Red Brick by Master Landscaping

Get the best around the pool landscaping

It is a great idea to get your pool looking its best by making use of around the pool landscaping. This kind of pool landscaping can turn your boring old backyard into the backyard of the stars. You can have a Hollywood looking backyard in n o time if you play your cards right.

Pool Landscaping A good pool landscaping design will make your pool the focal attraction and bring out so much more in your yard. If your yard is large you can consider adding gorgeous brick walkways to your yard around the pool. This kind of pool landscaping can lead to other parts of the yard as well. You can have a larger grouping of brick on which you can place your patio furniture, a table and chairs can look fabulous.

Breaking up the brick in the pool landscaping will some patches of greenery is a good touch. These bits of green will breathe life into the whole picture and take out the hard stone look. Brick is a good choice of stone because it is a softer looking stone. The red brick color is warm and inviting it will not leave your yard looking cold and unwelcoming. The green plants will only add to the beauty of the brick as a pool landscaping tool.

You can throw in some landscaping stones around the plants and the edges of the patio. Light colored Stones will add so much to the entire pool landscaping design. Choose small and sharp stones and you have just added a whole other layer of texture tot the landscape and this on its own will make your yard look fabulous.

You can also think about putting in some colorful flowers. Pool Landscaping If you spend a lot of time by the pool at night add some night blooming flowers as well. This way you will be surrounded by some fabulous blooms and scents all day (and night) long. Combined all of these ideas will make your pool landscaping design the best ever seen.

Start looking into the way to go about this kind of pool landscaping today. Some of it you may be able to do on your own while other aspects you may need some professional help with. Your pool landscaping is going to impress all of your friends when you are done so get started today and it will be done in no time.

Tags: blooms, brick walkways, cards, colored stones, colorful flowers, green plants, greenery, hollywood, landscape, Landscaping Design, landscaping stones, night blooming flowers, patio furniture, Pool Landscaping, red brick, scents, table and chairs, texture
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Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Landscaping No Comments

Edgeworth Garden Shows A European Flair

After growing up among steel mills near Dusseldorf, Germany, Juergen Mross felt very much at home when he moved to Pittsburgh in the 1970s. But he wasn’t as comfortable in the 1950s red-brick Colonial he and his wife, Renate, bought in Edgeworth in 1986. It was large enough for the couple and their four sons, but it had a small entrance and lacked character.

With the help of Gretchen Barlett of Barlett Design, the couple added a foyer and portico with six massive columns in front. Then, in 2006 and 2007, they had landscape architect Ed Werley of Werley Associates and landscape contractor Eichenlaub transform the grounds around the house. Now Mr. Mross feels at home.

Although the house separates the front and back areas, the garden is unified by repetition and contrast, both of naturally mounding plants like azalea, spirea and itea and of curving formal hedges of sheared hornbeams and boxwood. The rows of tall hornbeams, in particular, give the front landscape a formal, European feel. Recently, Hilbish McGee Lighting Design added low-voltage lighting that highlights the hornbeams, facade and other features at night.

In the front and back, large uplights catch the huge old maples and pine trees that form the backdrop for the new landscaping and, in one sense, inspired it. After large limbs nearly struck the house during a storm, Mr. Mross decided it was time for a big change, starting with the elevations. Mr. Werley, who works with his son, John, said the front yard was raised 3 feet and a series of sandstone walls installed around a central curving staircase of carved limestone slabs.

Brick pavers were added near the street to create a dropoff area and are repeated in the walkways and a landing. There, a sculpture of upright logs cast in bronze by artist Peter Calaboyias is the center of a fountain. Originally on the side of the house, it was moved “for greater visual impact,” Mr. Werley said. At night, the hornbeams also pack a visual punch, each with its own uplight.

“There’s a lot going on there, but it’s not bright. It’s subtle,” said Halbane Hilbish, principal owner of Hilbish McGee and a member of the International Association of Lighting Designers.

In the back, Mr. Hilbish subtly lit Japanese maples, weeping Camperdown elms and low sandstone walls topped by loose hedges of yew and blue holly and rows of spirea and cranberry bush viburnum. Three weeping cherries and other specimen trees were salvaged from an earlier redesign and reused.

Other older elements play parts in the new design. A new arched gate leads to “the treehouse,” where the four Mross boys held countless sleepovers. They’re now ages 30, 27, 25 and 18. The new curving stone walls bracket a new cedar garden house built by Vixen Hill, and new sheared boxwood hedges line the new conservatory. More ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood and a bay window frame a Japanese Stewartia that has been limbed up slightly to enhance the view of the garden. Around its base are Yak rhododendrons, fothergilla and ‘Goldflame’ spirea.

“The spirea has flowers and nice fall color — a yellowish red,” said Ryan Johnson, project administrator for Eichenlaub.

He said the hardest part of this project was access — a road had to be cut from front to back — and finding space to stockpile plants and materials. When it was finished, it won an Award for Landscape Excellence from the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association.

Tags: amp, artist peter, barlett, brick pavers, dusseldorf germany, formal hedges, front yard, itea, landscape, landscape architect, landscape co, Landscape Contractor, Landscaping, lighting design, limestone slabs, low voltage lighting, maples, massive columns, minis, mross, new landscaping, pine trees, plants, red brick, rta, sandstone walls, visual punch, walkway, walkways, yew
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Monday, June 16th, 2008

Landscaping No Comments

Siena is one of Italy’s showcases with rich architecture and medievalstyle horse race

Siena seems to be every Italy connoisseur’s pet town. More than a sum of places to see, Siena itself is the sight. Grab a gelato, join in the evening stroll, and end up at the town’s glorious red brick main square, Il Campo. Lean up against a pillar as the setting sun plays games with the colors of the stone and the sky. At twilight, first-time poets savor that magic moment when the sky turns into a rich blue dome as bright as the medieval tower that holds it high.

Seven hundred years ago, Siena was a major military power in a class with Florence, Venice, and Genoa. With a population of 60,000, it was even bigger than Paris.

To say that Siena and Florence have always been competitive is an understatement. In medieval times, a statue of Venus stood on Il Campo. After the plague hit Siena in the 14th century, the monks blamed the pagan statue. The people cut it to pieces and buried it along the walls of Florence. The dirty trick didn’t work and the plague was disastrous for the town. Siena’s loss became our sightseeing gain, as its political and economic irrelevance pickled it Gothic.

Today, Siena’s thriving historic center, with traffic-free, red brick lanes cascading every which way, offers Italy’s best Gothic city experience. Most people visit Siena, just 30 miles south of Florence, as a day trip, but it’s best experienced after dark. While Florence has the blockbuster museums, Siena has an easy-to-enjoy soul: courtyards sport flower-decked wells and alleys dead-end at red-tiled rooftop views.

For those who dream of a Fiat-free Italy, this is it. Sit at a cafe on Il Campo. Take time to savor the first European city to eliminate automobile traffic from its main square (1966), and then, just to be silly, wonder what would happen if they did it in your city.

This great central piazza is urban harmony at its best. Like a people-friendly stage set, its gently tilted floor fans out from the tower and city hall backdrop. It’s the perfect invitation to loiter. Siena’s Campo gathers around its city hall, not its church. It was a proud republic and its “declaration of independence” is the tallest secular medieval tower in Italy, the 100-yard-tall Torre del Mangia. (It was named after a hedonistic watchman who consumed his earnings like a glutton consumes food; his statue is in the courtyard.) The steps get pretty skinny at the top, but the reward is one of Italy’s best views.

And if you are atop that tower on July 2 or Aug. 16, you’ll see a vast square jammed with people, as the city hosts Europe’s most famous and frantic horse race, the Palio.

During each Palio, 10 of the 17 neighborhoods compete (chosen by rotation and lot), hurling themselves with medieval abandon into several days of trial races and traditional revelry. Jockeys are considered hired guns, paid mercenaries. But on the big day, the horses are taken into their neighborhood church to be blessed. “Go and return victorious,” says the priest. (It’s considered a sign of luck if a horse leaves droppings in the church.)

On the big day, Il Campo is stuffed to the brim with locals and tourists, as the horses charge wildly around the square in this literally no-holds-barred race. A horse can win even if its rider has fallen off. After the winner crosses the line, 1/17th of Siena goes berserk for the next 365 days.

In the Palio, the feisty spirit of Siena’s 17 neighborhoods lives on. They celebrate, worship, and compete together. Each has its own parish church, well, or fountain, and even its own historical museum. Neighborhood pride is evident any time of year in the parades and colorful banners, lamps, and wall plaques. (If you hear distant drumming, run to it for some medieval action, often featuring flag-throwers.)

While the actual Palio packs the city, you could day-trip in from Florence to see horse-race trials each of the three days before the main event (for details, see www.ilpalio.org).

The Palio is not some folkloristic event kept alive for tour groups. It’s a real medieval moment. When I considered filming it for my public-television show, local authorities said they’d rather not publicize it. If you’re there for the race packed onto the square with 15,000 people, all hungry for victory you won’t see much, but you will feel the spirit of Siena.

Edmonds-based Rick Steves writes European travel guidebooks and hosts travel shows on public television and public radio. His column runs weekly online at seattletimes.com/travel. E-mail him at rick@ricksteves.com

Tags: amp, locals, poe, red brick, s south, showcase
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Thursday, March 13th, 2008

Landscaping Rock No Comments

A simple life in Belgium’s Leuven

LEUVEN, Belgium The cobblestone path dips below street level to a small haven of mottled red brick buildings and arched doorways. The occasional bicycle is propped up against a wall. A trilingual sign forbids sunbathing, picking fruit or loud talking.

These peaceful, ancient houses now are home to many students and professors. But centuries ago, this hamlet in Leuven a university town, 20 miles east of Brussels was a beguinage, a sort of commune for unmarried, religiously inclined women known as beguines (pronounced bay-gueens).

Beguines most likely derived from the Flemish word beghen, which means to pray were women who, beginning in the 12th century, chose to live neither under the care of a man nor the vows of the church.

Theirs was, in essence, a Middle Ages feminist movement, and its remarkable architectural legacy is still evident in cities across the Netherlands and Belgium. But nowhere in greater splendor than in this old university town.

The Leuven beguinage (called a begijnhof in Dutch) was founded in 1230. Exquisitely restored in the 1960s, it is today a quaint little town of tiny gabled homes and gardens that spreads across 17 acres. Formally known as the Grand Beguinage of Leuven, it now belongs to a local university.

The United Nations (through UNESCO) has declared the beguinage a World Heritage Site, a place of outstanding cultural importance. There are neither cars nor shops in this spectacular urban oasis that delights visitors year-round.

If you stroll down the quiet, centuries-old cobblestone streets and peek into the gated garden areas, you can almost see the beguines growing vegetables.

A canal runs between the buildings. There is no tour boat, just greenish water flowing between red brick buildings. Ivy, growing thickly, dives into the water. The cobblestone street becomes a bridge, just for five yards or so.

This place housed hundreds of beguines in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it offers a quiet escape from urban life.

The good life

What is so unusual about the beguinages here and in the Netherlands there is still a beguinage in Amsterdam is that they survived revolutions, social strife and terrible wars across six, seven centuries.

Beguinages were home to generations of religious women who sought to live a more independent life than other women who married against their will. They made their homes, catered to the sick and poor and sought to serve God without separating from the rest of the world.

As Catholic women devoted to prayer and good work, beguines lived simply, wore loose robes and headgear similar to nuns’ habits.

But nuns they were definitely not.

Beguines took no religious vows. They could leave and marry, if they chose. They could own property and took no alms. Women of all classes were welcomed. They carried on professions, often in the textile industry. They elected women to be leaders Grand Dames and each Grand Dame was often assisted by an elected council. Each beguine was expected to support herself and make a tangible contribution to the beguinage, either through labor or rent income.

Belgium’s beguinages are intact, but the beguines themselves are long gone. In 2000, there were only five of them left in Belgium.

A walk through the Leuven beguinage is a spectacular march back into time. Meeting someone here in a habit would make more sense than that young man over there in cargo shorts and Birkenstocks.

Jeroen Laureysens, an 18-year-old theology major, lives in the Leuven beguinage. “I love the atmosphere because I like things like abbeys,” he said. When he first saw the beguinage, he recalled, “it was like, ‘wow,’ maybe in some months I will live here.”

The church bells chime the hour. The white stone chapel now the university parish rises above the three-story red brick buildings. Today students and professors of the Catholic University of Leuven to which the beguinage now belongs live in the small houses that were once home to beguines.

A struggle for independence

Life wasn’t easy for the beguines. Living an essentially religious life without taking vows made many of the more conservative members of society and the church suspicious of the beguines. Why not, they wondered, simply take on the vows of sisterhood, become a nun and live in a respectfully cloistered manner?

To supporters, however, the beguines represented a worthy attempt to live a godly life within a tempestuous world without shutting themselves out.

Each beguinage had its own way of doing things and that could be a problem.

The clergy felt threatened by beguines’ attempts to provide spiritual guidance to the community around them, particularly when they propagated mysticism over ecclesiasticism.

Following investigation by church authorities, some of the smaller beguinages died out.

Some, particularly in the Netherlands, escaped condemnation by accommodating the church hierarchy and espousing Catholic tenets up to a point. Vigorous condemnations led to the decimation of beguinages in the Rhine Valley.

In Belgium, the beguines made concessions to survive, limiting the ability of members to leave the commune, taking on habit-like dress and being more stringent in following a vow of chastity.

By the 17th century, the beguinages had almost completely disappeared from the Calvinist provinces of the north, but were maintained in the Catholic Lowlands.

After a time, many beguinages were elevated to parish status and were assigned their own priest. Though still individualized, they moved toward organized religion. In the 19th century, the fates of the beguines varied. Some retained possession of their homes. Others were taken over by religious orders or transformed into hospices and orphanages.

In 1998, 13 Flemish beguinages were included on the UNESCO World Heritage list, including the Grand Beguinage of Leuven.

Tags: minis, red brick, rta, vegetables
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Sunday, February 17th, 2008

Landscaping Rock No Comments

SDHB working to secure fate of original hospital buildings

The board has obtained permission to demolish some of the buildings the old inpatient block wards 1 to 6 and the old ancillary buildings out the back of the old administration block.
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust is in the process of registering the 1930s original red brick buildings as historic places and the board agrees two buildings, the old nurses home and original administration block, should be retained for future generations.
A report tabled at a health board meeting yesterday raised several options including using the two buildings to house additional administrative staff as opposed to using the west wing.
However, chairman Dennis Cairns expressed concern about the costs associated with upgrading the buildings.
A staff report said compliance only costs associated with the old nurses home alone amounted to about $1.46 million.
The report said over time, without funding support, the old nurses building would deteriorate to the point where the board would have to commit funds to make it safe or apply for removal of heritage classifications to demolish it.
The total cost of upgrading the nurses home would be $2.1 million, the west wing $1.9 million and the administration block $570,000, the report said.
A report on the building prepared by the trust says the hospitals original buildings were significant as the most intact group of hospital buildings dating from the first half of the 20th century.

Tags: minis, red brick
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Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Garden Landscaping No Comments

Belgiums beguinages UNESCO World Heritage sites were refuges for women

LEUVEN, Belgium — The cobblestone path dips below street level to a small haven of mottled red brick buildings and arched doorways. The occasional bicycle is propped up against a wall. A trilingual sign forbids sunbathing, picking fruit or loud talking.

This place, these buildings, are different from the clapboard student houses of most American university towns. It looks like a place where people live a peaceful, simple life.

Once upon a time, it was.

It now houses students and professors. But centuries ago, this hamlet in Leuven — a university town, 20 miles east of Brussels — was a beguinage, a sort of commune for unmarried, religiously-inclined women known as beguines (pronounced Bay-Gueens).

Beguines - most likely derived from the Flemish word beghen, which means to pray - were women in the Low Countries who, beginning in the 12th century, chose to live neither under the care of a man nor the vows of the church.

Theirs was, in essence, a feminist movement and its remarkable architectural legacy is still evident in cities across the Netherlands and Belgium. But nowhere in greater splendor than in this old university town.

The Leuven beguinage (called a begijnhof in Dutch) was founded in 1230. Exquisitely restored in the 1960s, it is today a quaint little town of tiny gabled homes and gardens that spreads across 17 acres.

UNESCO has declared the beguinage a World Heritage site, a place of outstanding cultural importance. There are neither cars nor shops in this spectacular urban oasis that delights visitors year-round.

If you stroll down the quiet, centuries-old cobblestone streets and peek into the gated garden areas, you can almost see the beguines growing vegetables.

A canal runs between the buildings. There is no tour boat, just greenish water flowing between red brick buildings. Ivy, growing thickly, dives into the water. The cobblestone street becomes a bridge, just for five yards or so.

This place housed hundreds of beguines in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it offers a quiet escape from urban life, a place where a person could reach a higher plane. Or go stark, raving mad.

What is so unusual about the beguinages here and in the Netherlands — there is still a beguinage in Amsterdam — is that they survived revolutions, social strife and terrible wars across six, seven centuries.

The history of beguines is somewhat muddled.

Beguinages were home to generations of religious women who sought to live a more independent life than that of women who married against their will. They made their homes, catered to the sick and poor, and sought to serve God without separating from the rest of the world.

As Catholic women devoted to prayer and good work, beguines lived simply, wore loose robes and headwear similar to nuns’ habits.

But nuns they were definitely not.

Beguines took no religious vows. They could leave and marry, if they chose. They could own property and took no alms. Women of all classes were welcomed. They carried on professions, often in the textile industry. They elected women to be leaders - Grand Dames - and each Grand Dame was often assisted by an elected council. Each beguine was expected to support herself and make a tangible contribution to the beguinage, either through labor or rent income.

Belgium’s beguinages are intact, but the beguines are long gone. In 2000, there only five of them left in Belgium.

A walk through the Leuven beguinage is a spectacular march back into time. Meeting someone here in a habit would make more sense than that young man over there in cargo shorts and Birkenstocks.

Jeroen Laureysens, an 18-year-old theology major, lives in the Leuven beguinage. “I love the atmosphere because I like things like abbeys,” he said. When he first saw the beguinage, he recalled, “it was like, ‘wow’ maybe in some months I will live here.”

The church bells chime the hour. The white stone chapel - now the university parish - rises above the three-story red brick buildings. Today students and professors of the Catholic University of Leuven — to which the beguinage now belongs — live in the small houses that were once home to beguines.

Studying economics or computer science here would feel wrong. This place calls for the study of romantic literature or medieval history. Or, of course, theology.

Living an essentially religious life without taking vows made many of the more conservative members of society and the Church suspicious of the beguines. Why not, they wondered, simply take on the vows of sisterhood and live in a respectfully cloistered manner?

To supporters, however, the beguines represented a worthy attempt to live a godly life within a tempestuous world without shutting themselves out.

The early beguines made their homes on towns’ peripheries. But eventually they became gated or walled communes — which put at ease those wary of the women’s insistence not to join religious orders.

Each beguinage had its own way of doing things — and that could be a problem.

The clergy felt threatened by beguines’ attempts to provide spiritual guidance to the community around them, particularly when they propagated mysticism over ecclesiasticism.

Following investigation by church authorities, some of the smaller beguinages died out.

Some, particularly in the Netherlands, escaped condemnation by accommodating the church hierarchy and espousing Catholic tenets — up to a point. Vigorous condemnations lead to the decimation of beguinages in the Rhine Valley.

In Belgium, the beguines made concessions to survive, limiting the ability of members to leave the commune, taking on habit-like dress and being more stringent in following a vow of chastity.

By the 17th century, the beguinages had almost completely disappeared from the Calvinist provinces of the north, but were maintained in the Catholic Lowlands.

After a time, many beguinages were elevated to parish status and were assigned their own priest. Though still individualized, they moved toward organized religion and became increasingly bourgeois.

In the 19th century, the fates of the beguines varied. Some retained possession of their homes. Others were taken over by religious orders or transformed into hospices and orphanages.

In 1998, 13 Flemish beguinages were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, including the Grand Beguinage of Leuven.

If You Go…

GRAND BEGUINAGE: Leuven, Belgium; http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/855. Leuven is 17 miles east of Brussels on the E40 Highway. There is train service three times an hour from the Brussels Central Station. The beguinage is only a 20-minute walk from the Leuven rail station through the town’s centuries-old heart. Alternatively, several buses (among them No. 2 and 16) pass by the beguinage. Entrance to the beguinage is free. Link to route and map: http://www.neurogastro.be/IMAGES/BEGIJNH.HTM.

Tags: minis, red brick, rta, vegetables
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Friday, February 8th, 2008

Backyard Landscaping No Comments

Yale New Haven rich with history yet fresh in spirit

Even when Yale’s Harkness Tower carillon isn’t chiming and New Haven’s church bells aren’t ringing, there are centuries worth of echoes in this old Connecticut city and its famous university. Part of the fun is listening for those reverberations among the hubbub of modern life.

Yale, of course, vibrates with its own past-present connectivity. The anemic little Collegiate School that couldn’t quite get off the ground in Saybrook got a real boost when Englishman Elihu Yale donated 400 books, 500 pounds and a portrait of King George.

The town of New Haven offered a plot of land and tax-free status, so the trustees voted in 1716 to move the school to New Haven, “a very Convenient place for it, and for which the Most Liberal Donations are given.”

“Yale was at sea and died before he got news that they’d renamed the school for him,” Leland Milstein, an American studies major from Stratford, Conn., tells our little campus tour group. “He left the majority of his money to Collegiate College.” The Catch-22? Yale couldn’t inherit the money with its new name.

The campus tour bubbles with fun tidbits. The doors of the 1750 Connecticut Hall, New Haven’s oldest building, were expanded to 1 1/2 times their original size to accommodate one of Yale’s most prominent grads, William Howard Taft. The 300-pounder was one of Yale’s five presidents; the university is proud to have “produced,” as it says, four of the past six commanders in chief.

Opposite Old Campus, the bells of Harkness Tower chime out each afternoon. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright took one look at the Gothic extravaganza and proclaimed that if he could live anywhere at Yale, it would be in Harkness %26mdash; so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

Students run the Harkness carillon, so you might hear “Rubber Ducky” or “Stairway to Heaven” played on its celestial bells.

On a more serious note, the tour pauses at the bronze of Nathan Hale, his chest proudly thrust forward. An Eli from the Class of 1773, he was hanged in New York as America’s first spy.

Although Hale has since become Connecticut’s state hero, “he wasn’t the brightest spy,” Milstein ventured. “He was in a bar and spilled his mission to the British Army.” Hale was carrying his Yale diploma as part of his schoolteacher cover.

The rumor still swirls that CIA special ops, thwarted in their request to move the statue to their Virginia headquarters, once scaled the wall and made a copy under cover of nightfall.

Mystery deepens at the gloomy gate of Skull and Crossbones, the secret society to which both presidents Bush belong. The official campus tour skips this macabre, controversial part of campus lore %26mdash; did “Bonesmen” rob the grave of Geronimo, for instance, and bring his skull to Yale? Do they perform occult rites? Just ask a local to point out the Tomb.

The tone is more upbeat, of course, at the visitor center in Pierpont House. This is a two-for-one treat, a fun timeline of the school set inside New Haven’s oldest surviving house. Even if you’re not bowled over by the stuffed remains of the Yale mascot, bulldog Handsome Dan II, you might admire the beautiful wainscoting, 12-over-12 windows and massive hearths of this 1767 Georgian Colonial beauty.

Handsome Dan II, who roused the team and fans from 1933 to 1937, is immortalized because Yale was the first college to have a mascot. The original Handsome Dan, purchased as a grimy puppy from a blacksmith’s shop in 1889, trotted alongside his freshman owner at football and baseball games.

Dan I now rests in what peace he can grasp in his mighty jaws inside the Payne Whitney Gym. It’s a majestic space, parts of which were inspired by Liverpool Cathedral %26mdash; it was elegantly dubbed “the Cathedral of Sweat” when it opened in 1932.

The canine inspired alum Cole Porter (Yale 1913) to write the fight song, “Bull-Dog, Bull-Dog, Bow, wow, wow” and dog and school have been inseparable ever since.

Yale has marked many a first, including the first college football team to reach 800 victories, in 2000. Grad Walker Camp (Yale 1880) is credited with developing football from rugby.

Yale, now with a student body of 10,000, was also America’s first planned college campus, in 1792. It started the first college daily newspaper, the Yale Daily News, in 1878, and appointed America’s first professor of paleontology, Othniel C. Marsh (Yale 1860).

Marsh brings us to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, established by his uncle, financier George Peabody. With giant rooms of dinosaurs and anthropological collections from around the world, this is one of the most popular stops at Yale. The feel of the dark Victorian gothic building suits the bones.

Much of the early campus was built in collegiate gothic style, but two modern buildings attract architecture and art students from around the world. In a rare juxtaposition, architect Louis Kahn’s career is neatly encapsulated in two buildings that face each other across Chapel Street.

Kahn’s first major work, a 1953 modernist addition to the Yale University Art Gallery, has just been renovated, restoring his original open plan.

His last commission, the Yale Center for British Art, opens up a new world of breezy corridors, fresh sightlines and surprising angles. Completed in 1977 after Kahn’s death, the skylighted building of white oak and travertine marble gleams with the most comprehensive collection of British art outside Great Britain.

After two back-to-back galleries, it’s time for a break, and since this is college, it has to be pizza.

But be ready for a fight. “If New Haven didn’t invent pizza, I guarantee they have the world’s best,” campus guide Milstein contended. “It’s either Sally or Pepe’s, but it’s like having two home teams %26mdash; you can’t love them both. I’m a lifelong Sally’s guy.”

Fans think nothing of queuing for an hour or more just to reach the door of these pizzerias in Wooster Square’s Little Italy neighborhood. On weekends, hop in line by midafternoon or fuggitaboutit.

Or, there’s always Louis’ Lunch, which some credit with the creation of the hamburger in 1900.

Some people argue the title, but most are content to watch fourth-generation grill meister Jeff Lassen toast the bread and broil the fresh meat vertically on the family’s original cast-iron grill. Cheese, tomato and onion are part of the package, but don’t look for ketchup, mustard or fries %26mdash; you’ll never get them at Louis’.

And for a not-so-light finale? How about Lithuanian coffee cake at Claire’s Corner Copia, a vegetarian and kosher hangout since 1975. The bundt cake, massive as a wedge of iceberg, hides brewed coffee, sour cream, nuts, cinnamon and raisins under that butter cream frosting.

Claire’s may be the perfect spot to start the day, sipping tea under the hand painted sunburst ceiling, or to wrap it up, tucked against a window on the dimming world outside.

In this little hippie cocoon, it’s a cozy spot to watch the parade of Birkenstocks and bow ties that is Yale and New Haven.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Expect to pay $180 or more round-trip airfare from Atlanta to New York; expect to pay about $320 to New Haven, Conn.

About New Haven, Yale

New Haven is Connecticut’s third-largest city, with about 123,000 people. Settled in 1638, it’s the first planned city in the United States.

The city is 70 miles north of New York City; it’s about 75 minutes by train to New Haven’s Union Station. The Tweed-New Haven Airport is 10 minutes by car from downtown. Information: 1-800-332-7829, www.visitnewhaven.com.

Yale University, the third oldest in the United States, is New Haven’s largest employer and taxpayer, with about 10,000 faculty, professionals and staff %26mdash; roughly the size of its student body. To join a free daily tour of Yale University, led by a student: 203-432-2300, www.yale.edu/visitor.

Where to stay

%26#8226; Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, 155 Temple St., New Haven. Doubles from $239. 203-772-6664, www.omninewhaven.com.

%26#8226; Swan Cove Bed and Breakfast, 115 Sea St., New Haven. Doubles from $149. 203-776-3240, www.swancove.com.

%26#8226; The Historic Mansion Inn, 600 Chapel St., New Haven. Doubles from $139. 1-888-512-6278, www.thehistoricmansioninn.com.

%26#8226; Touch of Ireland Guest House, 670 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Doubles from $125. 1-866-787-7990,

house.com” class=”popup”>www.touchofirelandguest

house.com.

Where to eat

%26#8226; Consiglio’s 165 Wooster St., New Haven. Average entree, $18-$20. 203-865-4489, www.consiglios.com.

%26#8226; Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana, 157 Wooster St., New Haven. Traditional brick-oven pies. Average entree, $18-$20. 203-865-5762, www.pepespizzeria.com.

%26#8226; Pacifico, 220 College St., New Haven. Average entree, $18-$20. 203-772-4002.

%26#8226; Ibiza, 39 High St., New Haven. Wine Spectator calls it “one of the best Spanish restaurants in the United States.” Average entree, $18-$20. 203-865-1933, www.ibizanewhaven.com.

%26#8226; Sally’s Apizza, 237 Wooster St., New Haven. Pizzas from a coal-fired brick oven. Average entree up to $15. 203-624-5271.

%26#8226; Louis’ Lunch, 263 Crown St., New Haven. The tiny, atmospheric home of a grilled fresh-meat hamburger sandwich since 1900. Average entree up to $15. Cash only. 203-562-5507, www.louislunch.com.

%26#8226; Atticus Bookstore and Cafe, 1082 Chapel St., New Haven. “Millions of scones sold since 1981.” Bread from New Haven’s Chabaso bakery, famous for its crusty ciabatta. Average entree up to $15. 203-776-4040.

%26#8226; Claire’s Corner Copia, 1000 Chapel St., New Haven. A creative vegetarian and kosher menu. Average entree up to $15. 203-562-3888, www.clairescornercopia.com.

Betsa Marsh, author of “The Eccentric Traveler: A World of Curious Adventures,” is a winner of a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers.

Tags: advent, amp, guest house, money, pool, red brick, rta
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Friday, February 1st, 2008

Landscaping Stone No Comments

Riverdale Home Makes Entrance

house and give generosity to what would otherwise be a simple opening in the wall.”

With respect to colours, “a sophisticated neutral palette [the blue-grey wood stain, taupe screen door and silvery stainless steel] complements the lively red brick.”

Details include turnbuckles to adjust tension on the privacy screen/planter trellis cables on the portico. A trough for indirect cove lighting conceals a low-voltage LED rope light that automatically switches on when the sun sets.

For the landscaping and installation, Mr. Woodworth asked a few firms to submit bids; we hired Natures Hands Landscape Design of Greenwood. Company owner and landscape architect Alan Shields devised a Japanese theme with a pebble “river” that conceals the ugly, existing downspout, absorbs rainwater and transfers the nitrogen to the garden and the existing sunburst honey locust tree (which the city planted for free when I bought the house in 1985). The garden is virtually maintenance-free, thanks to the composted pine-bark mulch. It retains moisture and nourishes the soil (and should be renewed after three to five years).

Mr. Shields replaced the sparse grass with an ever-changing display of seasonal colours. A native saskatoon berry shrub provides white flowers in late April, delicious purple berries in June and fiery orange leaves in fall. Daffodils and narcissi give early spring colour and unlike other early spring bulbs, such as tulips and crocuses, don’t get gobbled up by the squirrels. Japanese azalea flowers in May, followed by blue Japanese irises in June. Japanese Shirobana spirea shrubs grow pink and white flowers during the summer.

Ajuga ground cover gives bright blue spikes in late May. Perennials such as hosta and day lilies are sun-tolerant and flourish under the shade of the locust tree.

At the front of the garden, Mr. Shields replaced the unattractive wood retaining wall with Frontenac limestone garden rocks, planted with creeping sedum, hens and chickens, and thyme.

Lavender on the north side of the existing walkway creates a striking blue, highly scented hedge in summer. (”The seed heads can be collected and placed in a satchel for your cupboards and placed in drawers,” Mr. Shields told us, but we keep forgetting.)

Evergreens –boxwood and a clipped-cone Japanese yew — keep their colour during winter.

“The afternoon sun shines on the glass and steel, which look as if they are made of light itself, and contrasts against the rich brown of the mahogany handrails,” Mr. Shields says.

My favourite plant is the weeping, dwarf cut-leaf Japanese maple, with brilliant red leaves in the warm months and a unique sculptural form all year-round.

Sad to say, we were jinxed. First, Mr. Woodworth ripped his knee tendons in a freak fall and was immobilized for months. Next, the stainless steel worker’s shop burned down. The portico frame survived the blaze, but, when it was bolted to the brick facade, Mr. Woodworth, lying sideways in a friend’s back car seat, noticed that the gable angle was wrong and ordered it rebuilt. And the budget exceeded expectations — but so did the result.

Tags: compost, daffodils, garden rocks, grass, greens, landscape, landscape architect, Landscape Design, Landscaping, mulch, perennials, red brick, retaining wall, shrub, shrubs, soil, walkway, yew
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Landscaping Idea No Comments