Sacred Space at Home

I’ve always loved the expression “building a home together.” Twelve years into our relationship, and six years into marriage, I’m glad to discover that the creation and evolution of home never ends. To us, our circa 1880 Victorian in Newtown is a living, breathing thing. It speaks in windy whispers, wooden ribs expanding and contracting with the seasons. No door hangs exactly straight, and pine floors slant willfully. When my husband toured the house, he knew instantly that he wanted to make it his home. Amusingly, the real estate listing read, “This one’s a cream puff.” It is so much more, and we are its lucky stewards.

This past year, we decided to ignore the practicalities of resale (the notion of which depresses us, anyway, since we never want to leave) and make the house more our own. First things first. We converted the first floor shared study into the “Library Guest Room.” Two days’ work disassembling and reassembling the four poster bed we’d inherited from my beloved grandmother, Yia Yia, and we were done. And feeling pretty darn proud of ourselves- major impact, relatively little time and effort. On to phase two. I commandeered the upstairs guestroom for my office/dressing room/sewing room, while Matt claimed the garden guest room as his study. In his inimitably generous way, he offered to redecorate my space first. And when I say redecorate, I mean he was half of the design team and did all of the work and craftsmanship himself.

We didn’t know exactly how we wanted to outfit this room, but I felt compelled to make it a sacred space for peace and reflection. With the launch of Bijou, 2024 was both the happiest year of my career, and the riskiest and most arduous. Beyond my personal sphere, the state and trajectory of our larger world had me feeling hollowed out and hopeless. I hankered for a sanctum of sorts. And we needed a focal point to invite and set that mood.

My love affair with the paintings of John Singer Sargent dates back to my post college days in Boston. I lived in a walk-up studio near the Fenway, a public rose garden on my doorstep and the city’s museums a hop, skip, and a jump away. Once a week, I’d pay a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and explore her former home and vast art collection. I’d make a beeline for the courtyard to drink in whatever exquisitely designed seasonal floral arrangements and plantings were on display. Then I’d lose all sense of time and meander from room to room. There was always something new to discover. But without fail, I’d end my visit in the Spanish Cloister to commune with Sargent’s 1882 painting  “El Jaleo.” As a former dancer, I was entranced by the palpable sense of movement set off by chiaroscuro and the ecstasy of musicians so utterly immersed in their art and the moment.   

When it came time to decorate this room, I turned to another Sargent piece that has long appealed to me. He painted “Smoke of Ambergris” in Tangiers in 1880 (around the time that our house was built). To me, the work conveys an atmosphere of perfect, momentary solitude and the stillness that I crave in this mad world. A woman in rich cream garments stands as a pillar of strength and autonomy, a heavy drape held over her head to capture the essence of ambergris as it wafts from a decorative pewter vessel at her feet. Her staunch verticality mirrors that of the nearby massive stucco column, seeming to underscore her resilience. Whatever we are witnessing in this scene, it has an air of ritual and restoration about it. The subject will leave this space stronger than when she entered it. Which is exactly what I desired from this little room of mine. The painting resonated deeply with Matt, too, and we had our anchor point.  

I struggled to land on the right wall color. My dilemma was that I wanted the small room to be light and airy in feeling, but I also sought comforting coziness (which I tend to associate with darker hues). In the end, we figured out a way to achieve both. The walls went mascarpone, and the ceiling went teal with a drop of about a foot onto the walls. We have a running joke about my Mediterranean leanings toward bold colors versus Matt’s penchant for earth tones. In this case, I was uncharacteristically wary of going too dark on the ceiling, but he wisely said I’d regret it if we went lighter. Reader, my sainted husband painted no less than four coats of teal on that bloody ceiling. But he was right. The depth of color and the drop make the corners of the room disappear, so it resembles an infinite night sky.

One of the loveliest things about doing up a room is that you realize you’ve been acquiring things over time that were destined to inhabit this new space. I love settling down in Yia Yia’s poppy patterned armchair for a good read. Or gazing upon the canvas print of “Smoke of Ambergris” gracing the mantle, flanked by Yia Yia’s tall black candlesticks. Then there’s my antique desk and a delicate chair, acquired separately, that gravitated to become a pair so I can look out over our beautiful valley as I pore over cookbooks and dream up new recipes. There are treasured gifts, too, such as the fabulous 1925 Singer sewing machine and table my mother gave me for my birthday- thank you, Mamma! The thoughtful gift a diffuser, Winter White, from my dear sister-in-law. And the magpie wing prints on either side of my desk were a Christmas present from Matt. Purchased locally at Lichen or Knot, they make me feel uplifted and full of creative energy. My room is now affectionately known as the “Chatelaine’s Boudoir.”

I’ve come to understand that “building a home together” is one of our mutual love languages. Wherever we are, this is something that we will always do for, and with, each other. I hope you, too, enjoy creating sacred space in your home. Be well, sweet friends! xoxo

Birth of Bijou: You can take the girl out of New England…

Bijou may be a new local business, but looking back, I can trace some of its origins to my New England childhood. I grew up in Jamestown, Rhode Island (also known as Conanicut Island), a small town in the middle of Narragansett Bay. Ours was a community in which you knew your neighbors and the fire department was run by volunteers. Small town gossip and politics were grist for the mill of daily life, but when push came to shove, people were there for one another. 

Some of my earliest memories are of food. McQuade’s Market was the only grocery store on the island (as far as I know, it still is). Somewhat bizarrely, I recall the lure of a mundane salad bar presented in an ebony-colored wooden cart reminiscent of a gypsy caravan, transforming it into something out of a distant fairy tale. My young mind registered that presentation is everything. 

Around the corner from McQuade’s you’d find a bakery, Our Daily Bread. Baker Bob, a one-man show, had chosen a quintessentially New England house, all eaves outside and warm, glowing wood inside, for his venture. The shingled exterior wore a coat of deep green paint that immediately became my favorite color. Once inside, you’d instinctively inhale, savoring the yeasty aroma of just-baked loaves and pastries. On an early visit to this mecca of oven-born goodness, I asked my mother why the offerings on display under glass glistened so prettily. She explained to me the magic of an egg wash, which seemed to me a minor culinary miracle. Could an egg really do that? Childhood impression - the finish is everything. My mouth still waters at the memory of a glossy whole-grain loaf studded with poppyseeds. Or a cinnamon twist artfully crafted to create the perfect contrast of sweet spice and savory pastry. When I get a nostalgic cinnamon twist craving here in Staunton, I make a beeline for Magdalena Bake.  

Some special Sundays, after attending services at St. Spyridon’s Greek Orthodox Church across the bridge in Newport, my parents would treat us to a visit to Cappuccinos. This exotic (to me) name, I would learn, was taken from an Italian hot beverage consisting of espresso, steamed milk, and foam, delicately dusted with cocoa powder and sweetened with raw cane sugar.  When old enough, I was allowed this eponymous elixir (for the record, my personal favorite Staunton locale for espresso drinks is Crucible Coffee). Visual and auditory memories of Cappuccinos abound. The whoosh and purr of the (manual) espresso machine behind the bar. The click of demitasse spoons on saucers. Round marble tables with freshly cut flowers and bistro chairs that scraped the black and white tile floor with each turnover. A touch of unexpected humor in the restroom - opposite the commode, an art photo of ten ladies’ derrieres (all shapes and sizes) in garter belts and lace. So naughty! But nice. The ever-present owners, Norman and Diane, greeted their customers by name with a warmth and hospitality that signaled their joy, however hard they worked. 

Autumn in Narragansett Bay came in sharper than the gentle, back-and-forth dance with late summer here in the Shenandoah Valley. You felt it first in the salt-tinged wind off the water as it nipped with the promise of a bite. Soon after, the leaves of English oaks and American elms would begin to turn from verdant green to vibrant orange and red (foliage years were generally good back then). Harbingers of fall, bringing such timeless delights as hayrides at Watson Farm, pumpkin patch meanderings, bobbing for apples, s’mores at Mackerel Cove around a fire, and the annual resurrection of the Carr Homestead ghost story: trespass by night if you dare. And, of course, the award-winning haunted house experience conceived and executed by two island boys, one of whom, James Lurgio, would go on to create Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery in Salem, Massachusetts- worth a trip!

When I began this little autumn reverie, I didn’t know I’d be writing a love letter to my hometown. Revisiting moments of my youth, I am struck by how the fall season, like no other, strengthens the memory and forges connections between past and present. I realize how many hours Baker Bob must have labored every week to single-handedly produce an array of high-quality baked goods that beckoned like burnished jewels under glass - tres bijou. His fierce entrepreneurial spirit resonates with me, and I feel a kinship with him across time as I spend countless hours “souping.” 

My husband lovingly jokes that I’m all about aesthetics in favor of practicality (he’s not wrong). I admit that the starting point for Bijou was crystal chandeliers and hummingbird wallpaper. I’m certain that the exterior paint color of Our Daily Bread, so characteristically New England in its depth of color, inspired our Bijou green interior (Benjamin Moore Hunter Green, in case anyone’s curious). And the Continental atmosphere that we strive for at Bijou, combining our joint love of Paris and Venice? Surely that has roots in the décor of Cappuccinos, with their petite round marble tables, harp-backed bistro chairs, and black-hued accents throughout. What of the indefatigable hosts, Diane and Norman? That painfully shy little girl (me), dressed in her Sunday best and slowly unwinding a puff pastry palmier, marveled at their energy, passion, and confident enthusiasm. They gave me an early glimpse into the world of hospitality and what a beautiful thing it is to enrich people’s lives through food. It took me three decades to get here, but Bijou was worth the wait. Why soup? That’s a story for another day. Happy Autumn, sweet friends! xoxo