Month: April 2007

Interview by Carolyn Zelikow

“My name is John Clark. In the 90s, my father was sick, so I helped him with his garden. I just fell in love with it. I don’t have room on my property to garden. So in 2000, the year following my dad’s death, I rented a 30’x30′ plot of land at Fairgrounds garden, behind the Olde English Inn on Emmet Street. The community gardens look really pretty in the spring. There’s a multitude of ways in which people plant. I’ve learned a lot from other gardeners. I was working on my tomatoes, once, and I asked a Fairgrounds veteran how often I should water them. Not often, she said: ‘Tomatoes got to learn to go deep.’ She’s right, and her advice has saved me from hauling over a lot of water in my milk cartons.

“My only complaint about Fairgrounds is all the morning glories—they’re three-quarters of my weeding. I cover the ground with maple leaves, and that helps, but doesn’t quite do the trick. By summertime, some people have abandoned their gardens—gone on vacations or what have you—so the area looks a bit messy. It’s sad sometimes, because you see people get too old to tend their plots. This guy next to me, he had been at Fairgrounds for over 20 years, loved his garden. One day I saw him closing things up. He looked at me, and I could see it on his face that he was leaving for good. At a certain point, people realize that they can’t do it anymore, physically. They enjoy it while they can.

“I love getting out in the sun. I go out just wearing my shorts, no shoes even. May 8th is the key planting date for me. Some people plant earlier, but my father told me ‘May 8th.’ There’s a lot of work for the first week or two. First I till, then I plan out all my plants, put stakes up for tomatoes, then I plant everything. After that, it’s a matter of weeding, harvesting and replanting: two to two and a half hours per week. I just get a lot of pleasure watching my plants grow—vegetables mostly—just thinking you put this little seed down and then you’ve got good food to eat. You can just pluck it off the vine. And it is just so good! It’s just delicious to eat.”

But is it design?
“Modernism” shows museumgoers how we lost our frills

These days, we’re used to living with a mix of the modernist and the traditional. Just look at the Downtown Mall, where the blunt outlines of the fountain in Central Place sit within view of many century-old facades. It’s easy to forget that modernism was once a revolution. A big exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., lays out the history of the last century’s sweeping movement, concentrated between the World Wars, in which colors became bolder, forms became simplified, and ornamentation fell away. “Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914-1939” is showing through July 29.

Alvar Aalto’s “Savoy” vase is an icon of modernism

Among the 400-plus objects on display are many that changed the look of our homes. Gerrit Rietveld’s circa-1923 “Red Blue” chair, for example, is still striking in its geometric purity, but its echoes in contemporary furniture are obvious. And Alvar Aalto’s 1936 “Savoy” vase is a ripple of glass that has transcended its highbrow origins to grace millions of tabletops.

If you’re the kind of person who’s a little repulsed by a skyline full of steel-and-glass monoliths, “Modernism” might not be for you. Then again, it might just provide enough context to make all those clean lines and blank surfaces seem more appealing. And after all, you can save a bundle if you’re willing to set foot in Ikea.—Erika Howsare

Cook your buns off
Win big: Do Dixie in the kitchen

What could be more Southern than sweet potato rolls with sticky caramel-pecan sauce? That’s the recipe that won the 2006 Southern Living Cook-off. The grand pooh-bah of all Dixie region lifestyle magazines is running the annual recipe contest again right now, and there’s a big cash incentive to submit. The grand prize winner will score a cool $100,000—enough dough to buy a lifetime supply of cinnamon rolls. Last year’s other finalists created an array of recipes featuring Southern decadence on a plate, including shrimp bruschette with guacamole and spicy braised short ribs with peach gravy and green rice.

Sharpen your knives: The Southern Living Cook-off tests foodies’ mettle.

One catch: You have to use at least one of the “sponsor products” in your recipe. Your options include pride-wounding stuff like Crisco and Jell-O, but also versatile and respectable ingredients like peanuts and shrimp. This year’s Cook-Off Finals will be held in Birmingham, Alabama, where finalists will duke it out on October 3 and 4.

If you’re a local and you win, we promise not to make fun of you for reading Southern Living. Last year’s winners were all from the Midwest or West Coast, so our position is that Southerners need to bring bragging rights back home. Go ahead and enter! And, for the love of O’Hara, don’t forget to garnish.—Jennifer Pullinger

Get a patent

The stuff you probably associate with a matching shoes-and-handbag set you once wore to Sunday school is now staying home from church. Instead, patent leather is showing up on wingchairs, mirror frames and other furnishings. At least that’s what you’d think if you saw the trend trumpeted in home-decor glossies. If you’re shopping locally, though, a super-shiny couch might be tough to find: Area shops are just starting to get into the patent leather market. Keep your eye out for the mirrorlike stuff in their showrooms and fabric-sample books in coming months, and don’t forget to wear shades.—E.H.

BY THE NUMBERS

3 (Number of days a week Penny Lane is open)

The eclectic Ridge Street antique store Penny Lane recently expanded its store hours from an elusive three days a month to three days a week. Every Friday through Sunday, home decor enthusiasts looking for the special touches to personalize their place can enter the realm of owner Penny Latham: cozy rooms packed with hand-crafted jewelry, china tea sets, French mirrors, vintage aprons and original art work by regional artists. Latham displays the brand new mixed seamlessly with the vintage; there are great gifts under $20, a few high-end collector’s pieces, and everything in between.

Penny Latham is slowly adding hours to her store’s schedule. Until recently, she was open a tantalizing three days a month.

Why the truncated schedule? It’s a result of the ongoing renovation of the aged Ridge Street space, a project that Latham executes with care. “I have a passion for historic preservation. I always want to get back to the way something was originally,” she says. Latham hopes to open the store on a full-time schedule soon, after the next wave of renovation is complete.

Until then, Penny Lane’s episodic hours of business lend an expeditionary air that makes shopping for housewares feel like you’re on a special quest. Follow the scent! Latham keeps everything personal: “There’s nothing here that I wouldn’t have in my own house.”—Nancy Chen

Which fork to use
Local company aims to revolutionize your table

Slight variations aside, a fork is a fork is a fork: a few tines and a handle. Unless, of course, you’re talking about Curvware. Designed by local businessman Mark Wilson, Curvware performs the same functions as the knife, spoon and fork you’ve used for a lifetime, but looks decidedly different. The handle of each piece is a two-part prong.

Ever wondered what an ergonomic fork would look like?

How the heck do you use it? It takes some getting used to. The handle fits into your palm and your index finger is invited to rest in a wide dimple near the business end. Wilson says that the design allows the hand to be more relaxed—especially nice for people with arthritis or carpal-tunnel syndrome, but ergonomic for everyone. He was inspired, he says, by pondering the difference between lever-shaped door-handles and round doorknobs. Curvware aims to replicate the advantages of the former.

Wilson acknowledges that people may not be ready for an everyday tool to change to radically: “Some things have been around so long they’re practically sacred,” he says. He works to get Curvware on tables at special events so as to build interest in the luxury market. (A three-piece setting is $99, comparable to name-brand sets from the likes of Vera Wang and Calvin Klein.) If you’re curious, visit www.curvware.com.—E.H.

Tighten up
Local builders study up on efficient houses

It was an only-in-Charlottesville scene: a room packed with green-building enthusiasts, eagerly dedicating a day to the topic of spray-foam insulation. The seminar, held on March 22 at the Charlottesville Community Design Center, connected local builders and architects with the NASA-forged expertise of Richard Rue, a Texas-based mechanical/thermal consultant. Rue showed slide after slide of crawlspaces, attics and unfinished walls to demonstrate how spray-foam is best installed in order to maximize its advantages over the traditional pink-fiberglass insulation. Among his pearls of wisdom:
• If an energy-efficient feature will pay for itself (through reduced utility bills) in two years or less, you should definitely do it.
• If it will pay for itself in five years or less, you should probably do it.
• The way to tell if a house is air-tight enough is to flip it upside down and see if it will float.

Of course, Rue offered a host of more technical information as well, from the R-value (that’s the insulation rating) of wood to the proper installation of an under-house vapor barrier. Homeowners interested in the details of energy-efficient building can start by checking out www.energysavers.gov/homeowners.html (a Department of Energy site), or contact the CCDC at 984-2232.—Erika Howsare

Smart as dirt
Nonconformists turn to the earth for affordable, eco-friendly flooring

We never entertained the thought of having dirt floors in our home, probably because we reserved that type of interior decorating for medieval peasants and Frodo Baggins. However, the new energy-efficient and attractive earthen floors being installed in the homes of some left-coast types are a far cry from their archaic counterparts.

Just kidding! Dirt floors are actually quite durable, say proponents.

Earthen floors, which are made from different combinations of clay, sand, lime, straw and soil, are surprisingly durable: Once sealed, the floors can be swept or wet-mopped and are relatively resistant to stains. More importantly, earthen floor installation produces no construction waste and little or no pollution, and the floors serve as natural heat conductors—reducing your need for conventional heating systems.

However, dirt floors pose some major disadvantages. The floors are highly susceptible to scratches and punctures and flooding can mean sudden death for an earthen room. Although the materials are —excuse us—dirt cheap, earthen floor installation is highly labor intensive and time consuming.

One notable plus is that—even though dirt floors are virtually unheard of in our area—Virginia soil is optimal for earthen flooring. According to Bill Steen, co-author of Earthen Floors, all earthen floors require a percentage of clay in the mixture; Steen supposes the red clay-rich Virginia soil would be great for the job.—Stephanie Woods

So fresh and so green
New guide = no excuse not to eat local

Fact: the distance from farm to fork for your standard dinner is 1,500 miles. If that figure (or the corresponding gas usage and air pollution) disturbs you, there’s a good thing coming your way this spring. The Piedmont Environmental Council’s free “Buy Fresh Buy Local” guide will be a five-county treasure map of farm, winery and market goodies, and if you live in Charlottesville or Albemarle it will show up in your mailbox around the first of May.

Even tastier when it’s local: Your guide to fresh food will be in the mailbox around the first of May.

Restaurants that cook with local ingredients will also be listed; that’s a double-dose of support for the Charlottesville economy. And there are more reasons to get psyched about this, selfless and selfish:
   1. Veggies and fruits to be shipped far distances are bred to withstand travel damage, meaning tough, thick-skinned (as opposed to, say, tender and juicy) crops are favored.
   2. The health quotient of fresh food is directly proportional to the time it spends getting to your table—in most cases, nutrient content starts dropping almost immediately after harvesting. Plus, the flavor that comes from harvesting foods at their nutritional peak is unparalleled.
   3. If you have environmental or health concerns about how your tomato was grown, you can just call up the farmer and ask; better yet, go see for yourself.—Katherine Cox

The origin of species
Organic gardening begins with seeds

Check the little “organic” label on the upper right: It means “better for the planet.”

If you’re going green in the garden, you’re likely to start educating yourself about the virtues of Bt and other friendly pest remedies. You might stock up on row covers and get a nice pile of compost ready to add to your soil. All well and good, but don’t forget to consider the tiny packets of DNA that will get your garden started. Many gardeners wouldn’t consider their plots organic if they planted non-organic seeds.

Why? Several reasons. One, seeds that are certified organic are guaranteed not to be genetically modified. Two, they’re often bred to do well under organic growing conditions, so they’ll be more likely to thrive than seeds raised with conventional practices.

Three—and maybe most importantly—buying organic tomato seeds is just like buying an organic tomato in that you’re voting with your dollars for eco-friendly farming. Seeds are a crop raised by agricultural companies, so you’re encouraging those companies to make green choices when you opt for their organic rather than conventional products.

Local sources for organic seeds include Eltzroth & Thompson Greenhouses on Route 29S, Whole Foods Market and Integral Yoga Natural Foods. Online, you can buy them at www.johnnyseeds.com or www.seedsofchange.com.—E.H.

From the ground up
Local interest in permaculture is blooming

Do you mulch your garden? Is there a trellis nearby that gives shade and props up viney plants? You’re already on the road to permaculture—if you want to learn more about it, there’s a new series of courses bring taught at the Rockfish Valley Community Center. The course focuses on designing one’s dwelling and property to harmonize the relationships between buildings, gardens, forests and the surrounding human community. Complex, yes, but with benefits beyond the satisfaction of being environmentally responsible: for starters, large amounts of money saved on energy and food.

Christine Gyovai is teaching locals how to make their houses and gardens truly green.

Students at the RVCC will receive a 72-hour certificate in the field and lots of hand-on time with a seasoned team of instructors, including Peter Bane and Christine Gyovai. Gyovai, principal of Dialogue and Design Associates, is a local whose current projects include building a straw bale house for herself and her husband. She’s excited about the success of the ongoing course: “We had an amazingly strong interest level for this course—over 35 people. It’s the largest class east of the Mississippi in 15 years.” If you want to sign up for the next series (coming this fall or spring of 2008) or get info on permaculture demonstration sites, workshops, or work parties, contact her at christinegyovai @gmail.com.—K.C.

The mother of all garden parties
www.vagardenweek.org

Grab your bonnet and bug spray. The oldest and largest statewide home and garden tour in the nation, Virginia’s Historic Garden Week, is back for its 74th season, April 21-28. To say that the tour is extensive would be shortchanging it; statewide, there are three dozen different tours featuring over 250 of Virginia’s finest properties and most vibrant gardens. Guests on the tours can expect to see horticultural marvels as well as beautifully restored historic landmarks. The tours expose guests to a myriad of garden types, with everything from formal gardens to cottage gardens to even (gasp) secret gardens. You don’t have to travel far, since there are plenty of tours scheduled right in our area. Tickets require even less travel: Just cruise over to the website.—Stephanie Woods

A-Z antiques
www.1stdibs.com

1stDibs.com is like the U.N. of antique shopping, without all the bitching and red tape. Not only does the site feature quality antiques from all parts of the globe, it also boasts the world’s largest resource for 18th, 19th, and 20th century designs. This cleverly designed site guides you through thousands of antique goods, including everything from Murano glass chandeliers to stately Dutch cabinets. Items are organized by function and type, as well as by their city or country of origin. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see the country you desire on the short list featured on the homepage. We typed in “Thailand” in the keyword search at the top and were rewarded with more Buddha figurines than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, 1stDibs is only a database of antique items and does not sell the items themselves, so viewing individual prices can be tough. However, the site does an excellent job of providing extensive contact information and links to other dealers’ websites.—S.W.

A trip over memory lane
www.fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/maps/sanborn

On the University of Virginia Library’s Geostat Center website you can view digital maps of Charlottesville dating back to 1917 and 1920. The Sanborn Map Company originally created these fire insurance maps to assess the risk of fire and insurance costs in the city. Today these maps have been transferred online and can be used to view your neighborhood as it looked almost a century ago. We suggest browsing the individual Sanborn maps, as this will allow you to zoom in much farther on the houses and streets than the other maps allowed. Although the maps may seem vague and indistinct at first, you’ll learn from the symbols page that the colors and code used on the map indicate different structures and building materials. While the concept of viewing a Charlottesville of yesteryear is certainly an exciting idea, you’ll find the maps hard to view if you’re looking for lots of detail; they’re best as an overview of your neighborhood.—S.W.

Recipes for the rogue chef       
www.101cookbooks.com

With the proliferation of generic recipes online, finding a unique dish can be as difficult as getting Martha Stewart to enter a wet T-shirt contest. That is, until we discovered 101Cookbooks, a health-conscious food blog that provides tasty and inventive treats for the everyday chef. Despite its generic sounding name, 101Cookbooks is a far cry from other catchall cooking sites. You’ll find offbeat recipes like chocolate zucchini cupcakes and lemon thyme grilled pizzas. Those in search of cheeseburgers be warned: The site does not feature many basic recipes and the lack of red meat is enough to make a NASCAR dad cry. However, 101 Cookbooks does provide extensive meal options for vegans, vegetarians, health nuts, and anyone else who is adventurous in the kitchen. Perhaps the site’s greatest appeal is the personal commentary by 101 Cookbooks creator, culinary goddess Heidi Swanson. Heidi not only gives you a kick-ass green curry recipe, but also shares how she found this recipe on her recent trip to Thailand.—S.W.

Buyer’s market. Buyer’s market. Buyer’s market. Seems to be the real estate mantra these days. So buy already, why don’t you. But maybe if you hold off for another month or two, housing prices will drop some more and you’ll get a better deal. Or will you?

“I certainly wouldn’t recommend that someone sign a lease for another year,” says Greg Slater, an associate broker with Real Estate III and the director of sales and marketing for Church Hill Homes. “But you don’t have to rush into anything either. Today’s market isn’t like it was when you had to pounce on a place fast, before someone else got it.”
We get it: plenty of inventory means that the bad old days of bidding wars, writing an offer without a home inspection and composing love letters to convince sellers that you’re a worthy purchaser are history. Does the same go for falling prices?

Broker Greg Slater declares now the time to buy. "You should be shopping, shopping, shopping," he says.

“Some of the national information out there shows that we hit bottom last year, and I tend to agree with that,” says Slater. “I think the market’s bottomed out and leveled off.” 

Bottom or no, there was definitely an adjustment, which means “buyers have a lot more negotiating power than sellers,” Slater says. “I do think that now’s the time to buy. You should be shopping, shopping, shopping. See what’s available in your price range. Find a place you love, and then negotiate. If you think the house is overpriced, you don’t have to pay that price.”

In other words, it’s the buyer, not the seller, who sets home prices nowadays.

“There are a lot of really great deals out there,” he says. “Builders with finished inventory; houses on the market for more than four months—both indicate that there’s room for negotiation.”

And as long as you’re the one calling the shots, why not throw out a lowball offer, especially if a house has been sitting around for a while? Maybe the owners have grown desperate, and now must sell because of a job transfer, a divorce or financial woes. It could turn out that your bid isn’t so outrageous after all, especially if it’s the only one the homeowners have received.

Another upside to a down market is that the all-important comparable values—a list of recent sales—become less crucial. You certainly should take a look at public real estate records (realestate.charlottesville.org or albemarlevapropertymax.governmaxa.com/ propertymax) and real estate info websites such as trulia.com and zillow.com. But don’t feel that what you see there carries the same weight it did a couple years ago, when homes were being snapped up before Open House signs could be jammed in the ground. Look at these numbers as more useful to sellers, a guide to what they should ask, but perhaps not an indicator of what they’ll take.

Keep in mind, though, that even if you snag the real estate deal of a lifetime, it has to be for the right dwelling—in a neighborhood you like with good schools. Oh, and you should plan on living there for a while because, according to Slater, the odds are slim that after six months you’ll be able to flip it and score a 20 percent profit. That kind of market truly is history.

“But houses are still an excellent investment,” Slater says, adding that “all the things that make our real estate market good, and Charlottesville a great to place to live, are still here.”

Jon Bright bought his spacious brick house on Altamont Circle in 2000; he already owned the one next door. They’re both close to a century old, and together they’ve supplied Bright, an after-work do-it-yourselfer, with an endless series of refinishing and remodeling projects. (His approach: “I put out the worst fires first.”) One of those jobs: Starting at the southwest corner of his house, Bright has circled the exterior, stripping and repainting the soffit, windows and trim. He’s almost all the way around now, and looking forward to finishing up the job this summer by tackling his favorite spot: the front porch. A new paint job will spiff it up, sure—the gray floor and white columns are flaking a little. But it could hardly be more comfortable than it already is. I sat down in one of the padded chairs and listened to Bright talk about life on the porch, where, as he says, “you are naked to the world.”

The porch needs a touchup, which it’ll get this summer, but Jon Bright (second from right) and friends are pretty happy with it already.

‘‘This is called The Porch. People will say ‘Are you going to be on The Porch tonight?’ One neighbor every spring says, ‘Is it still O.K. if I sit on your porch swing and read [when you’re not home]?’ It’s the communal porch, which is very cool. Many people have looked out [from a nearby large apartment building] and seen us on our porch, or when they’re walking dogs they’ll see us. They come strolling over and bring their drink of choice and sit here with [my girlfriend and me] and we talk politics or whatever. The TV doesn’t get turned on all summer long.

“I’ll work on the house until 8 or 9 at night. Then I’ll grab a cold drink, sit till 11 or 11:30, watch the world go by. Or on a Sunday afternoon, the neighborhood is showing up, walking by. We try to have a summer party each year, and one year it started pouring down rain [the morning of the party]. I called everybody and said I don’t know if we can have the party; it’s raining. They said we’ll just sit on the porch. We had probably 25 people on the porch.

“Many people don’t know these houses are here. We know everybody around the circle. It’s fun because we are a little enclave back here and we know all our neighbors. You can look and see the steeple of the church Downtown. It’s strangely very quiet here, even with McIntire Road and High Street right there. You can hear Amtrak pull in [to the W. Main Street station] at 9 o’clock. Every time we hear it we look at our watches and say ‘Yep, it’s on time today’ or ‘it’s late today.’

“My daughter was going to the University of Montana a couple of years ago, and I was visiting her. I got a phone call from a friend; he said, ‘Where are you at? We’re sitting here on your porch with a bottle of Bloody Mary mix.’ I said, ‘I’m in Montana.’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll be here all afternoon.’”

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Nobody’s ever accused me of being a nature girl. It’s not that I have anything against the great outdoors, but my idea of a killer hike consists of trekking from book store to coffee shop to shoe sale. I can identify almost no varieties of plant, tree or bird. And gardening is a pastime I’ve never really embraced because I don’t like to get dirty.

Why then, I’m often asked, do I live in a home with a massive yard surrounded by a couple of wooded acres a dozen miles from Downtown? Good question.

My husband and two daughters have no trouble answering that query. The space, the air, the freedom and ever-changing nature of our surroundings is both irresistible and fascinating to them. They like nothing better than to while away an entire afternoon in the woods. But what do you do, I ask when they return home filthy and scraped. We walk and we listen and we watch, says my husband, all David Carradine-as-Grasshopper-like. You should join us sometime, he adds.

I remind him that the last time I spent a substantial amount of time outside, my reward was a nasty case of poison ivy. I decided that the forest knew I was an interloper, and wanted to make sure I didn’t come back anytime soon. So I didn’t. Until a couple of weeks ago.

It was a warmish early spring afternoon; one of those bright days that reeks of the better weather to come. I was wrestling with an impossible article when my youngest daughter poked her head into my office and asked me to go for a walk in the woods. It couldn’t be any worse than this, I thought, and closed the lid on my laptop.

Once properly shod, we crossed the street and struggled down a thorn-laden hill. Well, it wasn’t much of a struggle for them, but I managed to get slapped in the face with a branch, rip my jeans and fall on my tush. Not the most auspicious of beginnings, I thought, and figured that nature’s fatwa against me was probably still in effect.

On we tromped, my daughters and a friend pointing out a fuzzy tree and warning me not to hug it. (As if!) Poison ivy, the two Girl Scouts and a Brownie explained. Even though it looks dead, there’s still enough oil to cause a rash.

We stopped at a small stream, where the children began turning over rocks to see if any critters were stirring. Too cold, they decided. When the weather warmed, the girls promised to bring me back to hunt for frogs, crayfish and water striders, often called Jesus bugs because of their ability to walk on water. Further down, I spotted what looked like a beaver dam, but my woods-savvy young’uns said no, it was obviously man-made because the edges of the sticks weren’t chewed to points.

My eldest daughter rushed ahead to a mossy natural bridge, the preferred water crossing venue during chillier months. Next we encountered “the open grave,” a mysterious 4′ by 2′ trench, currently filled with a foot of water that the girls reported is a favorite hot weather hang-out for our neighbor’s dog.

We kept on like this for some time, the children excitedly recounting how they spend their afternoons in what, to them, is a magical place filled with all sorts of adventures to be had. I peered into a couple of small caves they’ve discovered, and marveled over their encounters with deer and attempts at identifying all manner of animal tracks.

Near the end of our walk we came upon a small tree next to the stream. This, my eldest confided, is the best spot out here. The flatness of the ground around the tree’s base makes for an ideal place to lay out a blanket and a picnic. Its leaves provide equal amounts of shade and privacy during the summer. All you need is a good book, and you’ve got a cozy afternoon hideout, she said. Or maybe, I thought, the perfect space to finish an overdue article.