House of the Week

The Hunting Lodge


above, The Hunting Lodge when John Fowler lived there.

I have always adored this house in England. It is so romantic and charming...just perfect in its setting in the English countryside 38 miles outside of London. And boy does it have history. It is now home to celebrated British decorator Nicky Haslam. He has lived there since 1978. John Fowler of Colefax and Fowler fame lived there prior to Nicky. The house dates from the 16th century and was built for King Henry VII as a resting place while hunting. It is said to the place where King Henry's son Arthur, big brother of future King Kenry VIII, met his fiance met Catherine of Aragon, who later married Henry after Arthur died. Enjoy and be sure to click on the link at the end to see more pictures from the WSJ article about the house.


photo by Simon Upton


photo by Simon Upton



Click here to read more about the house and see photos.

House of the Week

So here I was on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, stuck in traffic driving home from a lacrosse game on West Paces Ferry Rd. I was surrounded by Neel Reid and Philip Shutze mansions, not a bad place to be stuck. Turned down a side street to avoid the traffic and landed on a quiet street with some cul de sac offshoots. I drove around a curve and noticed this charming house, which had never jumped out at me before. Nicely situated on the lot, good details, good landscaping and a pretty slate roof. With a little research I found that it was built in 1970, but I don't know who the architect was. And it's white clapboard so you know what that means....house of the week!

















Isn't it interesting that there are no gutters on this house? Makes for a beautiful line. I wonder if there are any issues with water management?

House of the Week

Another Neel Reid Druid Hills house. This one is across the street from last week's house of the week. It was built in 1917 for the Louis Regenstein family and is Italianate in style.



From J. Neel Reid Architect , by William R. Mitchell : "Characteristic of Reid's work was the concentration of a few boldly scaled ornamental elements at focal points on otherwise comparatively plain facades. There is often a hipped roof, villa-like rectangular horizontality, a central block with side porches, sometimes wings, placed in landscape garden settings reached through french doors, very much in the manner of 'casual classicism' of Charles Platt. ...nearly always with the Italian Renaissance villa set in the back of his mind." (pg 74).



The house was for sale recently, here are interior photos from that listing.

House of the Week

Around a curve on a beautiful street in Druid Hills....





















click on any picture to enlarge

House of the Week - Woodlands at Barnsley Gardens

Woodlands at Barnsley Gardens


This week we are featuring a different sort of house - the house is in ruins! Yet, it is still beautiful. In fact, I would say that its bones, the brick architecture of the house, are more beautiful than the house was when it was whole. Located an hour from Atlanta in Adairsville, Georgia, the house has quite an interesting story to tell. Take a look at the house before it sank into disrepair..



An Italianate structure built by Godfrey Barnsley in the 1850's for his wife Julia and their children, the house's roof was torn off by a tornado in 1906 and it has not been occupied since. The story is below:




Looking from the parterre gardens toward the house. The house and gardens were inspired by the work of Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape designer and proponent of Italianate and Gothic revival architecture.


















The family lived in the kitchen structure to the right above, after the roof was ripped off of the main house by a tornado in 1906.



Click here to read more about the history of the Barnsley Estate.

Tomorrow we'll have photos of the interior - so stay tuned!

all photos by whitehaven

House of the Week - Valentine's House!

For Valentine's Day ....

The Kent-Valentine House in Richmond, home of the Garden Club of Virginia.



photography by Roger Foley















Happy Valentine's Day!