Chez Stoneman

Are We Crazy?

Our barn in France still isn't habitable and we already have our eyes on another project in the area.  About a year ago, we noticed that a building in the village of Vezenobres was for sale.  Just a few  blocks down from the center of the village where we got married, a hand-written sign was affixed to the exterior of the massive stone dwelling.  For years Pierre has had a contagious dream of running a small hotel, and the idea of investing in the medieval village we now call home is burnished in our minds.  Are we crazy?

The property for sale is actually two attached buildings - one that can reasonably be called a building and the other merely a ruin.  The main building is on corner and overlooks the entire valley below the village with full southern exposure.  Today it has 4 apartments in it, only one of them habitable (for someone with quite low living standards).  The other apartments are in such disarray they have exposed ceilings, wood and stone debris everywhere, unfinished windows, no insulation...  The entire roof of the building would need to be replaced, but the orientation of the building on a steep hill with limited street access would require a courageous (if not foolish) masonry crew to complete the job. 

The ruin is an almost idyllic setting of remains that is begging for terraced patios, walled gardens, maybe even a courtyard style shaded swimming pool.  Around the corner from the main entrance to the building is a charming inset doorway to a vaulted restaurant with room for about 30 seats and an exposed kitchen.  The restaurant would be pure romance, and could open to outdoor seating underneath the ruins. 

With every turn throughout the property there is the potential for style, charm, aesthetic, beauty, historical references, lifestyle, investment and reward!  When we look back at the condition of the barn we bought two years ago compared to the storybook house that we've made out of it, we know we can turn this barrack into a jewell.  With just four stone walls and a collapsing roof to inspire us, we've turned the barn into a welcoming house with lots of panache.  The building in the village, on the other hand, has turns, vaults, views, corners, open spaces and more to give us endless possibilities for design and style. 

The sale price seems quite reasonable, it turns out the property has been on the market for at least a few years now.  The over-zealous Gardois who bought the property some years ago imaged that he would be able to restore the entire building into apartments or a hotel entirely on his own.  Really, on his own.  In a handful of years he has managed to clean off a square meter section of stones and clutter the entire building with more useless junk than at a third-rate flea market.  He completely under-estimated the job.  A few years ago an English couple attempted to buy the property but backed out once they realized the scale of the repairs required.  While the building price is in our reach, we'd have to take out a loan for the same amount for the repairs.  We're seriously interested.  Are we crazy?

Go with me for a minute...  The building could be restored into a mix of apartments, studios or hotel rooms -- each with bright sun flooding the rooms all year long, each one with its own style and charm.  Our research taught us that all gites (rental rooms/apartments) and hotels in the area are full for the entire season annually (April - September) at healthy prices.  The apartments could be rented year round, or studios and hotel rooms could be rented during the season.  Rental income from just 1-2 apartments or a good tourist season would cover the mortgage comfortably each year.

Ultimately we'd like to partner with one of our chef/resto friends who would attach themselves to this dream and take over the restaurant.  Resto/cafe/bar income would supplement the rental fees, and add to the ambiance of the property to make it more of a destination for locals and travelers.  What business do we have running a hotel and restaurant?  We have no relevant experience, all we have is a vision, a design aesthetic, an appetite for service and entertaining, and a desire to create a dream job that we can do together.  Are we crazy?

Vezenobres is by no means a highly-trafficked village, it's not like Gordes, Uzes and others that have become micro industries of their own.  But, we think within a few years it will become more that way.  Several years ago the mayor conducted a major clean up of the village and it is Peter Mayle-picturesque.  The mairie (city hall) now has an art exposition center in the building that overlooks a grassy terrace and the valley view; there are gravel petanque lawns that hang on the cliff of the hilltop village and look out over the entire valley.  Vezenobres is the French capital of figs and boules carre (yes, square balls).  There is a new highway that will make the drive to Nimes (larger city with Roman coliseum, Spanish-influence and an international airport!) only 15-20 minutes away.  Vezenobres is at the foot of Les Cevennes (of Robert Louis Stevenson's writings) which are the mountains that offer hundreds of miles of hiking, rafting, camping and exploring.  And, the village is only 20 minutes from Uzes, the village of the Duchess and her castle that has France's most vibrant weekly marche throughout the fortified town and its arch-surrounded center.  Are you sold yet?

We know we're crazy.  Take a look at these pictures of the property and you'll know it too.  But for some reason we can't let go of this one.  Isn't is a dash of crazy that all dreams of made of?  Isn't our life between France and San Francisco already filled with a dash of crazy?  We're looking for ideas, advice, partners, support, words of caution, anything you want to offer.  Pierre returns to France on January 15 for about a month to work on the barn and we're trying to decide if we're really serious (aka crazy) about starting the process of contractor-inspections and bank visits.  If you've ever wanted to have a pied a terre in France, or if you've had it with life in the US, or if you've dreamed of having your own resto/bar/cafe...join us, there's room in this dream for a few other crazies!    

      

Cuba Photographs

I'm playing around with a cool new tool called Slide, posting my first "slide" show to my blog.  Let's see how it goes...old photos you've seen before, more to come.

Buffalo Mozzarella

I had dinner with friends a few months ago and we debated about buffalo mozzarella.  I was convinced that this better version of the Italian cheese is made from buffalo milk -- hence the name.  My friends laughed out loud and insisted that I was wrong, that buffalo don't even produce milk and the name referred to a method rather than a milk.  I held on for a few minutes and then backed down. 

But still sure of myself, I did a little research.  First I looked at the ingredients list of my favorite brand.  And thanks to Google, I found a few websites dedicated to mozzarella.  Mozzarella Company is a particularly good one -- with history, recipes and an online store of delicious products.  Wikipedia also has a great description of the traditional campana cheese and its process.  All of my research confirmed the main ingredient! 

Mozzarella di bufala is indeed made from the milk of water buffalo.  And fior di latte is its sister cheese made from cow's milk -- the more common version we see often here in the US.  At our simple corner store in France I can buy a package for about three euros.  Here in the States, I've paid $12 for the exact same brand in an Italian market in New York and in San Francisco I pay about $6.  Nonetheless, there is no comparison to other types, especially for our favorite salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil with a little sea salt and pepper.  Mmmm...

The Stamp Collector

Just shy of a year ago, we rented a little apartment on a real farm behind our barn renovation in Vezenobres, France.  We left our apartment in Lyon to be closer to our construction site – optimistically thinking that we were only months away from the completion of the project (it’s still in the works 10 months later).  Mas de Gardies, a family owned farm property at the end of our road – we are La Cabanne, Route de Mas des Gardies (no street number) – is owned by a friendly couple in their 70s whose family has run the property for generations.  Last winter on our final day there we visited the main house to thank the couple for the rental (after having a final visit with Mistral, my new best friend, the large strapping white horse in the barn who we call Copain, which means ‘friend’). 

As usual in France, for what was meant to be a brief hello-thank you-goodbye visit, we stayed for over an hour.  Madame served strong coffee in the kitchen after insisting that we come upstairs.  Monsieur wore a wool vest over his shirt sleeves, and a beret with just one tuft of hair curling out of the top above his forehead – unreal in the way it was a French stereotype.  During our conversation, of which I understood about a third because of the strong Gardois accent, Pierre described to the couple exactly which building we’re renovating and Monsieur delighted that he knows our place well.  It was an old mutton barn that he passed every day about 60 years ago when he walked to school in the village on the hill. 

He left the kitchen briefly, while Pierre and I traded coffee cups so that I could skip the caffeine dosage on the sly, and he returned with a binder full of antique post cards of the region – including an aerial shot of our barn from the early 1900s (according to the carving on our entry way it was built in 1782!!!).  Since then, we’ve met an artisan who remembers renting the barn to store his tools in the 70s who is in line to build our pool house while we’re away in San Francisco.  Monsieur remembers walking along the Route de Mas des Gardies every day as young boy and passing our barn when it was part of a massive farm parcel owned by the Fernandez family (from whom we bought our small piece of land).  Since then he’s become quite a stamp collector!  He only mentioned it briefly during our first visit last winter.  But I remembered that my grandfather had given me a pretty cool envelope of stamps that he collected during his mission in Europe in the 1930s.  With my limited French abilities I discussed this with the Monsieur at the time, and Pierre and I suggested that when I come back to France I’d bring the collection and share it with him. 

Well, today we did just that.  The minute I landed in the US several months ago, my mental note went into effect to grab the envelope my grandpa had given me a few years ago.  It’s been in my “France pile” ever since.  Pierre and I knew it would be a commitment to stop by and share our stamps – so we carved out about an hour for the adventure (knowing all-too-well that we’d want to spend a few minutes with Mistral, the white horse at their farm, after the visit).

We showed up at the farm, parked the car adjacent to the chicken coop, I peeked my head around to see if Mistral was stretching out of the window of his stone stall, and we headed for the front door.  We heard voices from the open windows of the living room and thought we might be disturbing a late afternoon visit.  Their dusty, sweet-looking cat was resting under a small shady patch of vine near the front door but she didn’t want too explore the scent of my hands.  We rang the door bell and a few seconds later the Monsieur appeared from the upstairs window – unfortunately without his beret. 

Pierre, my adorable translator/tour guide/husband, reminded him who we were and that we had mentioned during our stay last year my grandfather and his stamps that we’d hope to share with him.  The gentleman smiled with that generic lost look of not knowing who the heck we were, Pierre continued with his explanation and I waved my yellow envelope of stamps in the air, and then the light went off!  Monsieur seemed to remember and ushered us into the house.  As he left the window sill I heard “ooh la la!”  Pierre and I wonder if this was an ooh la la of disgust or delight.  I crossed my fingers for the latter. 

Monsieur guided us into the living room – his wife and cousin stayed in the kitchen to carry on their conversation.  The living room was like so many others I’ve seen in France – shutters closed on a beautiful mild sunny day accentuating the of the room – with dated furniture and a dining room table that’s become more of a landing for paperwork than a dining table.  But, our timing was impeccable because just the day before he’d been at a flea market where he’d picked up an envelope of hundreds of stamps from the US for only 5 Euros.  Stamps, his tweezers, and several binders were sprawled over the table – as if he’d been waiting for us. 

I had anticipated this visit for months, hoping that we’d betroth him with stamps from my grandfather’s visit many decades ago.  But I’ve never met a stamp collector before and I had no idea how serious his passion was.  I opened first the “Frence” envelope my grandfather had catalogued and there wasn’t a single one that the Monsieur didn’t already have – even in doubles and triples.  We moved on to Belgium and the rest of Europe and things started to look better.  He pulled out catalogue after catalogue of his collection – he must have over 500,000 stamps dating from the first original stamps in 1849 from almost every country in Europe.  Europe is his passion, particularly France.  He started collecting US stamps – almost as a nuisance just because he found them at the flea market – just this year. 

Happily I was able to give him a few stamps from Belgium and Great Brittan that he didn’t have.  For each stamp that I offered to him he insisted, with his thick accent where every other word ends in “nnggg,” that I take one of his doubles to compensate.  Pierre tried to counter that I don’t collect stamps but that it was a pleasure just to share our stamps with him – but that didn’t work.  So now I’m supposed to start a stamp collection when I get back to California so that I and Monsieur can start trading in the months and years ahead. 

By the time we made our way through Europe – not just the countries, but the special series by theme, topic, historian, painter, celebrity and then the series of occasion stamps that each of the European Union countries has done since the ratification – Pierre and I started to get a little antsy.  Pierre had a date with some friends in about an hour and I was getting hungry.  At this point Madame, slightly hunched over and ever-so-friendly came into the salon to insist that we have a little liqueur during our visit.  She opened up their buffet cabinet behind me and I could see Pierre subtly search the cavern for what she’d serve us (it was barely 3pm).  She brought out three short glasses and a dusty cherry bottle – I hadn’t eaten since my small bowl of cereal several hours earlier.  Meanwhile Monsieur was digging even deeper into his collection.  Now we were distinguishing between those stamps he’d catalogued and those he hadn’t – he brought out “la bible” which he uses to cross reference his collection by date and by value. 

He also described that recently he participated in an exhibit in the village earlier this year where several painters showed their work.  He pulled stamps from his collection that were representations of the great painters from the past several centuries – he researched each of the painters, made a large exposition of the stamps and included editorial on each of the original artists to accompany the painting show.  We saw this collection of stamps, it was my favorite grouping.   His stamps included miniatures of works by the great French painters like Chagall, Matisse, Monet, the Dutch masters, and even an Andy Warhol Marilyn.  If I do anything with my stamps, it will probably be some kind of collage or framed collection of all of them at once – in this fashion. 

Pierre thoughtfully gave me the eye when he finished his cherry shot, to suggest that I pass mine over to him on the sly – I’m sure he saw me cringe each time I brought the shot glass to my lips.  When Monsieur got up for the 10th time to grab another binder from his collection we made the switch.  I’m still wondering, 24 hours later, if when he returned and looked at my empty glass if he caught on to our game.  A good hour into our visit – after several catalogues and explanations – it seemed appropriate to rise from the table and insist, gently, that we had to go. 

I’ve wanted to do this visit for almost a year – I don’t exactly know why.  I don’t collect stamps, and I don’t think I will begin to now – despite the new additions from Monsieur.  If anything, I love the idea of justifying the piles my grandpa made many years ago, sharing them with someone, passing them along with him in mind.  I will share this note with him when I see him next month.  I also realized that I’m keen on preserving special bits of the past – I cherish my grandma’s jewelry and her collection of antique Valentine cards, and I guard with great care the large collection of priceless photographs my grandfather took in Hitler’s pre-war Germany during his mission in the 1930s.  Pierre and I are even fashioning our house in France with 100 year old tiles, cabinets and doors, cast iron grills, a Napoleon chandelier, all recuperated from his family or local markets.

My daily life moves so fast, I’m so plugged into future – who will be the next great client at work, where am I going for my next business trip, how do I schedule in time for visits with my friends and family?  This fascination with the past must be one way for me to unplug from the future and rest in the present for a moment – with enough time to admire a stamp collection or visit a friendly horse.   

Pink Martini

It's great to be home on a Friday night at midnight, in my sweats, with my cat on my lap and so many ideas of what to write about that I don't know where to begin.  Just got home from seeing Pink Martini perform with the San Francisco Symphony -- and they really deserved the three or four standing ovations they got.  It's striking how broad their talents are -- original songs in six different languages, campy 30s tunes originally performed by Carmen Miranda, a moving anti-war ballad, lots of Latin and Brazilian music, heaps of classical influence especially on the piano, and China Forbes, a front woman with a clear, strong, sexy voice that's as perfect as a glass of water. 

I first heard Pink Martini on September 13, 2001.  Just a few days earlier, I was in Istanbul with my girlfriend Jenne savoring the last days of a fantastic first-time visit to Turkey, and on my way to meet another girlfriend Cecile in Greece!  I couldn't wait.  Somehow, a few friends tracked us down in Istanbul and called our hotel to tell us about the first WTC tower being hit.  We turned on CNN and watched the second tower go down -- and began our own version of the shock and fear that everyone else went through.  Jenne immediately fled -- beginning a long journey to get back home to New Orleans via Mexico (think Planes, Trains and Automobiles).  Cecile and I were dumbfounded: we scrapped our Greece plans and I joined her in Paris. 

Paris was unseasonably cold and dreary in September, and the mood was dark.  I thought we'd be exploring Greece but I was stuck in Paris in a daze, with no idea of when I'd be able to return to the US.  I had packed for the Mediterranean but was caught in fog and drizzle, entirely unprepared.  We stayed in Cecile's apartment for almost 10 days straight smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, watching the news.  Cecile played the Pink Martini, Sympathique album several times and we ended up crooning aloud to that song which seemed to capture our malaise:

Je ne veut pas travailler (I don't want to work)
Je ne veut pas dejeuner (I don't want to lunch)
Je veut seulement oublier (I just want to forget)
et puis je fume... (and so I smoke)

Well, tonight's show had a whole different mood.  Put any band with a full symphony and it's bound to grab you (Metallica even figured that out several years ago).  I'm such a sap, and so sensitive these days since Pierre and I are long-distance right now, that the minute the show started I welled up!  That happened several times throughout the show -- at any major climax of sound, or any particularly tender moment.  The Croatian lost-love song, with the swelling Cello solo filled me with mood -- and whenever that kind of mood surge happens I think of Pierre and long for him.  And that makes me well up even more.  When I wasn't misty, I was beaming with a smile and tapping to the rhythm.  The whole time my cute mom was yelling out, bobbing her head, pulling glances from our neighbors.

What a great show, what great music, what a gift to be so versatile (and so good at every genre) and what a gift it was to ride their wave tonight.  In their honor, I'm home sipping on a martini (minus the pink). 

JFK Moment

I’m at JFK waiting to board my flight back home.  I never buy celebrity mags to kill time – I love having the restraint to not get sucked into the drama.  But today I caved – Michelle Pfieffer on the cover of InStyle – at 48 she looks a bright 28.  And, I couldn’t help but evesdrop on a most interesting interaction happening right in front of me. 

There’s a Pakistani family to my right, father, mother and teen age daughter – she’s in a deep blue sari and listening to a 20 gig iPod.  The father is talkative, exuberant, switching unconsciously between English and Pakistani.  He’s engaging people around him – friendly, curious, almost nosey. 

Directly in front of me are a Muslim husband and wife and a man on his own, keeping to himself.  I wouldn’t have noticed the husband and wife except that he was combing his long beard and short hair with a big plastic comb.  Our plane hasn’t arrived at the gate yet – traffic jam on the runway.  People are starting to make eye contact and smile with patient frustration.  After the last announcement about the delay, the Muslim couple left the waiting area. 

The father, short with a round protruding belly that arches his back, approached the quiet man in front of me.  “Where are you from my friend?” he said. 

“Jordan, I am Jordanian,” said the man.
“Ah, you are from Jordan.  I thought maybe you were from Egypt.  I heard you talking to that couple earlier,” said the father.  “We are from Pakistan.”  The quiet man nodded politely. 

“I do not like how the Muslims wear long beards to identify themselves like that,” the father said.

“I am a Christian from Jordan, but I know very much about the Muslims,” said the man.  “We live together and must understand and respect each other.”

“Ah, you are a Christian.  Yes, but to have a long beard like that is just not right.  A man should not have a long beard like that,” the father said while making long downward strokes with his hands to depict the beard. “That is too fundamentalist.”

“Hmm.  There are too many fundamentalists in the world today,” said the Jordanian.  “There are fundamentalist Muslims, Christians, from all over…there are the same in many ways.”

“Let me buy you a beer my friend,” said the father with a large tap on the man’s shoulder. 
“A beer?”  he said almost startled. 
“You don’t drink beer.  How about a whisky?”
“But we are waiting for our plane.”
“You don’t drink?” said the father.
“But it is not the right time.”
“We have plenty of time, the plane is not even here yet.  They won’t leave without us.  Let me buy you a beer.  We shall talk.”

The man shuffled up, gathered his backpacks, and humbly walked over to the mother across from him and asked if he could leave his bag here while they have a beer?  The mother flatly said “no.”  The man seemed a little confused and gestured again to ask the question.  “No” she said again without emotion. 

“She knows that you cannot watch anyone’s bag in an airport anymore.  She knows the rules about strangers.,” her husband said.

By this time all of us in immediate ear shot were looking directly at the man and the father, drawn into this interaction on so many levels.  The two men walked away to have a beer, all of us stared into the moment, made a few half smiles, and went back to our books, cell phones, magazines.  I pulled out my laptop to jot this down. 

Generations of Style

It's so fun to be back in San Francisco, and back in my closet!  It's been two years since I left for France with the luggage limit on United Airlines in tow.  I managed to bring plenty of shoes and purses and other style essentials over to France during my shuttling back and forth for business trips.  But the great thing about being in France is that I cared less about style and accessories.  Then I stopped in NY for about 6 months for a work assignment, and being in that city of style with the "luggage limit" was devastating.  I found myself recycling the same necklace or scarf over and over.   

Today, I grabbed the sash of my grandma's pink satin kimono and strung it through my belt loops and dashed out the door.  I thought of one of my friends at work, Tara, for some reason.  I guess I'd seen her with a pretty ribbon belt or something.  So I wrote her a quick note and she said, hey, blog about it. 

I don't want to write about the pink sash so much as I'd love to think about my grandmother Beverly for a few minutes.  She was the queen of style from head to toe and as her only granddaughter I have a lot of her hand-me-downs and cherrished pieces.  Hats, jewlerly, scarves, sweaters...and a pink kimono, so fun! She's been on my mind so much lately -- I often think about how much I wish she and Pierre could have met.  They would have adored each other and giggled and flirted all the time.  During my first few days back at work in SF last week, several people commented on my jewlery which was all hers.  Then yesterday a bunch of us were talking about the g olden rule of saving all things fashion and accessories becuase of how every style is bound to rebound.  That got me thinking about my grandma again!  I must have pulled out the sash subconsciously because she's been on my mind. 

Girls -- hold on to anything that you paid more than $25 dollars for, I know it will come back around.  And your daughters and granddaughters might cherish them too someday. 

Alex Zecca Drawings

I've just returned to SF after living in France and New York for the past few years -- trying out this new blog instead of my clunky old website (which will be laid to rest soon).  During a visit here a few months ago, my dear friend Alex Zecca showed me some drawings he'd started while taking a break from his focus on painting.  Gallery 16 just opened their new space and showed a collection of Alex's new drawings for their opening exhibit.  I was sorry to miss the opening reception but I'm exstatic about the review he got in the Sunday Chronicle right after the show.

Alex -- I'm so happy for you and I can't wait to go down to Gallery 16 this week and become a patron of the arts!

Day Workers

Book Worm