend just won’t go away. I saw it on pillows, on its own, even in a snow globe! I hoped that, when shaken, the globe would fill with thousands of little fishes swimming around, but no. Sigh.

PEN THIS ONE IN

Nuvo offers a sneak peek of its new Acme Studio boutique (the first of its kind in the U.S.) this Friday, Nov. 18, 5-9 p.m. If you’re not familiar with the Acme line — and no, we’re not talking about the company that funds the Coyote’s numerous failed attempts to nab that pesky Roadrunner — you should acquaint yourself. Its line of pens, business card holders, and numerous accessories are inspired by the works of the Eames, Warhol, and other famous artists and designers. With the holidays fast approaching, Acme’s goods make smart and smashing stocking stuffers. Plus, 15 percent of sales during Nuvo’s event will benefit TITAS. Good gifts and a good cause.

SHUTTER ALERT: GABBERT’S

Gabbert’s Furniture and Design Studio is closing after 32 years in Dallas. This is not a surprise. When Florida-based Robb & Stucky entered the market about five years ago, rather than reinventing themselves, Gabberts responded by organizing its showroom into “lifestyle vignettes” — essentially the R&S showroom formula. Google Gabbert’s and you discover it doesn’t even have a website. In a market as competitive as Dallas the only way you an be all things to all people is to be as large as Robb & Stucky. You can’t be a quart-sized generalist, as Covins, a pint-sized now defunct generalist, proved. Fingers crossed that a company with imagination picks up the pieces.

Christmas Corals

I also spotted the Christmas Corals at the Festival of Trees today —relieved you will report this travesty to David Feld. (Was that really Watercress soup? I thought it was spinach!) In any case, in-between Alexandra Stoddard’s invigorating keynote — promise to never waste time again! — but do I really want my grand daughters to call me “Big Momma”?? — I chatted Real Estate with Len Bourland and Lucy McRae, who both tell me how wonderful the market continues to be. Miss Lucy is having her best year ever!
Len had just come from hearing an economist talk to the Briggs-Freeman people about how many new jobs will be coming to Dallas — a bunch. Meantime, Briggs-Freeman is expanding as much as my girth and envious of David Griffin’s new haute moderne offices on Travis. Which I will tell you all about manana.

Sorry this entry comes so late — I had to work off that wonderful lunch. OK, truth be told: I also had to check out Nordstroms — fabulous!

CORAL WATCH

On that note, Rebecca, I regret to report two coral sightings today at the Festival of Trees at the Dallas Country Club. One of them I’d estimate to be about a two-footer, in an otherwise chic display by Todd Fiscus. The other in Mary Anne Smiley’s truly ingenious chandelier tree with an ocean theme. I am rather glad that Mr. Feld was not at my side today. I fear he might have contracted an extreme case of agita.

WEDDING HEAD

Wedding head is like bed head. You feel kind of groggy and dreamy. Mainly, you just look groggy. We have been on deadline for more than a week for D Weddings, so I’m buried in brides. Still, I’m always thinking about the homefront, as are our brides (when they are not sorting out catering quotes and trying on gowns). Some of the newest wedding registries are: Napa Home which has one of the best dinnerware collections in town.

I love Marc Blackwell’s Robin’s egg blue china with silver trim and his rich, mahogany collection that looks like polished wood. I think I like them because they are blue and brown, two colors which continue to show up everywhere and always manage to look chic.

Speaking of pretty blues Peacock Alley’s brand new line, Vera Bradley is something I discovered while perusing their wedding registry. Vera Bradley’s claim to fame are her pretty cotton handbags and totes in pretty colors, that celebrity moms like Cindy Crawford carry. Bradley and Peacock Alley have teamed up on bedding, and since I’m a huge fan of blue and white, I love her blue and white paisley and blue and white coral patterns.David Feld says coral is out and he’s probably right, but nobody seems to be listening. Coral, like blue and brown — which has theoretically been out for several years– just keeps hanging in there.

NORDSTROM REPORT

Fashionistas and the baby stroller brigade were out in full force this weekend for the new NorthPark Center Nordstrom. And the Seattle-based retailer didn’t disappoint. Yes, we all know that Nordstrom is shoe Nirvanna for the well- and high-heeled. But what does this have to do with home decor? Glad you asked. Tucked away on the third floor, next to the new in-house cafe, resides Nordstrom’s first home department in Texas. It’s tiny yet tight, featuring a few select furniture pieces from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, bedding from Westin Heavenly, Nambe tabletop, and, just in time for the holidays, over-the-top bedazzled ornaments by Mr. Jay Strongwater. One helpful employee hinted that Nordstrom would debut a bath line possibly next July. Plush towels and Prada loafers under one roof. We’re so there.

KAPPAS LOOK OUT

Today I joined acres of loquacious ladies at the Dallas Country Club; they were Thetas, mostly, there to experience the 4th Annual Festival of Trees. Alexandra “Love and Live Happy” Stoddard was the keynote speaker. Primed with some white wine, ladies paid nearly $5,000 for a Neiman Marcus Christmas tree, $600 for a trade paperback copy of the newest Harry Potter book (autographed by the screen star), among other items in the live auction. All proceeds benefitted CASA. Best tree design goes to Mary Anne Smiley and Mary Cate Antiques. Highest dairy content goes to: cream of watercress soup, although the chicken souffle with white sauce and souffle with whipped cream came in a close second and third.

BRITISH KHAKI

Commenting on Briish Khaki, they have added new looks to their signature Anglo-Indian designs - elegant sleek curves in teak and mahogany. Speaking of mahogany, I had the opportunity to visit with my friend Robert Lighton about the mahogany he uses. It is heavy, dense highly figured wood that he buys at government auction, naturally harvested from the trees the British planted in their Indian colony in the 1900s. Those darned imperialists did do something good after all!