Latest news with #Eames
Wales Online
3 days ago
- Business
- Wales Online
You don't expect to see a retro 1960's home sat in a field in rural Wales
This genuine retro mid-century home can definitely claim to offer a potential buyer a unique property package - and not just its distinctive design and opportunity to recreate the best that mid-century design offered within an original setting. The bespoke, architect-designed house was built in the 1960s and can still boast original features, design and layout inside and externally but arguably the most surprising aspect of the house is that it nestles down into the landscape within its own two acre paddock. This might not seem surprising until you discover that the house is located near the centre of the popular coastal town of Cardigan rather than as a slice of a rural village. The extra land offers the chance to enjoy outdoor living with scope to even establish your own urban smallholding, yet the town centre is within walking distance. For more property stories sent to your inbox twice a week sign up to the property newsletter here READ MORE: Dream home with sea views and steps to a private cove guaranteed to take your breath away The extra land also gives a new owner the scope to extend the house or even build a second home on the site - both options are, of course, subject to gaining planning permission with no guarantee of achieving it. Inside, the house has a linear layout off a central hallway, with an open-plan lounge kitchen diner with doors to the garden terrace and three double bedrooms. There have been modern updates in the kitchen and bathrooms as well as the windows but the 1960s soul of the house remains. The house offers a blank canvas for a new owner to get creative and bring their own personal design to the property - and if it's a cool, retro vibe then this house is more than happy to host it in a genuine and original mid-century design that includes wooden ceilings and wall, painted brick walls, and large windows. The scene is set for the new owner to enjoy adding classic furniture pieces from iconic companies such as Ercol and Eames as well as updated, modern versions of the bold colours and patterns from the mid-century era. Cardigan, or Aberteifi in Welsh, is the second-largest town in Ceredigion and boasts a rich cultural heritage. It has evolved from an important 18th-century Atlantic seaport into a stylish hub of arts, complete with theatres and galleries. Situated on the curve of the River Teifi, Cardigan maintains a vibrant small-town atmosphere with boutique shops, an independent bakery, a renowned hotel, a mix of visually engaging period properties and buildings, and marked coastal paths that lead you along the stunning shoreline. The mid-century gem offering original features with the scope to create an outstanding retro or sleek contemporary home, with the added bonuses of town centre location and that incredible paddock is on the market for offers in the region of £480,000 with Cardigan Bay Properties, call 01239 562500 to find out more. For more property stories and home content join our Amazing Welsh Homes Facebook group here.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
To find high-end furniture in New York, look up
The back staircase to the furniture showroom at Nickey-Kehoe in New York on April 29. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES New York's new designer decor showrooms are hidden away from foot traffic, making shopping for furniture feel like visiting a speakeasy. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES To find high-end furniture in New York, look up NEW YORK – Thirty years ago, a New Yorker with a sharp eye and a strong back could still find and rescue an Eames chair from a midtown dumpster. Those with greater means, and less patience, might buy marble pedestal tables and Swedish flat-woven rugs at furniture dealers, like Lin-Weinberg Gallery and Wyeth, that were wedged between ice cream shops and eyewear boutiques in the city's walkable neighbourhoods. Recently, though, rising rents and a desire for intimacy have pushed high-end decor upstairs and out of view. Always a treasure hunt, shopping for designer furniture in New York has become more like grabbing drinks at a speakeasy: If you know, you know. In 2022, Mr Alan Eckstein, 39, moved his furniture showroom, Somerset House, from a storefront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – where he could expect 300 visitors on weekends – to a cheaper warehouse on a desolate block in Long Island City, amid small residential buildings and across fro m a gated carpark. The grandson of a decorator , Mr Eckstein got into the interior design business six years ago, amassing inventory at the Design Within Reach Outlet, at auctions and flea markets, and via Craigslist. He began using the pieces to decorate listings for local real estate brokers . Furniture store Somerset House in Long Island City in April. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES Shoppers at his warehouse find his inventory displayed for sale in artful groupings. The brick walls are freshly painted ecru, and new oversize picture windows splash sunlight onto the furniture, like a 1950s coffee table with fanciful Jacques Blin tiles on top and some inevitable scuffs on its wood legs (US$8,200 or S$10,600) . In July, Somerset House will be moving again, this time to double in size. Mr Eckstein has come to appreciate 'being off the beaten path' and has chosen an even less accessible Long Island City address he calls 'even more speakeasy'. In lower Manhattan, Mr Nick Ozemba, 33, is a co-founder of the concept space Quarters, where you can order designer furniture or a cocktail in a hospitable environment. It is far from 'a white-box space', he says. Indeed, the entrance on Broadway uses a fire stair, leading some who pop up to Quarters on the second floor to fear they have trespassed in a private home. Ms Felicia Hung and Mr Nick Ozemba, are founders of Quarters, a furniture store that sells luxury furnishings and serves cocktails in a polished second-floor space on a 'rugged' block of Broadway below Canal Street in Manhattan. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES In 2023, Mr Ozemba rented 8,000 sq ft on what he termed a 'rugged' block south of Canal Street . Then he gut-renovated the raw loft with his Rhode Island School of Design classmate and business partner Felicia Hung, 34. They opened the fully furnished model rooms and an adjoining vest-pocket bar to the public a year ago. 'We wanted it to feel cosy and moody,' Ms Hung says. Current merchandise ranges from a Roma Heirloom Tomato-scented candle by Flamingo Estate (US$60) to a new In Common With flush-mount chandelier of fused glass and leopard wood (US$42,000). The partners have hosted intimate parties for Loewe, Birkenstock and Tom of Finland to attract a fashionable clientele. But running a store that looks like a rich friend's home has not been without hiccups. Guests once climbed onto a bed display. And a thief stole a decorative tiger figurine. Near Quarters, the presence of the new Lawson-Fenning furniture showroom is announced only by the small print on the building's intercom directory. 'You really have to know where you're going,' Mr Glenn Lawson says. He and Mr Grant Fenning, 57, opened this Manhattan outpost of their original Los Angeles showroom in a 4,500 sq ft Lafayette Street loft in February. The new Lawson-Fenning furniture showroom is located in a loft that was once used as an apartment. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES 'We're not hitting you over the head with design,' says Mr Lawson, 52. The loft was once used as an apartment, and its finishes looked dated. The renovation by New York interior designer Josh Greene, 45, has earth tones and rusty marble kitchen counters, a spa-like bathroom and a powder room. Mr Lawson says the decor signals a shift in style for his company, towards the polish and panache of 1930s New York. 'We're actually looking at Art Deco chairs and lampshades with fringe,' he says. As in California, he will sell contemporary ceramics and vintage-inspired sofas off the floor . The Temple Studio showroom in Manhattan. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES In the Flatiron district, an abandoned tech office was filled with desks before it became Temple Studio, which opened this spring to show fabrics and rugs from independent makers. 'You had to have your magic glasses on' to see the potential, says Ms Kate Temple Reynolds, 44, who opened the studio with Ms Amarlies Gonzalez, 48. She calls the 4,500 sq ft penthouse an art gallery for textiles. 'We wanted to be a charming, hidden spot.' The drab building lift opens to reveal showroom walls hung with Alice Sergeant's riotous hand-printed brocade in pink and ochre. Hooks and shelves brim with saturated colour and adventurous patterns. 'We show people how to layer and combine them without clashing,' she says. West Out East founder West Chin in the duplex furniture showroom in Manhattan. PHOTO: ASHOK SINHA/NYTIMES Around the corner, furniture store West Out East has a duplex loft. Mr West Chin, 56, a residential architect, was born in the Bronx, where his father was an architect of social housing. In 2014, he opened a Long Island location for European furniture and branded it with his distinctive first name plus the local shorthand for the area, where he digs clams on the beach and has a house. The Manhattan location opened in 2021. In the Flatiron location, the layout is curated like an apartment, making it easy to envision the pieces in a home. 'This is a duplex my clients would buy on a higher floor,' he says. Furnishings from Living Divani, Boffi and Porro live in the second-floor loft for a year before moving to sister locations in East Hampton, New York; Miami; and Westport, Connecticut. Everything is functional and liveable, he says, for children who eat ice cream on the couch, and for their parents who drink red wine. He flies his shop's logo over the sidewalk, on an oversized flag, but some customers venture upstairs only after their designers insist. 'The city has no idea we exist,' he says. NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Christchurch dealer's armchairs fetch world record price
Christchurch's Mr Mod is going out on a high note with a pair of 1960s armchairs selling for a world record price at the auction of his large mid-century furniture collection. Ross Morrison is signing off as a collector and dealer after the two-day auction of 674 lots last weekend culminated in bidding reaching $13,500 for the teak armchairs by Danish designer Erik Kirkegaard. By the final bid the overall total matched the $500,000 netted from a previous Auckland auction, once after-sales and a buyers' premium of just over 17% were added up. Among the highlights was another pair of Kirkegaard teak-framed armchairs selling for $7750 and a first-series black leather egg chair by Arne Jacobsen, imported into New Zealand in 1961, making $9000. The collection was assembled by Mr Morrison over four decades of dealing and trading in decorative arts. He has spent the past week overseeing deliveries and the picking up of Italian, United States and Scandinavian interior design from the 1950s to the 1970s alongside vintage, Georgian, William IV and earlier antiques. Mr Morrison said he was both exhausted and elated after a better than expected result. He was glad to see the collection go to new homes throughout the country and a few items heading to Australia with no regrets, he said. ''There was fierce bidding for two pairs of Erik Kirkegaard chairs and that's before the buyers' premium of 17.25% as well so that is a world record. Nobody has paid that sort of money for those chairs. Then on the final day the Arne Jacobsen egg chair sold for $9000 plus buyers' premium. I've had it for 15 years and always wanted that sort of money and finally it got there.'' This followed the egg chair being passed in for $5000 at one of two Auckland auctions of items from his Mr Mod store in 2023. He said it was difficult to explain how the chairs reached such a high price, but Erik Kirkegaard was a well known Danish designer from the 1950s and 1960s. ''When you get two people who want something that was it. It was basically a fight between someone here on the floor and someone on the phone who won the auction for the first matching pair and then the second pair.'' The chairs which he bought in Denmark will remain in Canterbury. Many of the better items sold for double to treble his starting bids, he said. A mahogany chest with carved, poly-chromed and gilded pair of dragons at the base and a marble top from Hollywood actor James Coburn's house will be going to the North Island after a $2100 final bid. He said some pieces sold well above expectations and other below, but it was time for him to let the collection go. ''There were a couple of things I thought: what the heck? The sofas and display cases went pretty well, but I think people got a good buy with the Jens Quistgaard enamel pot and also some of the Eames stuff was low. I guess that's a sign of the market for reproductions has caused that. ... Overall, it was about the law of averages and the whole of the auction.'' Only five items were eventually passed in after a virtually full clearance and after-sales of about 10 items. ''All I've got left is an American iron chandelier, a folding screen from San Francisco, an antique photograph from Italy, a fish bait box I think from Tokelau, a pottery platter and a NZ pottery bowl and that is it, nothing else and it's all gone. Over 99% sold when you work out there were 674 lots.'' Mr Morrison became a specialist of mid century interior design after accumulating furniture on buying trips to the United States, France, Italy and Scandinavia before the movement caught on. More than 300 people attended a mid-week preview night to view the lots and farewell him. ''They were disappointed I wasn't in business anymore because there was no one taking over that reign. With the international market being so high it's very hard to repeat that. Nobody could put up a collection like this again because there was stuff from my teenage years that sold. ... In the end you have to let it go and let other people have that enjoyment.'' Unlike the two previous Auckland auctions, he managed this one at an Addington warehouse himself and credited his small team and auctioneer Ronnie Proctor for it going so well. He plans to spend more time in his semi-retirement with sculpting and singing.
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Armchairs sell for world record price
Christchurch's Mr Mod is going out on a high note with a pair of 1960s armchairs selling for a world record price at the auction of his large mid-century furniture collection. Ross Morrison is signing off as a collector and dealer after the two-day auction of 674 lots last weekend culminated in bidding reaching $13,500 for the teak armchairs by Danish designer Erik Kirkegaard. By the final bid the overall total matched the $500,000 netted from a previous Auckland auction, once after-sales and a buyers' premium of just over 17% were added up. Among the highlights was another pair of Kirkegaard teak-framed armchairs selling for $7750 and a first-series black leather egg chair by Arne Jacobsen, imported into New Zealand in 1961, making $9000. The collection was assembled by Mr Morrison over four decades of dealing and trading in decorative arts. He has spent the past week overseeing deliveries and the picking up of Italian, United States and Scandinavian interior design from the 1950s to the 1970s alongside vintage, Georgian, William IV and earlier antiques. Mr Morrison said he was both exhausted and elated after a better than expected result. He was glad to see the collection go to new homes throughout the country and a few items heading to Australia with no regrets, he said. ''There was fierce bidding for two pairs of Erik Kirkegaard chairs and that's before the buyers' premium of 17.25% as well so that is a world record. Nobody has paid that sort of money for those chairs. Then on the final day the Arne Jacobsen egg chair sold for $9000 plus buyers' premium. I've had it for 15 years and always wanted that sort of money and finally it got there.'' This followed the egg chair being passed in for $5000 at one of two Auckland auctions of items from his Mr Mod store in 2023. He said it was difficult to explain how the chairs reached such a high price, but Erik Kirkegaard was a well known Danish designer from the 1950s and 1960s. ''When you get two people who want something that was it. It was basically a fight between someone here on the floor and someone on the phone who won the auction for the first matching pair and then the second pair.'' The chairs which he bought in Denmark will remain in Canterbury. Many of the better items sold for double to treble his starting bids, he said. A mahogany chest with carved, poly-chromed and gilded pair of dragons at the base and a marble top from Hollywood actor James Coburn's house will be going to the North Island after a $2100 final bid. He said some pieces sold well above expectations and other below, but it was time for him to let the collection go. ''There were a couple of things I thought: what the heck? The sofas and display cases went pretty well, but I think people got a good buy with the Jens Quistgaard enamel pot and also some of the Eames stuff was low. I guess that's a sign of the market for reproductions has caused that. ... Overall, it was about the law of averages and the whole of the auction.'' Only five items were eventually passed in after a virtually full clearance and after-sales of about 10 items. ''All I've got left is an American iron chandelier, a folding screen from San Francisco, an antique photograph from Italy, a fish bait box I think from Tokelau, a pottery platter and a NZ pottery bowl and that is it, nothing else and it's all gone. Over 99% sold when you work out there were 674 lots.'' Mr Morrison became a specialist of mid century interior design after accumulating furniture on buying trips to the United States, France, Italy and Scandinavia before the movement caught on. More than 300 people attended a mid-week preview night to view the lots and farewell him. ''They were disappointed I wasn't in business anymore because there was no one taking over that reign. With the international market being so high it's very hard to repeat that. Nobody could put up a collection like this again because there was stuff from my teenage years that sold. ... In the end you have to let it go and let other people have that enjoyment.'' Unlike the two previous Auckland auctions, he managed this one at an Addington warehouse himself and credited his small team and auctioneer Ronnie Proctor for it going so well. He plans to spend more time in his semi-retirement with sculpting and singing.
The Herald Scotland
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scotland's Home of the Year: when did it get so highfalutin?
BACK in the olden days of 2019, the year SHOTY began, it did not take much to impress viewers. A cleverly placed skylight or nicely restored parquet flooring was enough to send us racing to B&Q, ready to recreate the look in our own humble gaffs. But these days, don't even think of coming through the door unless you know your enfilade from your Zellige tiles, your Eames combo from your Togo sofa. In Scotland, in some parts at least, we're all design freaks now. At the halfway mark of the competition, the judges went to Central and Tayside (spoilers ahead). First stop was the Tree House in Broughty Ferry. Designed by a young architect 60 years ago for his own family, the modernist building had lain empty for five years till Jackie and Paul came along to restore it and add some magic of their own. Read more For judge Danny it was love at first sight. An architect by trade, Danny is usually the first to wheel out his specialist knowledge, but this time he was beaten to the punch by fellow judge and interior designer Anna. 'It's a classic modernist move to connect spaces with partial walls, setting the rooms up enfilade,' she declared. 'Enfilade?' asked Banjo. 'It means without corridors,' said Anna. Not wishing to be left out, Danny started to bang on about 'clean lines' and 'creating volumes'. On to the kitchen and even Banjo, normally such a grounded sort, felt the need to stick his design oar in, praising the Zellige tiles. A quick Google search revealed these to be Moroccan and known for their 'irregularity of appearance' or, to use a more familiar term, wonkiness. Home of the year (Image: PHOTOGRAPHER:IWC Media) All we really wanted to see was the rest of the house - gorgeous - before stopping off at The Dairy, a farm steading conversion in Deanston near Doune. With its hand-painted animal wallpaper, Welsh blankets and tray of empire biscuits, The Dairy restored the mood to silliness as usual. The Carriage House, a Victorian conversion in Auchterarder, was the final contender. Audrey and Malcolm's home had some oddly shaped rooms. In the TV room the sofas were away from the walls and placed at a 45-degree angle. 'My feng shui is pinging,' said Banjo. 'I don't know if that's the way to do it.' They spent so long assessing furniture angles there was hardly any time to praise the jewel in the crown - the garden (above). It had taken Audrey 17 years to get the outside as she wanted it, and every minute had been well spent. Magnificent. I know it's Scotland's home of the year and not Scotland's garden, but maybe there's scope for another programme along those lines. With the original SHOTY now so highfalutin, getting back to basics could be just the thing. The winner was never in any doubt, with The Tree House five points clear of the other contenders. Next week, it is on to the Highlands and Islands. What are our chances of spotting shadow gap skirting there?
