Old line, New York retailer, Paul Stuart, has an outstanding website at www.paulstuart.com. It conveys the luxury of the store and the quality of the merchandise they sell. Value priced catalog retailer, Paul Frederick also has a website, www.paulfrederick.com. I found the site to be busy, but I really enjoy the expansive variety of products they show, particularly their creative shirtings. I also like that their sales reps strongly believe in the quality of the Paul Frederick product.
The Tale of 2 Godivas
To me, Godiva Chocolate has always been a symbol of excess, particularly among the Yuppie set. Personally, I enjoy the taste of the chocolate and its presentation. When I kept offices in Philadelphia, I would often have the downtown Godiva store send gifts to customers I was courting.
Each year, at holiday time, we send Godiva chocolate to dear relatives and friends across the country. My wife anxiously awaits the catalog that beautifully presents our choices and makes us want to buy more! This year, placing our Miami order was a challenge. The Godiva 800 phone line ran out of the selections we wanted. Godiva, like all retailers in this strained economy, is probably trying to limit risk and made sure not to overstock. But if you’re selling EXCESS, LUXURY, and GLAMOUR, can you afford to have too little inventory? And, should your telephone operators sound like they work for a call center that sells chocolates on line 1, balloons on line 2, and discount close-outs on line 3? So Judy called the local Godiva store. The fellow didn’t know the charge to deliver our gift, but did call back with the information as promised. He was gentle in tone and the store did have adequate choices available. And, most importantly, it was so clear that the store clerk wanted to help and make our experience pleasant and comfortable, the way a luxury goods purveyor should.
We’re happy to share the video above with you, as it was filmed to celebrate the ground breaking of a new home in Ashmans Hope custom designed for the Chongqui Dixon family. We love to make memories for our customers, even before they’ve moved in.
Onion Skin envelopes are an old fashioned elegance turned ultra modern fashion trend. They are translucent and rich feeling to the touch. Earlier this month I received 2 different invitations enveloped in onion skin. The first, an oversized 4 color glossy invited me to the holiday party of a prominent architect. The address was in calligraphy and the presentation was amazing. The second was from a local newspaper asking me to re-subscribe. They spelled my name wrong and it looked like bulk mail, but it was in onion skin! Classy? Class and elegance are creations that require thoughtful planning and detailed execution.
Check out this cool envelope, it makes me want to open it!
Congratulations are in order for some of our newest Laurence home buyers. We understand the importance of creating a new home for your family, and we make each ground breaking event a special and memorable one based on each buyers’ preferences and traditions.
We hope to have an opportunity to break ground on your new home very soon.
The Federal Government recently extended the home buyer tax credit through the middle of next year, but also expanded it to include repeat and move-up buyers! The video below explains a lot of the new details.
Call David at 443-255-0697 to learn how you can build a custom home with Laurence and move-in in time to take advantage of this great opportunity.
Laurence Communities is proud to announce that Jacob Szajowitz has joined the organization as our Vice President of Business Development. Formerly a national sales manager for a food manufacturer and vice president of development for a special education school, Jacob’s strength is in developing new relationships. With Laurence, Jacob will be responsible for identifying new strategic partnerships to assist in growing the Laurence Communities presence in the local new home market.
We look forward to the new opportunities Jacob will bring to both Laurence and, by way of the new relationships he will build, to home shoppers throughout Maryland.
As you may have surmised from my previous blog entries, we spend a lot of time here at Laurence, talking about luxury – what luxury actually is, how to get it, how to provide it, how to design it. I think that first and foremost, luxury is about always having everything where it’s supposed to be when you reach for it.
Others think luxury is about appearances and grandness, regardless of ease of use. That may be true at first glance, but when considering the meaning of luxury, I am reminded of my mother’s stories of having to drive friends to the repair shop to pick up their “luxury” cars. She would laugh and laugh because her Chrysler was completely reliable, very comfortable, and consistenly worked when it was necessary to pass by Beverly Hills Rolls Royce.
For a while now, we’ve been working on a design called the Hillhouse. The exterior and basic floorplan are outstanding examples of American Folk Victorian architecture. But, I wasn’t perfectly excited with the second floor, and had it reworked by one of our staff architects. Thinking it was still not perfect, our new young rising star, Daniel Ankri tackled the floor plan and I am just thrilled with the results!
Did you see the “Heard On The Street” in October 10th’s WSJ? Gianni Versace has closed the last of its boutiques in Japan. More significant is the rise of Uniqlo, a highly profit able and fast rising fashion retailer worldwide. Here’s a link to their SOHO store.
Also check out their site www.uniqlo.com for a more international perspective. The WSJ suggests that, “The switch from haute couture to high street might give fashionistas a hint about fall trends in Paris.” I don’t know. Even Betsey Bloomingdale has dropped haute couture and now wears and sells ready made clothes. Could it be that more and more customers realize, as do I, that consistent quality is more important than provenance or grandeur?
Laurence Communities is pleased to announce that Daniel Ankri has joined the firm as a staff designer. Daniel, a recent honors graduate of architecture from University of Maryland brings creative talent and lots of energy to our team and we are excited to have him.
Hope you have had a lovely summer and that you traveled to romantic climes for a refreshing break. I took my family away on 2 separate trips, one to the Catskill Mountains, and one to our California home.
The Catskills are lovely but have been in the same state of woeful decline since I was a boy and we always feel like we’ve entered a time capsule when we go. The only decent hotel is the Lodge at Rock Hill, and it’s more like an upscale motel then a hotel, but the pool was fine and we like the granite and bead board wainscoat in the bathrooms. We visited Liberty, Monticello (home to a great sulky race track) and trekked up to the town of Catskill which has a charming main street revival going on, fueled by a renaissance group of gay merchants. Woodridge offers a number of new home opportunities and it’s a year-round town, so we’re thinking about that. Almost all of the old borscht belt resorts are gone, the Nevele seems to be the last, but people stay there all the time.
California was hot, which I really enjoyed, but the people there seemed to not. They aren’t use to temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s. We visited Dana Point, midway between LA and San Diego. The water there is azure and almost clear when you look down into it. Didn’t see any sealions, but we’ll go back again I’m sure. We spent lazy afternoons on Venice beach and fished off the Santa Monica pier. Visit the 3rd Street promenade, if you have a chance. I promised myself that our next trip will include a jaunt to Catalina Island.
Shocker of shockers: If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it: a highway patrol officer pulled a BMW off the freeway for a recently expired registration, and had the car towed! They just took this guy’s car away from him. And then the officer wished him a “good rest of your day”!
A trend that needs to be examined: the commoditization of services. While in a pizza place in LA and then in a bakery, I noticed that while the product creators put a lot of energy into quality and presentation of product, the servers don’t care to explain the foods and their highlights. Maybe the servers are underpaid, or just under excited, but it doesn’t matter, I’m not interested in waiting in a long line for a cranky server to throw some overpriced, unloved food thing at me. Of course, if the time were taken to educate me about the specialness of what I’m buying, perhaps I wouldn’t feel disgruntled.
A Realtor, whom I respect, here in Baltimore, says that his industry is moving toward commoditization and that relationships are less important to young consumers. I might be inclined to agree that customers want their shopping options presented to them as an open menu, usually online, so that they can explore without pressure, but c’mon guys, who’s going to hold a person’s hand when she commits to a new home, car, or piece of jewelry or art. That’s all about relationship. We still need each other and relationships so enrich life.
Of course, like Laurence Communities, some businesses remain committed to quality of experience and presentation. In LA, 3 of them are the Apple Pan, Johnnies’ French Dip, and Lawry’s steak house. Our schedule was so tight that we didn’t have time to stop in anywhere, but oh, the smells, the scents, …tantalizing and beefy, with fruity overtones of pie on Pico in front of Applepan, pickles on the tables, juke box music, and pastrami aromas at Johnnies’ pouring into our car windows, and since childhood, I’ve never understood how Lawry’s gets the smell out into the street as they don’t have any windows! But, WOW! It’s much less fattening to smell than eat, but just smelling brings back so many memories.
The streets are full of LED billboards that flash beautiful colors that makes everything feel like Vegas in the sultry summer night. But I’ve always thought that Hollywood creates most shows for themselves and Los Angeles and the rest of us are somehow expected to understand the secret language Hollywood insiders share.
As you may have surmised from my previous blog entries, we spend a lot of time here at Laurence, talking about luxury – what luxury actually is, how to get it, how to provide it, how to design it. I think that first and foremost, luxury is about always having everything where it’s supposed to be when you reach for it.
Laurence Communities is pleased to announce that Daniel Ankri has joined the firm as a staff designer. Daniel, a recent honors graduate of architecture from University of Maryland brings creative talent and lots of energy to our team and we are excited to have him.
The Catskills are lovely but have been in the same state of woeful decline since I was a boy and we always feel like we’ve entered a time capsule when we go. The only decent hotel is the Lodge at Rock Hill, and it’s more like an upscale motel then a hotel, but the pool was fine and we like the granite and bead board wainscoat in the bathrooms. We visited Liberty, Monticello (home to a great sulky race track) and trekked up to the town of Catskill which has a charming main street revival going on, fueled by a renaissance group of gay merchants. Woodridge offers a number of new home opportunities and it’s a year-round town, so we’re thinking about that. Almost all of the old borscht belt resorts are gone, the Nevele seems to be the last, but people stay there all the time.
The streets are full of LED billboards that flash beautiful colors that makes everything feel like Vegas in the sultry summer night. But I’ve always thought that Hollywood creates most shows for themselves and Los Angeles and the rest of us are somehow expected to understand the secret language Hollywood insiders share.
