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The Houses of Gertrude Bell. Still busy with this blog. There is coming more....

Red Barns

The Red Barns pub and hotel in Kirkleatham Street, Redcar, was once the family home of Gertrude Bell - the remarkable mountaineer, archaeologist, linguist and traveller who was one of the first women to get an Oxford degree and became world renowned for her knowledge of the Middle East.

Gertrude Bell's archief gerty.ncl

In 1868, Gertrude’s father commissioned a new home for his young family in the heart of Redcar. Red Barns is infused with Gertrude’s presence. It was here that she played games of “housemaids” with her brothers and sisters, dashing silently from the cellars to the attics while attempting to avoid being spotted by the servants. It was in the extensive gardens that she cultivated her lifelong love of flowers. Scrambling up the scaffolding as the house was extended in 1882 may have given her the head for heights that turned her into a mountaineer. Riding the ponies stabled at Red Barns gave her the confidence to ride across virtually unmapped tracts of the Middle East. And it was while living at Red Barns that she developed another lifelong passion that has made her such a gift to historians: letter-writing. theguardian/gertrude-bell-home-museum-redcar

Rounton Grange

House of Gertrude's grandfather

Photographes of the inside from Gertrude Bell RountonGrange

  Sir Issac Lowthian Bell, grandfather of Gertrude.

Gertrude was born in this buidling.

The building is demolished. lostheritage

therountons

House of Mark Twain.

 
The Mark Twain House & Museum has restored the author's Hartford, Connecticut, home, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote his most important works during the years he lived there, including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.


Mark Twain and his family enjoyed what the author would later call the happiest and most productive years of his life in their Hartford home. He wrote: 'To us, our house...had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see with us; and approvals and solicitudes and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence and lives in its grace and in the peace or its benediction.' Financial problems forced Sam and Livy to move the family to Europe in 1891. Though he would complain about other places the family lived compared to the Hartford house ('How ugly‚ tasteless‚ repulsive are all the domestic interiors I have ever seen in Europe compared with the perfect taste of this ground floor')‚ the family would never live in Hartford again. flickrphotos

 

For the next 17 years (1874-1891)‚ Sam‚ Livy and their three daughters (Clara was born in 1874 and Jean in 1880) lived in the Hartford home. During those years Sam completed some of his most famous books‚ often finding a summer refuge for uninterrupted work at his sister-in-law’s farm in Elmira‚ N.Y. Novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Life on the Mississippi (1883) captured both his Missouri memories and depictions of the American scene. Yet‚ his social commentary continued. The Prince and the Pauper (1881) explored class relations as does A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) which‚ going a step further‚ criticized oppression in general while examining the period’s explosion of new technologies. And‚ in perhaps his most famous work‚ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)‚ Clemens‚ by the way he attacked the institution of slavery‚ railed against the failures of Reconstruction and the continued poor treatment of African Americans in his own time.

Willem en Jeanne Kloos

De werkkamer van het echtpaar Kloos. Links bij het venster, met uitzicht op de Regentesselaan, het schrijfbureau van Willem Kloos; rechts daarvan het bureau van Jeanne. Foto's uit De oude heer in Den Haag. De briefwisseling Dr. P.H Ritter Jr.-Willem en Jeanne Kloos (1916-1949).dbnl

Grace Coddington's..

 

 

 

Grace Coddington in the living room of her New York City apartment, surrounded by a few of her photographs and collectibles. The cat cushions were a gift, two from designer Nicolas Ghesquière and the middle one from Vogue colleagues. Photography by Arthur Elgort for WSJ. Magazine    wsj    

 

 

 

John Steinbeck 's homes

 steinbeckhouse

132 Central Avenue, Salinas, California

The Steinbeck House at 132 Central Avenue, Salinas, California, the Victorian home where Steinbeck spent his childhood.

Eagle Rock

On graduating from Stanford, Steinbeck’s roommate Dook (Carlton A. Sheffield) taught English at Occidental College in the Los Angeles suburb of Eagle Rock. The writer stayed at Dook’s rooming house in 1925 en route to board the freighter Katrina at Long Beach for his first voyage to New York. The building at 1501 Campus Rd. is now the Intercultural Community Center of Occidental College.steinbeckcountry./eagle-rock-los-angeles
eaglerockhistory

He returned with Carol Henning late in 1929 when Dook and his wife cajoled the couple into a judge’s office to perform their marriage ceremony. They rented a cottage at 2741 El Roble Drive where Steinbeck worked on an early draft of To A God Unknown.

147 11th Street, Pacific Grove

John Steinbeck’s father built this small three-room cottage as a vacation home in 1903. The family spent many weekends here just a short walk from their maternal grandmother’s house on Central Avenue and few blocks from Monterey Bay. 

In 1930 Steinbeck and his new bride moved into the cottage where they lived on Carol’s secretarial income and an allowance of $25 a month from his parents. Aided by his father, he built a Mexican-style fireplace, closed in the front porch and moved the entry to the side yard to make the house suitable for year round occupation. They also cultivated the garden and added a fish pond.

Here Steinbeck learned his craft on The Pastures of Heaven, To A God Unknown, In Dubious Battle, Tortilla Flat and The Red Pony. He began Of Mice and Men while still living at the cottage. According to Steinbeck, acting in a critical capacity their setter dog Toby chewed up the first manuscript. He recreated it after they moved to Los Gatos for more room and privacy in 1936.
Steinbeck returned to the house several times in the 1940s as a retreat from the increasing pressures of fame and fortune. Today it is owned by descendants of his sister Elizabeth Steinbeck Ainsworth. More photo's on: blog.sfgate

The Santa Cruz Mountains

  "We came up, built a four room house for ourselves, much like the Greenwood Road house. There had been an oil well on the place and we used the big timbers and boards for our house."  Steinbeck loved his mountain hideaway so much so that he called it an estate. "Then since Carol loves to swim I asked about swimming pools and I discovered a curious thing. The cost of swimming pools isn't the pool but the machinery for filtering the water over and over since water is expensive. But we had a four inch head of spring water. Now we built a long narrow swimming pool and turned our spring into it. If it were a city pool with the big pumps and filters, it would have cost between eight and ten thousand dollars. But a concrete tank with a spring running in costs $1500."

John had begun writing The Grapes of Wrath in Los Gatos, but wrote the bulk of it on the mountain.
wmsb/steinbeck

Los Gatos, California (now Monte Sereno)

Greenwood Lane Home
16250 Greenwood Lane
Monte Sereno, CA USA
95030

In May 1936, John and Carol Steinbeck purchased a 0.663 hectare plot of land in what was then Los Gatos, California (now Monte Sereno). Carol designed a small, 139 square meter home, built in summer 1936 and the first home owned by Steinbeck. To insure his privacy, Steinbeck built an 250cm-high grape stake fence around the property. On the entrance gate he placed a carved wooden plaque, "Arroyo del Ajo" (Garlic Gulch). While living in this house, Steinbeck completed Of Mice and Men and wrote much ofThe Grapes of Wrath. There he entertained guests such as Burgess Meredith and Charlie Chaplin. Because other homes were being built close by to the Steinbecks, they began to lose their privacy. Consequently they moved again, selling this house in September 1938. In December 1989, this house was added to the National Historic Registry. Steinbeck had built the house for approximately $8,000; it sold in 2004 for $5,600,000. sjsu.edu/steinbeck
waymarking- foto´s

 Pacific Grove
425 Eardley Avenue, Monterey

After separating from his wife Carol and leaving the Biddle Ranch in April 1941, Steinbeck purchased a small run-down house under the shade of a spreading live oak tree on Eardley Avenue in Monterey. Here he worked with Ed Ricketts on the manuscript of Sea of Cortez and with producer Lewis Milestone on the screenplay for The Red Pony. 

Close to the border with Pacific Grove and directly up the hill from Ricketts Lab on Cannery Row, the house was also within walking distance of the studio of Ellwood Graham and Judith Deim (then known as Barbara Stevenson). Steinbeck hired Graham to paint his portrait as a favor to the artist who needed the money. Reproductions exist but the original canvas is lost.

At Eardley Street, Carol and his much younger lover, Gwyn Conger, engaged in a confrontation over his indecision as to which woman he should stay with. Both claimed to be pregnant. Steinbeck elected to join Gwyn and by the end of the year had moved with her to New York. steinbeckcountry

'I bought a small house and garden in Pacific Grove...' (John Steinbeck: A Life in Letters). John Steinbeck wrote these words to a friend about this charming house he called home in the 1940s.vrbo
airbnb

The "Steinbeck Adobe"

460 Pierce St. Monterey

	On returning from his role as a war correspondent, in 1944 Steinbeck purchased the Lara-Soto Adobe in Monterey as a family home for Gwyn and their infant son Thom. He had known the adobe since boyhood and declared “It is one of the oldest and nicest adobes in town.” Here and in an office on Alvarado Street Steinbeck wrote The Pearl. The family left for Mexico in early 1945 to work on the filming of the movie. They never returned as, angered by Steinbeck’s unflattering portrayal of the town in Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, Monterey’s wartime rationing board made life difficult for them.  Ed Ricketts' Home 331 Lighthouse Ave.

Ricketts was a real-life buddy of Steinbeck and you can drive by his home at. in 331 Lighthouse Ave Pacific Grove, just south of Monterey. It's a private residence, as is the Steinbeck family cottage at 147 11th St. The family often spent summers at the cottage, escaping the merciless heat of the valley. 

OLD PHOTOGRAPHS of OCEAN AVENUE

and CANARY ROW

facebook/historic photo of Ocean Ave

New York

The Making of a New Yorker

November 1, 2009

by JOHN STEINBECK
New York is the only city I have ever lived in. I have lived in the country, in the small town, and in New York. It is true I have had apartments in San Francisco, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Paris, and sometimes stayed for months, but that is a very different thing. This is a matter of feeling.
The transition from small town to New York is a slow and rough process. I am writing it not because I think my experience was unique; quite the contrary. I suspect that millions of New Yorkers who were not born here have had much the same experience–at least parallel experiences….
When I came the first time to New York in 1925 I had never been to a city in my life. I arrived on a boat, tourist, one hundred dollars. It was November…. Read all; mivialartsthe-making-of-a-new-yorker

After a brief stay with friends in Suffren, New York, John and Gwyn moved to a two-bedroom apartment at the Bedford, a residential hotel in Manhattan. Six months later, they moved to a rented house at Sneden’s Landing, across the Hudson River. It was during this time that Steinbeck published The Moon is Down. literarytraveler

Hudson River Cottage
55 Woods Road Palisades, N.Y.

A charming waterfront Tudor-style stone cottage where Orson Welles lived around the time he was working on “Citizen Kane” and where John Steinbeck later lived. hudson-river-cottage

Gramercy Park North

He lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and also in a tiny room in the old Parkwood Hotel at 38 Gramercy Park N., now converted to condo units, before returning disillusioned to California in 1926. steinbeckcountry/new-york-residences

From afar, New York, like many of the cities he loved, held a captivating beauty and magnetic pull. But up close, these cities felt more like anchors. Home, for Steinbeck, was the road. Upon his return from the war, he was overcome by nostalgia for Monterey. He talked frequently of moving back until he learned Gwyn was pregnant. And so he delayed plans to move back to Monterey until after the baby was old enough to travel.

330 East 51st Street

John Steinbeck moved to 330 East 51st Street in 1943, only four years after the publication of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novelThe Grapes of Wrath. It was at this 1899 brick townhouse that he wrote Cannery Row; at the time he was working as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. After traveling extensively during the late ‘40s, Steinbeck moved back to New York in 1951 and lived at 206 East 72nd Street until his death in 1968.

206 E 72nd St

Steinbeck lived in a beautiful brownstone house at this site from 1951 until his death in 1968. The house has been replaced by an apartment building called the Wellesley. His house looked very much like the one still standing at 210 E 72nd. He wrote Winter of our Discontent and Travels with Charley while living here.

The end of Steinbeck’s second marriage set him wandering once more, through California, Mexico and eventually back to New York. In 1949 he met Elaine Scott, the woman who would become his third and final wife. They were married in 1950. It was during the writer’s years with Elaine that he finally found his home – first spiritually, then physically.

Sag Harbor

Although Steinbeck and Elaine settled into two apartments on East Fifty-second Street, it was in Sag Harbor, Long Island the pair found their nest. He and Elaine first discovered the place when they vacationed there in the summer of 1953. In 1955, they bought a summer home in Sag Harbor. The couple loved the ocean and Sag Harbor was nearly surrounded by water. literarytraveler

planetwaves 

ohmidog 

Finding too many distractions while trying to write in the tiny house, in 1958 he constructed a six-sided cabin with views of the water all around. He placed a hand-lettered a sign over the door inscribed “Joyous Garde” after Lancelot’s castle. Here Steinbeck worked on many of his later books, including The Acts of King Arthur, The Winter of our Discontent, and Travels with Charley.

Bruton, Somerset, Discove Cottage

Lots of intriguing surprises, but most intriguing of all was an exhibit about Bruton's most celebrated literary connection, who turns out to be John Steinbeck. Wrong continent, surely? But no, exposing this reader's ignorance, it turns out that California's Nobel laureate was besotted with Somerset – drawn there by a lifelong fascination with Arthurian legend, he described it to one correspondent as "Avalon". He visited three times, renting a cottage nearby for nine months in 1959, and exulting over its views of Glastonbury Tor. The author of such profoundly American stories as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, I learned, considered that "the best work of my life and the most satisfying" would be a retelling of the King Arthur legend, updating Malory for a 20th-century audience. The book itself was never completed to Steinbeck's satisfaction. theguardian

I asked Betty specifically about the Steinbeck connection and she presented me with my own copy of “Surprise for Steinbeck,” the same book I had held in my hands on that blustery day before visiting the cottage. We looked at our photos side by side and laughed at the similarities. She shared the story of her experience at Discove Cottage, meeting Steinbeck himself (whom she admitted feeling quite intimidated by), spending meals together chatting over wine, becoming close friends. literarylegacies

corfublues

March 24, 1959:

"The countryside is turning as lush as a plum. Everything is popping...All in all, this is an ancient place...There's a quality here that I haven't known for very long. The twentieth century seems very remote."

March 30, 1959:

"The peace I have dreamed about is here, a real thing, thick as a stone and feelable and something for your hands...Meanwhile I can't describe the joy. In the mornings I get up early to have a time to listen to the birds. It's a busy time for them. Sometimes for over an hour I do nothing but look and listen and out of this comes a luxury of rest and peace and something I can only describe as in-ness".

May 1, 1959:

"Yesterday something wonderful. It was a golden day and the apple blossoms are out and for the first time I climbed up to Cadbury- Camelot. I don't think I remember an impact like that. Could see from the Bristol Channel to the tops of the Mendip Hills and all the little villages. Glastonbury tor and King Alfred's towers on the other side...I walked all around the upper wall. And I don't know what I felt but it was a lot- like those slow hot bubbles of molten rock in a volcano, a gentle rumbling earthquake of the Spirit. I'll go back at night and in the rain, but this was noble gold even to use Tennyson's phrase- mystic- wonderful. Made the hairs prickle on the back of the neck."

July 3, 1959 (from Elaine Steinbeck):

"Yesterday we drove through Plush Folly, a new addition to our place-name list. It is in Dorset...We drove down to below Dorchester and climbed Maiden Castle, a vast hill-fortress which goes back to 2000 B.C. It's a marvelous and enormous flat-topped hill with 8 ditches, deep and steep-sided. You could sure defend one hell of a lot of people up there...We also went to Cerne Abbas to see the Dorset Giant...I think they put him there to scare the tar out of passing ladies..."

------------

Biographies by both Benson and Parini recount Elaine's recollection of a conversation with her husband during his final hours. He asked her "What's the best time we ever had together?" "The time at Discove," they agreed. muse.jhu.edu

steinbeckcountry./buildings

1 Avenue de Marigny, Paris

With Elaine and his two sons, in 1954 Steinbeck lived in a five-story town house, the former servants’ quarters for a large mansion owned by the Rothschild banking family, across the street from the Palais de l'Élysée (Presidential Palace).

From June through September he wrote an article each week for Le Figaro newspaper. Presented as an American’s impression of the country, they were translated into French and published in the weekend literary supplement. In 1956 these pieces were collected into a volume as Un Américain à New-York et à Paris.

Steinbeck used the address of the townhouse (1 Avenue de Marigny) as the residence of Pippin Héristal in The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957). He set the story in the Palace of Versailles, the National Assembly, and the streets of Paris. steinbeckcountry/paris-france

Byfleet Manor in Surrey

 

Built in 1686, Byfleet Manor in Surrey has been a familiar backdrop to the Downton action for five years. Fans of the show will recognise it as Dower House, home to Lady Violet Crawley, the dowager played by Dame Maggie Smith.

 

 countryliving

 thecultureconcept/downton-abbey

 

Floorplan Highclere castle/Downton Abbey

 

 

 

janeaustensworld

Downton Abbey

The saloon is the center of the house. The hallway upstairs, where the bedrooms are located, looks down on the saloon. The walls are in leather, purchased from Cordoba in Spain.
The wedding of Lady Mary Crawley (played by Michelle Dockery) to her cousin Mathew Crawley (played by Dan Stevens) takes place in the saloon in season 3.
The 150-year-old grand staircase leading from the bedrooms to the saloon is very much a feature of “Downton Abbey.” lifestyle.inquirer

betweennapsontheporch

 

 

xoxoxoe

The stairs leading down to the quarters of the household and kitchen staff will give you mental images of Mrs. Patmore, the head cook (Lesley Nicol), or Mrs. Hughes, the head housekeeper (Phyllis Logan) sending maids and footmen scurrying about once the morning bell is rung.

I was so interested to see the vintage kitchen but, to my disappointment, a modern version sits in its place, along with a tearoom and a restaurant for visitors. The kitchen we see in “Downton Abbey” is also a creation in the studio at Ealing.

A hundred years ago, as played out in “Downton Abbey,” an aristocrat had a staff of 60 in an organized hierarchy of positions: butler, underbutler, housekeeper, head valet, valet, senior lady’s maid, lady’s maid, first footman, second footman, head housemaid, housemaid, head cook and her kitchen staff, and the gardeners, chauffeurs and nanny. lifestyle.inquirer

THE LIBRARY

DINING ROOM

THE DRAWING ROOM

DRAWING ROOM

Scene of confidential fireside chats, it is the room to which all the family retire after meals to sip brandy or continue conversations from the dining table. Servants could not go to  bed until the family retired, often around midnight. The room was usually left in disarray — a maid’s first job at 5am, before she could have breakfast, was to clear the glasses, tidy the cushions and rake out the fire. dailymail

http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/state-rooms

The drawing room image @Boston Globe. The drawing room was designed by Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, in the “rococo revival” style.  janeaustensworld

  

betweennapsontheporch 

The room is a communal one and entertains the ladies and gentlemen before and after dinner. The room plays host to many games of Bridge and other games, the room is more formal than the Library and presided over by Carson. On occasions the room may be used in the day by Lady Mary, Lady Edith or Lady Grantham who may sit and sew, perhaps read the latest Vouge catalogue or to write a letter. The room as explained by Mrs Crawly on her visit to Canvenham Park has that of a femanine personality, so too the the music rooms and tea rooms, where as the Libraries and Dining Rooms of a country house, hence the ladies connection with this delightful and beautiful room. During the first world war the room doubled as a ward when the house was converted into a convalescent home. The room was cleared of much of it's contents and white cast iron hospital beds were brought in. The room once transformed back to it's former glory continued to be one of the main impressive features at Downton Abbey. wiki/Drawing_Room

In 1895, Alfred de Rothschild gave his daughter Almina bolts of green French silk from which to decorate this lovely south facing Drawing Room. Narrow cupboards between the double doors from the Drawing Room to the Smoking Room hid the 5th Earl of Carnarvon's collection of Egyptian antiquities. highclerecastle

dailymail

LADY MARY' S SLEEPING ROOM

 dashingdays