The Last Hampton On Sale

The shopping site ideeli is having a travel sale. There are several great destinations, but my favorite is in Montauk on Long Island in New York, the "last" Hampton so to speak.



It's at a sweet resort called Sole East, and it looks like just the perfect place to spend the first days of Sumner at.

• Nightly rate for a Standard King Room - $169.
  
• Travel May 22 - July 28, 2011
• Midweek (Sunday-Thursday) nights only
• Taxes of 11.63% are NOT included
• Availability guaranteed on advertised dates or you'll receive a full refund. See blackout dates and restrictions at bottom of the page.

There's a timeless laid-back beach vibe to Montauk, where the swells call surfers to catch a wave, the harbor calls great fishing boats to its docks, and the historic lighthouse watches over the sand-and-sun lovers on Long Island's very eastern tip. At the Solé East Resort, the chic bungalow-style guest rooms (each unique, with island-modern white-on-white décor) in this landmark American Tudor call you to experience Montauk in hip beach-club style.

ideeli is offering Standard King Rooms at the Solé East Resort at up to 37% off regular rates (taxes are additional). Travel May 22 - July 28, 2011, Sunday - Thursday (with blackout dates of May 27 - 30 & July 1 - 4). Enjoy complimentary Wi-fi, parking, and beach passes.

Laze in an oversized St. Tropez bed by the heated pool, curl up in a hammock in the resort's lush gardens, or take the active route and jump on one of the Solé's rental bikes for a three-minute cruise to the beach. Later, grab a fireside table at the Backyard restaurant for a meal of just-caught seafood, creative takes on farmers' market finds, and a bottle of fine wine. At Solé East, even a brief getaway feels like a gorgeously endless summer.

• Rates include parking, wifi, and beach parking passes
• Soak up the sun by the outdoor pool with a cocktail from the Backyard Restaurant
• Perfect home base for exploring all that Montauk and The Hamptons have to offer

Now where is that phone number for my private jet....

What Would The Selby Think

Have you ever dreamed about living in olden times? How romantic it would be, how quaint, how beautiful things look in a certain light. I always loved the 1700's, imagining myself in a low cut gown, wigged, and glamorous by candlelight.

A young man in California dreamed this way too. And he saved up his money delivering newspapers and washing dishes in a restaurant, so that when he was 15 he could take his first trip abroad to the most romantic place of his imagination: London. He went home to finish high school, and then five days after he graduated he moved there permanently, a confirmed and avid Anglophile.

Photo from here

He bought a very very old house in 1979, and turned back the clock inside of it to the 1700's.

He not only furnished it authentically with old things, but also created vignettes and life stories of the people who might have lived there. And he lived there himself, part of this elaborate tableaux vivant.

Photo from here

This house was turned it into a time capsule. He was an artist and lived in the house in much the same way as its original occupants might have done in the early 18th century.

Built in 1724, the five story house is a collection of objects laid out as if the family who lived there just left, or perhaps are just within the next room. The visitor views by natural light or dim candle the portraits, the half written shopping lists, the knife handle sticking out from a loaf of day old bread, the books, pamphlets, and bric-a-brac, all lovingly collected and curated.




To enter through the door is to pass through a frame and into a painting - one with a time and a life of it's own, and very much like atmospheric lighting of old Flemish paintings the boy admired more than the bleached California sunlight he grew up with, or very much like the British films like "Oliver Twist" and "My Cousin Rachel" that he watched on television in California.

The game he wants you to play when you a tour the house, is that you interrupt a family of Huguenot silk weavers named Jervis who, though they can still sometimes be heard, seem always to be just out of sight.

As you journey off in a quiet search through the ten rooms, each by fire and candlelight, and strictly in silence as demanded by your host, you receive a number of assaults to your senses, including the scent of orange peels and cinanmaon cloves used to offset the presence of urine in the chamber pot.

There is the sound of a carriage outside, the wheels and the horses hooves, clattering and clip clopping off into the London street. There is the smell of food . Mr Jervis's meal is only half-eaten. Did he abandon it when he heard us arrive ? This experience conducted in silence, makes the level poetic. One becomes lost in another time, as one feels to be on their own in the house.

The ten rooms of the house harbor ten experiences, that engage the imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724 and 1914.

You begin in the cellar in the dark where there are fragments of St. Mary's Spital AD 1197, hence the name 'Spitalfields', the neighborhood the house is located in. You are drawn in by the light and warmth of a fireplace.

The Kitchen

Photo from here

A dining room

Is that a wig hanging on the back of the chair?!

The Smoking Room

The drawing room

The unmade four poster bed in the sleeping chamber, its damask curtains held back by cords and tassels, make it seem like the occupant just got out of bed.

The bed is left unmade

There are several bedrooms. Sometimes you can hear a child giggle or a young woman whispering.

Did someone just leave the room?

When you enter a room, a candle has just been extinguished and has left a trail of smoke as if the occupant has just snuffed out the candle and left in a hurry.

One of the bedrooms

The decrepitude is breathtaking

On a first floor desk, scribbled with a quill pen on a piece of paper, are the words, "pay attention", which is what the host demands. He wants one to use all five senses when investigating the past.

"Pay Attention"

I love the tat on the walls

As you reach the top floor, it starts to get cold and less luxurious. These are the rooms that the Jervis family have rented out, and are for a poorer family. The drapes on the bed are tattered and torn and the furniture is of much poorer quality. On a table are the remains of a supper of oysters, which was the food of the poor in those days. You can hear the tolling of Big Ben, telling the City that Queen Victoria is dead.

Top floor

On the top floor, the Jarvis' fine oak furniture gives away to the squalid laundry of the renters who supposedly took over in the late 19th century. The tale is wordlessly spun of the house's decline, before it and others in the historic district known as Spitafields became the darling of preservationists in the 1960's and 1970's.

Top Floor
photo from here

This is not a museum. It is not designed to make you learn something in a conventional way. If you are annoyed at the silence requested and observed, then you have missed the point. The visitor is required to engage with the atmosphere and story, and, if you do, it's a really special sensation that stays with you. From the minute you walk in the door, you step back in time, and you can imagine the hard times when you reach the attic rooms, eerily cold - you can smell the poverty. Listen hard and you can hear the occupants. The journey through the house becomes a journey through time with it's small rooms and hidden corridors, it's secrets whispered. It resembles a pilgrimage through life itself

Painter David Hockney described the house as one of the world's greatest works of opera.
Dennis Severs bequeathed his home to the Spitalfields Trust shortly before his death at age 51.

Dennis Severs House

Spitalfields

18, Folgate Street

London

excerpts from tour web site

PS The Selby is a photographer who is known for photographing interiors artfully as-is.

PPS Thanks Sabina!

Deauville

Deauville. Lady of the French coast, its most glamorous seaside resort.

Well, not excatly that Lady Deauville, but rather the old broad Deauville on North Beach in Miami.

The last time we were here was in 1997. There was a huge fire a few years ago, and the entire hotel was renovated.

Lobby of the renovated Deauville Hotel on Miami Beach

The renovation kept the flavor of the hotel in it's modern heyday during the 1960's. Many of the cursive architectural details are intact.

The retro arches outside of the Deauville Hotel are still intact and fabulous

There are many nice decorative touches throughout the hotel.

Glass "bubbles" grace the entrances on the lower level of the Deauville Hotel, the level that leads to the pool and the beach.

The Beatles stayed and performed at the Deauville in 1964!

It was also a favorite hang out for The Rat Pack (Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey...)

Go HERE to read the history of this iconic hotel.

Deauville Hotel Pool in 1964

Deauville Hotel Pool 2010

Come into a suite we are occupying. It's a good case study in hotel interior design.

The entry hall has an over size demi lune table in Wenge wood, with a large gold leaf mirror above it. The floor in every room except the bedroom is marble.

The living room is well appointed with contemporary furnishings. The color palette throughout is a pale yellow, greige, and soft sage green. Dark wood is the accent color.

Enough accessories are used to make it feel designed, but not overbearing.

There are several different fabric textures: the rug, the silky club chairs and sofa, and the patterned arm chairs.

The drapery fabric in both rooms is a subtle grey and yellow stripe in a linen like fabric.

I like the circle pattern in the area rug juxtaposed with the small print on the chairs, and the round back of the chairs, and the round coffee table.


The bedroom is classic hotel design as we now know it, and incorporate into home decor.

There is an over size padded headboard, with simple tufting, upholstered in a matte metallic leather (faux?).

Two dark wood nightstands with white gourd shape lamps with drum shades look current.

The Deauville Hotel is not the most glam or luxurious in Miami, but it is comfortable and well designed, and the service is good.

The paint application is interesting. Three colors are used: yellow, gray (greige), and white.

The art work in the room is pretty.



Notice that the wood work and doors are painted the same color as the walls, and all in flat paint, something I do in my design work.

There are two chairs in the bedroom, a club chair upholstered in a yellow damask, and an armless chair in a gray stripe.

The patterned rug is striking. It's gray and yellow, and the pattern looks like a stsaggered bar code.


I love the pillow with the big initial on it - I may do this at home. There was only one accent pillow, and I kept moving it around like the lone orchid plant at a budget photo shoot going from room to room.

The desk (which I use as a vanity) is dark wood and rattan with a taupe leather top.


The bathroom is all marble, but it has design flaws, like a small pedestal sink with no counter space (we dragged in an end table from the living room), and there is not one towel bar or hook!


And pray tell what are we doing in Miami just days after Alberto being in the hospital?

We are at The Miami Tango Fantasy Festival. We were invited guests at the very first one held at the Deauville Hotel in 1997, and we were invited back again this year.

The Miami Tango Fantasy is the best tango festival being offered anywhere, with first rate ameneties, tons of classes, held at a wonderful resort location with dances and classes all under one roof.


The neighborhood of North Beach has always been a little seedy, but it has come up quite a bit since 1997. There are several restaurants (one stays open 24 hours) with well priced good food across the street from the hotel, a couple of food markets, a Walgreens that has everything, and of course miles of the most beautiful beach.


Thanks to everyone for all the get well wishes for Alberto. He has three coronary stints, and is feeling very good. He gets the leg blockages taken care of in six weeks.

We are enjoying this getaway, seeing many old friends and students, and dancing too. In fact we are performing an exhibition for The Night of The Milongueros.


So Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I wonder what you all are doing...

PS Jack is staying at our house, with his dog Girl (a Pitt Bull-Boxer-Catahoula mix) who loves Cholo, and our neighbors Larry (who works for the FBI) and Julie are looking in too. Just sayin'