It was all about the green curtains. In 2008, to my great surprise, I was offered a ninemonth fellowship based in New York City. I had lived there twice before, both times unsuccessfully, meaning I had failed to create any kind of significant social life, and so this was a chance not only to do research for my new novel, but also an opportunity to get things right. I swore I wouldn't let the city break me a third time.
But how? I knew from experience that New Yorkers (who use their ovens as sweater drawers) cannot resist the exotic rarity of a dinner party, so if I threw at least two a week, I should become the toast of the town. But where? Since my first swing at the city, in 1992, almost every writer had moved to Brooklyn, and so it seemed obvious that I should follow-except this was in the days when Manhattanites would not visit Brooklyn, but Brooklynites would happily come to Manhattan. Nobody dreamed of a day when the reverse would be true. I settled on somewhere along the F subway line, which led me to a search of Greenwich Village, and I found an ideal property, within my budget, about one block from where I used to live fresh out of college.
What could be better?
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MORE, PLEASE
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CURTAIN RAISER
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The Empire Strikes Back - A 19th-century gem in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gets a tour-de-force restoration thanks to Frances Merrill of Reath Design.
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Just Like That, But Cheaper. -One writer tried to replicate a classic ELLE DECOR interior in his apartment. Could he do it for $500?
It was all about the green curtains. In 2008, to my great surprise, I was offered a ninemonth fellowship based in New York City. I had lived there twice before, both times unsuccessfully, meaning I had failed to create any kind of significant social life, and so this was a chance not only to do research for my new novel, but also an opportunity to get things right. I swore I wouldn't let the city break me a third time.
And How! - Decorator Nick Olsen transforms a Sag Harbor home into a Hamptons retreat with an irreverent humor.
If you must go to the Hamptons, however-because it is devilishly good fun, after all-you may notice an apparently modest, low-slung cottage on Sag Harbor's Main Street and think, with a comfortable sort of feeling, Now that is how a house should look. Nestled amid the Botox bars, helipads, and club-staurants, it could almost set the sordid world aright both a rebuke and a solution to the chaos that surrounds it. A real home.
