Laurence Luxury

The Tale of 2 Pauls

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.

Happily we announce that you can now access this blog at www.laurenceluxury.com!

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!

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 3^rd 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.

So I visited a Macy’s Home store last night and enjoyed the Homedic back and foot massage equipment.  The store was interesting.  The linen department was staffed by a middle aged man and my wife wouldn’t ask him for help matching things, so we ended up buying nothing.  They had a really cool chandelier made of long chains of thick glass links, about 6” tall and an inch thick. The links were in the shape of a “C”.  It would have been magnificent if it were clean, I touched the links to see if they had really sprung for glass and not plastic, only to find them sticky and dusty.  The chandelier was supposed to be part of a table display, but the table wasn’t centered under it, and it was off in a way that made me think that no one had paid attention.  Yes I’m being critical, but I was disappointed.  In this economy we can’t let these details slip.

At our own firm, our trim carpenter, a true craftsman, pointed out that a crown moulding I installed myself, was put on upside down.  The bead should go at the bottom, and I thought it looked so good.  But how do we get better if those who know, hoard their knowledge? At least my miters were good.

Also visited IKEA and was smitten by the new Vanvik bed. This picture doesn’t do it justice because you can’t see the sleigh bed curve to the headboard.  This is high design. I know that there are those who think that if the bed were made by Baker it would be high design, but I give IKEA a lot of credit for being so brave.  I’m not really sure if they know what they have, the bed was just sitting there on the display floor next to some boring beige thing.

In preparation for our new Custom home program, look for our website changes. I’ve been poring through house plans that would be appropriate for our customers.

We are a choosy lot, we Laurence people, so not just anything will do. Very exciting are some of the small/midsize (depends on your view!) Colonial plans and some of the Contemporaries and Moderns could be restyled to fit into Maryland so nicely. I still veer toward the open space plans, and consistent with my Green bent, toward houses that use less land.

We hope to roll out a new line of homes, exclusively ours, later this year. They will be narrow and deep, designed for narrow lots or to show off side yards. Expansive side yards are perfect for garden paths, cabanas, guest cottages and lap pools. They let a home be viewed from more than one perspective thus lending depth and dimension to the vista. Otherwise, the house could just look like another slab front, mass produced home. An exciting feature on these homes will be courtyards and other 3 season outdoor living spaces. I’ll share more about this exciting new line soon.

Just came back from another trip to Israel, and I am still floored by the stunning architecture so carefully fitted to its environment. I’m a big fan of stone and concrete homes and Israel is full of them. We had a marvelous stay at the hotel at Kibbutz Lavi in the Galilee. Just 10 minutes up from Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, the hotel’s newer wings are outstanding examples of modern, and Metropolitan Home Magazine should feature them, they’re that well done. The kibbutz is noted for its furniture factory; I strongly recommend a tour. The people there have created a special place that radiates love and happiness.

Every time we visit, my wife buys a new wardrobe. Israel gets its fashion sense from Paris and adds a local twist. All of the last summer’s New York dresses go to Goodwill after each Israel trip. Plane tickets to Israel and hotels are controlled by travel agents; I have a great one, let me know if you want her number.

Why do people want more garage space than gathering space in their homes? Also, whatever happened to functional spaces like mudrooms and coat closets? Here in the Mid-Atlantic, I think they are must haves.

What defines luxury in a home? Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is it square footage, high end finishes, garishness (some call that “grandness”), minimalist, light and windows, ceiling heights? I think that luxury is how the home feels when you walk into it. Are things in the places that you would expect? Is the house pleasant to sit in? Does it look nice without furniture? Please share your thoughts on this.

I read a lot of house plan books, spending hours poring over plan after plan. It is surprising that a designer or architect would think that a dining room does not have to connect to a kitchen, as if it is a fossil, a reminder that families no longer eat together-that other than one or two holidays a year, people live inside themselves, oblivious to others. I reject this i-pod lifestyle. Homes are places where people get to come together and share the joys and challenges of their lives.

Other plans offer too many eating areas and only a casual gathering area. It seems that formal entertainment is also a thing of the past. What a shame. Clothing has become more formal of late. At the doctor’s office the other day, I was surprised by the number of men wearing cable knit sweaters, weejuns and other 80’s regal styles. If folks are dressing more traditionally, architecture should follow suit. Interestingly, the ladies were dressed in “comfy” clothes such as mom jeans, turtle necks, no makeup, no jewelry. Is there some new trend here?