Deep Fried Kudzu

I guess…I guess have a weakness for hotel chains that are weirdly specific.

Brent and I are planning a trip to Bentonville to see the newly-expanded Crystal Bridges for later this year, and of course, I want to stay at the 21C Museum Hotel again. These are among my favorites in general, not so much because the rooms themselves are incredible in any certain way, but it does feel like you’re having Night at the Museum because the overall space literally is a museum. And it’s open all hours. So you can decide that you’d prefer to linger over the art at midnight rather than two in the afternoon. It’s a thing.

Well, I say that the rooms aren’t necessarily that special, but some of the hotels have themed rooms. In Louisville, they have “Asleep in the Cyclone” which is built as an installation by artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe.

Some of the 21Cs have been rebranded. Right now, the 21Cs are:

Bentonville, AR:

From a 2014 visit: Yoan Capote’s In Tran/sit, above. And below, Virginie Barre’s Fat Bat which overlooks things in the fitness room

Does Fat Bat literally hovering over guests in the exercise room seem a bit heavy (sigh) – handed in the messaging

Cincinnati, OH:

From a 2016 visit, Werner Reiterer’s outdoor chandelier; Astrid Krogh’s Lightmail

Interested to know: at the end of the recent Vanity Fair article about the Moshe Safdie-designed expansion of Crystal Bridges, there’s mention that one of the auction items, going fishing with Alice Walton, sells at $1M. Alice is quoted as saying “What you don’t know is you get to come to a Moshe Safdie house — there’s only three in the world.” 

My understanding is that Alice Walton is back at the original Fay Jones-designed Walton home in Bentonville, so I imagine this confirms that she had Safdie build another structure on her family property — I think it’s the guest lodge.

Above, a model of Safdie’s design for Crystal Bridges, from my 2014 visit, below the actual building at that visit

At McGill, there’s a listing of Safdie projects and there are a few residential designs, though most went unbuilt. I think one is his home in Jerusalem, one is a home for a disabled person in Canada (not sure if it still exists), a poolhouse turned ummmmm house-house in Quebec, and even a home here in Birmingham.

Even more interesting about the home in Birmingham is that it was built for Alston Callahan, as in Callahan Eye Hospital, part of UAB. And just like we were talking about the other day, that’s the hospital with the huge Agam:

Here thanks to Realtor are more pics of the Safdie home in Birmingham, It was taken down and replaced with another home several years ago.

Callahan also had famous architect (and fellow Alabamian) Paul Rudolph design a home for his site on Red Mountain, but chose Safdie. Here’s the Rudolph concept.

The Pearl Restaurant
Oysters, Kansas City Steaks, Seafoods
New Orleans LA, 2023.

Weekly notes on Southern art, architecture, food, and travel

As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.

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Hunt Slonem’s Abstraction with Birds at the Dayton Art Institute, from a 2022 visit

The latest issue of Veranda features Hunt Slonem’s Massachusetts chalet which includes mention of his furniture by New Orleans’ Henry Siebrecht, including a Gothic Revival sofa and twin Siebrecht armchairs, the only matching pair Hunt says he’s ever seen.

I found a trade handbill of Siebrecht’s listing ~1853 that he was an upholsterer and furniture manufacturer at 41 and 43 Royal Street — that’s right there at Canal, in the stretch that was known as ‘Furniture Row’ — and he advertised pieces he had coming in from Paris along with curtains, curtain trimmings, and paper hangings (wallpaper).

At the bottom, the sheet mentioned that he stocked mosquito bars (canopies), bedding, spring mattresses, hair and moss mattresses, and carpets.

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Brennan’s, from a 2015 visit

Poppy Tooker on 80 Years of Brennan’s

BTW, a Homeworthy from this week in Madison, Georgia (home of the owners of Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts in Buckhead) had big Brennan’s vibes in one of the rooms:

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A visit to Parnassus Books in Nashville late last year

From Literary Hub, A Bookstore Boom in a Time of Literacy Decline

Sarah Arnold, at Parnassus Books in Nashville, offers what I find to be the most humanly persuasive explanation for why people are flooding into bookstores even as reading scores fall: loneliness. “Technology and social media promised to bring us together,” she told me, “but more often it feels like they siphon each of us into a solitary lifestyle, and it’s hurting us.” Bookstores are filling a social void. People can come to Parnassus on almost any given night for an author event or a book club meeting, or simply browse and strike up a conversation. This helps explain how the bookstore boom and the literacy crisis can coexist.

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Tintypes at The Met, from a visit last year

The Long Exposure, about modern-day tintype photographers in Mississippi, at Country Roads

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xoxo!

There’s social media, public meetings, traditional media, email/mail, and then there are (sans-) arrow signs
Cullman County AL, 2023.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a post on lovely Victorian bas relief cemetery monuments in Alabama. There are so many in this category, and truly so pretty, so interesting, that they deserve another set.

Here, from Hopewell Baptist Church Cemetery in Danville:

Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile:

At Oakview Cemetery in Lowndesboro:

Church Street Graveyard in Mobile:

And I have to mention this one, from Old Aberdeen Historical Cemetery in Mississippi.

It’s for Mary Points, who passed away in 1852 when her skirts caught fire. This pic of mine was used in the Association for Gravestone Studies quarterly a few years ago. One interesting thing is that in this same cemetery, there’s a person buried sitting in their rocking chair.

It’s Alice Whitfield, and the story is that she passed away in her favorite rocking chair, knitting, so it was decided — well, it was her request obviously beforehand — to bury her in that same fashion. Et voila. And if you’re thinking of others, there’s the story of Mary Chambers Bibb at Maple Hill in Huntsville AL, and Grancer the Dancer, said to be buried in his feather bed in Kinston AL: