Second Lives as Expats in France, Part 3

Maryl meets Martine Whitelaw

Martine’s move to Provence is actually a return to her nation of origin. Like Maggie, some of her choices had to do with meeting a man. And like Nili she did some country hopping too. 

Martine started out in the family business, a large drugstore chain in Paris. When she decided to take a longer vacation in Mexico, she wasn’t planning to stay on until she met someone.  The couple moved to San Francisco and married.  But there's more to her first life. 

Caryl contemplates: Christmas at Hyde Park on the Hudson

If I weren’t leaving for Zanzibar (no kidding!) on Thursday. . . and having my book club and the author of The Sisters Malone over for dinner and a discussion at my apartment tomorrow night . . . if it hadn’t been the weekend of Sinterklaas’s arrival in Rhinebeck—an event that turns the village into a twinkle-lighted slice of Americana to rival “It’s a Wonderful Life”. . . I might have made it to the nearby Wilderstein river estate to see the home of Margaret “Daisy" Suckley all done up in its turn of the century (that’s 19th) holiday splendor. You’ve never heard of Daisy Suckley? Well, get ready. . . .

Diet for a Second Life: Thanksgiving

Worn favorite cookbooks and torn family recipes are being opened up on kitchen counters across the country as Thanksgiving hosts  prepare their holiday menus. Certain traditional dishes should never change but the fact is that our palates and digestive systems do. We become more educated, dare I say, sophisticated with our food choices and that bloated, unsettling feeling we ultimately experience as we push away from the dinner table is no longer acceptable. So how should this change be considered when planning our Thanksgiving Day feast? 

Maryl organizes: Her Closet and Her Mind

I did something about the clutter in my hallway closet. I took advantage of the January store promotions for container and shelving units and reorganized it. (Why January?....maybe something about stowing holiday decorations that prompts a redo of your whole storage space or about your renewed New Year’s resolutions?) I held out until the end of the month but then tired of stuff falling on me as I pulled out the vacuum cleaner. 

There was wasted space in this closet and after multiple trips back and forth to Target, Ikea and Bed Bath & Beyond (I guess all those promotions worked), I have six more shelves for overstocked groceries, bags and rags in their own receptacles, tools and mops within reach and the vacuum cleaner now slides out with ease. Martha Stewart Living or Real Simple won’t be doing a photo shoot here anytime soon but every time I walked by my closet this week I took a peek inside and smiled.

What is it about feeling organized that makes us better prepared to take on the world or at least our own chaotic agendas. I felt similar when I bought my first filing cabinet and even though my desk overflows with papers and post-it notes, they’re resorted into neat piles each morning before I sign in online. I know there’s a whole psychology behind being organized.   Psychology Today recently published a three-part series on the topic and if you’re the type that likes tips, there's a few here.   Uncluttered space means an uncluttered mind and a more simplified and efficient lifestyle. I suppose all that’s true but doing it just made me smile and for less than $75.

Caryl writes: The End of the Story

The 90-minute ride to the “charming village” followed the Hudson River due north from New York City, where I lived with my daughters in a mid-19th-century loft with fir beams, steel columns, and the original factory floors. You don’t get more industrially charming than that. More interested in the aesthetic arts than home crafts, I was a deeply urban creature. The only thing I had ever built was a fierce career. The only thing I raised was my consciousness—and of course, my daughters.

When I did fantasize about a place outside the city, it was rarely a cottage. I imagined myself in an eco-chic structure—perhaps prefab, even—that was distinguished but indistinguishable from the landscape, welcoming sunlight from every window. Not an inaccurately described cottage (it was nowhere near Nantucket) with a fussy garden in a too-quaint village.

Nevertheless, Mary Lou and I hopped aboard Amtrak’s Empire Service line and headed upriver. In less than two hours, we were lunching on homemade bread and soup at a Main Street café and shopping in the notions department of a five-and-ten, an almost museum-quality replica of another time. Finally, we headed to The House. “If it has a trellis with roses, that will be the tipping point,” I said. “Tipping toward ‘Get me out of here.’“

We approached the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut streets (am I on a movie set here?), and there it was: the world’s cutest cottage. It had lilac French shutters (I could already see them in Farrow & Ball’s Studio Green), a white picket fence, and trellised roses. We were well beyond the tipping point. Inside, the two bedroom, bath-and-a-half house was tastefully decorated and pristinely maintained. (A rigorous inspection turned up a tiny chip in a soap dish.) Did I mention that the garden shed reminded me of Virginia Woolf’s writing shack at Monk’s house in East Sussex? I was certain the seed of a book idea I had been contemplating could florish there.

On the train ride back to the city, we hypothetically considered the house’s merits. It was easily reachable along a glorious train route. (I didn’t have a car.) It was in great condition. (I wasn’t handy.) It was enough for one (I was one) but big enough for my daughters to visit. (Later I would reprise their childhood room, complete with canopied cast-iron beds and their Steiff bear collection.) For the past few months since my mother’s death, I had been debating how to invest a small inheritance that sat restlessly in my bank account. Add some of the severance I received from a job I had loved and lost and the house would be mine. By the time we returned to Penn Station, I was ready to make an offer.

There were two other bidders, it turned out, but my all cash offer sealed the deal. (Thanks, Mom). The owners, a couple in their 80s, didn't attend the closing (which happened to fall on my late mother's birthday) and hadn't wanted to sell (their son insisted they move closer to him). Dottie and Joe were sad to be leaving their cottage, and that afternoon, when I visited my new house for the first time I found a welcome present: tools for the garden (from Dottie, a passionate gardener) and for the house (from Joe, a talented handyman), along with a directory they had compiled of local service people, including a slipcover maker and a septic tank repairman. Sometimes you choose a house--and sometimes a house chooses you. You just have to get on the train.

Thanks to all our commenters for expressing interest in the ending to my previous post, to my daughter Annie who typed in this entry and to Huck Hill who had the house photographed when I couldn't make it up this weekend because of snow.

Caryl asks: Does she or doesn't she buy this house?

Here's an essay I wrote recently that appears on the last page of the February issue of Martha Stewart Living, the one with the cover of a beautiful tissue-paper flower heart that we will never make (and the cover line suggesting 147 ways to show your love.) The story, (which includes this picture-perfect illustration of a house I fell in love with), is called:

THE ACCIDENTAL COTTAGER

The newspaper ad read like a wish list of everything one might want in a second house---if one wanted a second house. "Nantucket cottage in charming village: bluestone patio, wood-burning fireplace, English garden." The listing didn't mention that the house was within walking distance of an independent bookstore, an art cinema, a health-food store, a yoga studio, and two farm-to-table restaurants. But it was.

Let's go see it," I said to my friend Mary Lou (aka Maryl). I wasn't really interested, but the two of us had a habit of taking trains to random destinations. Train trips assured a nice long visit with plenty of talking time, few interruptions, and on occasion, heart-stopping scenery. We were lucky this time. The 90 -minute ride to the 'charming village' followed the Hudson River due north from New York City, where I lived with my daughters in a mid-19th century loft . . . .

Now if you want to know how this little tale ends, whether I buy the house that was not my taste at all or if I just went along for the ride, you will have to read the magazine. Or, if I get five comments begging to know the answer (yes, it's come down to that), I will print the ending which, by the way, involves my dead mother, a kindly old couple and a Steiff bear collection (have to keep you interested). Or maybe you want to know instead how to commission a painting of your own home or a dream house or maybe the portrait is of one in the same. Well, I know a talented artist: the girl with the pearls shown here. But you'll have to leave a comment to find out her contact information. Looking forward to hearing from you on either account. Think of it as the 148th way to show your love.

Caryl says: It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

My garden is dormant. The Christmas tree awaits being cut until closer to The Day. So this weekend I went to The Phantom Gardener in the Hudson Valley to buy some holidays bulbs to cheer up the house and my pre-winter solstice blues. I bought a bunch of paper whites and three amaryllis bulbs in white, light pink, and wine rose. Planting them and watching them grow is sort of like having a living advent calendar (without the chocolate treats behind each door my children adored.) First I put eleven of the dozen paper whites in a Le Fanion polka-dotted green bowl filled with stones. (The red pitcher, which I plan to fill with ivy from my garden or boxwood mixed with lilies in a couple of weeks, is also from the same charming French store in Greenwich Village.)

I had one paper white bulb that wouldn't fit so I stuck it an unpolished brass bowl I had bought last spring in Orissa, India. All the other items the man was selling in a remote tribal village were shiny and bright but this one was dark with age and inattention. It was made by his grandfather, he told me. Now this bowl from a century ago and a half a world away gives me immeasurable pleasure sitting atop my fireplace mantle while I await its fragrant blossom.

Finally, I found an empty urn on the patio outside that my former boyfriend left when he moved back to the city and broke my heart. (There's some symbolism in the urn, no? ) I've always liked the lines of it, and the amaryllis and the abandoned vase seem happily at home atop the hope chest that had belonged to my ex-husband's mother (Is this some kind of memorial to dead love?) I suspect the many-hued amaryllis flowers will be glorious come Christmas--and my scarred heart filled with the joy that accompanies this time of year. After all, tis the season to be. . . and all that.

Maryl pines: For a house with fewer memories

Photo by Svetlana Blasucci

This table sits in a dining room facing the Atlantic Ocean in an old Victorian house on the Jersey shore. It’s served up many a family celebration, including all the holidays, First Communions, graduations, anniversaries and, of course, birthdays. If you look in the pantry drawers you’ll find candles in the shapes of numbers 0 to 9….4 for my daughter’s first birthday in her new home in America and 80 for my mother’s milestone achievement. This dining room was where we cut our wedding cake and probably where the daughter of Thomas and Julia Wood, the original owners, did the same who was also married in the house. (Thomas Wood was a businessman from Manhattan and a Lieutenant in the Spanish-American War.) We’ve imagined celebrating our daughter’s wedding here as well but that eventuality remains to be sent. 

Last week we attended a House Packing party two doors away. You couldn’t leave without taking at least one item from their giveaway table. (I took a bamboo tray and some picture frames for my daughter's photography.)  This is the third family to move from that home since we’ve been in ours. The owners are becoming empty nesters and have already purchased their two bedroom apartment in Manhattan. But they are also having a new house built a few blocks away because they like this beach community and aren’t ready to sever all ties yet. It won’t be another Victorian or a McMansion but rather something smaller and simpler and not because of easy upkeep but so they can sell it more speedily in case they do want that rustic villa on a rolling hill in Tuscany.    

Their house used to be right next door but another was built on the open lot in between. Three families have lived there also, the current couple having relocated there so he can be close to his new job in the city and she could begin her second life as a writer after retiring from a career with the government. My neighbor on the other side took over her house after a divorce. She has just sold her second home outside the country and toys with buying and living elsewhere, maybe the city as well.

Because a second life allows us to redefine what we do next and retirement in general, flocking to Florida and the other sunbelt states has subsided. MSNBC reports “Battered by recession, more older Americans are staying put in traditional big cities to hold onto jobs, creating slowdowns in population growth at once-popular retirement destinations widely found in the South and West.” For the first time in decades, more people are moving into New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C than out in contrast to the opposite happening in Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix, Atlanta and Raleigh, N.C., the usual retirement locations.

Paul Bishop, the vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors, in their study, “Baby Boomers and Real Estate” confirms that boomers want to retire in urban settings for at least part of the year because they offer easy access to public transportation, health care, culture and restaurants. Older Americans also want to be in or closer to cities because they plan to keep working or looping between work and leisure according to Merrill Lynch’s “The New Retirement Survey,” and because they are unlikely to retire at the typical retirement age.

It may be true that we will need less space - and stairs - and more amenities in our second lives. Our house always had more rooms than we needed, which is why we purchased it in the first place as a beach getaway for our family and friends to enjoy. So I don’t feel it’s the need to downsize or economize per se that prompts me to contemplate starting a new home elsewhere even though the cost of painting our house this month will be more than what my parents paid in total for the house I grew up in. Maybe it has more to do with the absence of some of those familiar faces who gathered around our dining room table and who have now moved on or away. This weekend I will celebrate my birthday there and blow out a few candles (I don't use the numbered ones anymore) and be grateful for the family and friends who are still there with me and pine for those who are not. Sometimes a house can hold too many memories and that’s when you know it’s time to move on.

Recap of links: 
1) “Baby Boomers become buyers,”as they reenter the NYC real   
      estate market
2) Frances Mayes on buying a house in Tuscany
3) MSNBC Report: “Cities gain as boomers delay”
4) Merrill Lynch’s “The New Retirement Survey”




Postscript:
I had a great birthday with family and friends gathered around the 
dining room table to sing to me but I took their picture instead. 
(I do remember 19 was a good year!)

                           

Maryl writes: Take Your Work Outside

I’m working outside for the summer. No, I haven’t started a landscaping business. I’ve moved my office outdoors. I’ve been working at home for a couple of years now and am happy with my current setup but we all need some new visual stimuli once in awhile. So when you stare off into space, you’ll get a few new celestial ideas instead of the same old down-to-earth ones.


Anyway, I gave my balcony a facelift. I’ve lived in my coop apartment for decades across from one of the most spectacular skylines in the world and never did anything major to spruce up the area and make it more inviting and comfortable. Now I had the time and the impetus. I was also moved by a few home décor magazines that made it look like the outdoor balcony or patio was another room. That’s what I wanted another room but not for too much money because my working at home hasn’t quite paid off yet.

I love my new slate floor ($2.99 sq. ft.) that covers the cold concrete and simple lattice (cheap) and mounted plant holders that help hide the unattractive brick…all from Home Depot. Next I purchased resin wicker modular seating with comfy cushions from CB2. I added an outdoor baker’s rack for extra storage (who doesn’t need that in an apartment), a few area rugs and weather resistant throw pillows (by Sunbrella) from Home Decorators. There’s a trough for the ivy to grow up the wall and hide more of the ugly cement and a couple of planters for the boxwoods (the smell always reminds me of Mount Vernon) ordered online (in fact it was all ordered online except for the slate) from Restoration Hardware. I made the light myself with parts from ebay and then I finished it off with some metal wall hangings (gotta cover that brick) and a garden stool from good old Marshall’s. And there you have it…..my outdoor office. 

Now I haven’t experienced any break through thinking yet but I do feel I have a fresh perspective – along with the fresh air - on a lot of what I’m currently working on. (Phil Montero from TheAnywhereOffice has some thoughts on how outside work shifts ones perspective also.) No rush; I’ve got three months. And when I move back inside in the autumn, my way of looking at my tasks and goals will change again. I think I’m onto something here. Try it. Take your work outside.

Recap of links: 

1)  My slate floor from Home Depot
2)  Comfy CB2 seating
3)  Weather resistant Sunbrella pillows from Home Decorators
4)  Restoration Hardware trough and planters
5)  Light parts from ebay
6)  Metal wall hangings from Marshall’s
7)  Phil Montero on how outside work shifts ones perspective

Caryl writes: The King of Understated Chic

This past weekend I went to an auction preview, a kind of retirement sale for the dean of American decorators and a man who loved bold colors, Albert Hadley. At 93, Hadley has closed his office and opened the warehouse where he kept furniture and rugs, mirrors and lamps, paintings and porcelain, fabrics for curtains--he never called them drapes-- for his celebrity clientele to "shop". The auctions –the one I previewed was in Hudson, N.Y, the others are at Sotheby’s in New York City, even include a few of his personal items. Among his first commissions, Hadley and his partner—the queen to his king---Sister Parrish—decorated the Kennedy White House. In the years following he included among his clients such bold face names as Brooke Astor, Babe Paley, Annette and Oscar De La Renta, Jacqueline Onassis, Diane Sawyer, even the Duchess of York. A modest man with oversized owl-eyed glasses and a shy demeanor, he once said: “I believe deeply that a beautiful decor can have a beneficial influence on our life.”

Last year I renovated our family loft. This year I am starting to decorate it---slowly, cautiously, minimally--the latter not so much a design mantra as a fiscal necessity. Although I am not quite yet an empty nester, I am looking forward to a grown-up apartment--sophisticated yet comfortable, reflecting my travels and evolving tastes. Mostly what I want to do after a lifetime of neutrals is embrace color, step away from my palette that ran from white (my spring/summer slipcovers) to khaki (fall/winter ones.)

Hadley probably wouldn’t have liked my formerly neutral-colored loft. He said dismissively of the generation of interior decorators that came after him: “They’re all doing beige rooms.” Hadley celebrated color, like the just-right blue hue in his personal library (right). Me? I am terrified of grey. So I went to the auction preview looking for ideas, inspiration . . .courage! There were big chintz-covered sofas ("Deep, downy upholstery is what I've always been about,” Hadley said.), regal canopied beds (not for me), chandeliers (one with whimsical chickens, another all shimmering crystal), mirrors and paintings (though he would leave the walls bare rather than pick out art for his clients). Each item seemed perfectly chosen for what it was—and no doubt for where Hadley had intended it to live. His favorite interior design aphorism? "Suitability. Suitability. Suitability."

I am not sure any of the pieces to be auctioned will work for my less than grand industrial loft but I like the idea of mixing it up. A few things caught my eye—the bright coral mirror (left), and the low estimates for bids made my heart skip a bit. I am planning to go to the auction next weekend. I’m not sure I’ll bid on anything. I’m timid about more than color. If I only I could ask the King for advice. I suspect he would encourage me not to think too hard or too long about what to do with my home: "Make your house as comfortable and as attractive as possible and then go on with living,” Hadley told his fans and followers. "There's more to life than decorating." Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Hadley.

Caryl writes: Roses and Garlic and the Circle of Life

Fall is definitely here. The flowers stayed longer than usual this year but now only a single rose remains in my garden. All the leaves have been raked to the curb, giant piles inviting someone to jump in. I can still remember 2o-plus years ago when my younger then baby daughter buried yourself in a piles of brilliantly-covered leaves. There is something melancholy about this time of year–even though it punctuated with a trio of festive holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But the days are shorter, the light gloomier, the soul seemingly heavier. I mourn the lone last rose I have brought indoors. But then two nights ago over a cup of lemon balm tea, my gardener gave me a present of a garlic bulb. I am planting it today so come spring it will show its clove-filled head. It makes me happier to put something new in the cold soil of my dormant garden and it reminds me that we need fallow periods because they precede fertile ones, that little babies become bright young women, that our older selves have new founts of knowledge and that every seasons continues to turn, turn, turn . . .