Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
It was hard to watch the pretty little Seaside post office get damaged during its move last month (details, and so glad to see the reasoning behind it was a tower rather than, you know, a place for more Seaside-y food trucks) so today for our viewing pleasure, the hopefully-not-going-anywhere-soon Rosemary Beach post office:
It’s hard to be in Destin and *not* take in the little communities along 30A, so we happened to stop this time at Rosemary Beach’s The Hidden Lantern bookstore. While I have a special fondness for slightly dusty with a lovingly unorganized, come get lost, stay-the-week-we-don’t-care vibe (say, the book version of Charlemagne Records), this place has its…place. It’s completely put together and lovely. And you know there have been about ten thousand pairs of Tory Burch flip flops flipping through here.
Mine included. Well, actually my platform Donald Pliners, but you know what I mean.
(Just an aside on shoes: expensive shoes, always. Worth it. Those Donald Pliners have lasted years, literally. I have Cole Haans that look new after sixteen forevers. My Fryes will never die. I go to Belk every now and then and think I’m saving money by bringing Korks home (not even Kork Ease, what’s your deal, Belk’s?), and they won’t even make it past a summer. I have a gorgeous friend who wears my same size and she has impeccable taste in shoes, so I’ve often been the recipient of her fabulous shoe-ular generosity. They always look fab and last. Get yourself a friend like that. But no matter what, get the good shoes every time.)
Anyway.
When I saw this piece at the entrance, I immediately thought of the one at Perch on Magazine in New Orleans:
It’s the PolArt InsideOut bookcase
Get comfy:
Really likable: their labeling
And of course, their not-so-hidden lanterns, which look so familiar that I’m thinking I first saw a how-to on making them in one of my back copies of Marie Claire Idees.
P.S. the English translation of the Marie Claire Idees site is great and helps me not-so-much miss giving up the print edition (coming from France, it’s pretty $. You could Kindle it, but really, getting it in the mail with those glossy pages and the scent of French printing ink is mmmmmhhhhhh). At least, maybe peek at it online for holiday inspo or the recipes, which always look of course completely, fabulously French and thus especially wondrous.
Earlier this year, we took the opportunity to visit the Henderson Park Inn in Destin, Florida again. It’s been voted the, and one of the, ‘Most Romantic Inn(s) in America’ by publications, and I mean…it’s pretty fab. I have two kids, so my hotel stays are usually along the Marriott and Hilton lines rather than amazing tiny B&Bs, but I get it.
The one thing I do want to point out especially is that they call themselves a B&B, but in my mind, a B&B is when you’re staying upstairs in the ‘Miss Cavanaugh Room’ at…you know…Barbara and Steve’s dream Victorian somewhere and secretly inside you’re all “where’s the tv?” but decide to roll with it and it’s fine, and in the morning you saunter down to the crazy formal dining room for their amazing cinnamon rolls and heritage breed sausage from Old Man Phillips’ farm and there’s perfectly-done eggs and just-squeezed orange juice and wanna-make-that-a-mimosa?whysuuuure.
Here, it really is more of a hotel. There’s a fridge in the main building with drinks you can take all day, and there’s a great breakfast with a smiling omelette guy ready to put whatever you want in that skillet, and there’s a sack lunch included to take for wherever you’re jetting off to during the day. There’s a happy hour at which I think giddily ingested three (free) glasses of merlot while on a swing just watching the waves go back and forth. But there are no ‘innkeepers’ and you don’t have to worry about making too much noise walking on creaky floors, or waking someone if you come in too late from supper.
Henderson Park Inn is situated right at a state park, so there is no development whatsoever on one side of the beach. The people staying there are nice-nice and the staff is super friendly.
Our room. Turndown chocolate is a Lindor truffle (though some local-ish chocolate would have been super nice), and we had a welcome gift of their own cookbook, which was a great touch.Â
This tray with roses, wine, and fruit was also set out
There’s more than one grouping of rooms at the Inn, and this was the lobby at our small building.Â
This is Destin, so copious amounts of time was spent on the beach. The sand really is sugar white and is so soft that it feels almost like walking on cake flour
There didn’t seem to be a lot of regular jellyfish in the water, but we did see this beautiful Portuguese Man O’ War and a couple others (if you’re feeling technical, this is not really a jellyfish, but the big thing to remember here is that you can get stung by this monster’s tentacles even with it beached like this, and it will seriously destroy your next few days if so)
We had supper one evening at the on-site restaurant, the Beach Walk Cafe (reservations also available on OpenTable, so easy-easy), which was completely lovely (and my pics here are not at all doing it justice)
There was an amuse, an app of shrimp cocktail and other of Kung Pao shrimp, a steak, and pork chop, all of which were delectable. Old-school but still charming that way, all the women leave with a single stem rose
What’s pretty new is The Henderson, their family hotel across the street. The takeaway is that Henderson Park Inn is for couples and The Henderson is for the kids and grandparents…everybody. It’s not *on* the beach, but they have a great pool and looooook how comfortable and lovely the rooms are. There’s tons and tons to do every day as well.
Staying at either place, guests are welcome to swim at The Henderson, as there’s no pool at all at the HPI.
And the lobby. The lobbyyyyyyy. Yassss.
The chandelier. My love.
We’ll definitely consider this hotel the next time we come down with the boys. Lovely.
Unfortunately the Nick Cave: Feat. exhibit at the Frist is now over (I completely flaked on DFK earlier this year), but I got some great pics of it while it was up.
Loved seeing the soundsuits on what amounted to a walkway in a room studded with buttons. And just the whole thing was really well put together.
From the synopsis:
…A deeper look reveals that they speak to issues surrounding identity and social justice, specifically race, gun violence, and civic responsibility. His trademark human-shaped sculptures—called soundsuits because of the noise made when they move—began as a response to the beating of Rodney King by policemen in Los Angeles more than twenty-five years ago. As an African American man, Cave felt particularly vulnerable after the incident so he formed a type of armor that protected him from profiling by concealing race, gender, and class.
Along with broadcasting an increasingly urgent call for equity, Cave wants his art to spark viewers’ imaginations and aspirations. This exhibition’s title, Feat., refers to the exceedingly hard work that goes into attaining success (it takes, for example, roughly seven hours to hand-sew just one square foot of a button soundsuit). It also plays on how talent is often listed in promotional materials—an appropriate nod to Music City and its creative community. Through this immersive installation, Cave hopes to provide a transformative place where your narrative can be featured and your dreams can soar.
This was the 2011 ‘Architectural Forest’ made up of bamboo, wire, plastic beads, and acrylic paint. It seemed to change design as one walked around it.
Here, a multi-paneled wall relief
And my favorite piece, the ceramic dog on a chaise
Feat. opens September 14 at the Orlando Museum of Art.
Also: several Nick Cave beaded blankets are on exhibit through February 2019 in Concourse A of the Nashville airport.
Looking forward to the Do Ho Suh: Specimens exhibit at the Frist from October 12 – January 6, 2019 and the Diana Al-Hadid exhibit May 24, 2019 – September 2, 2019.
That wasn’t our first trip to the Gaylord Opryland this year. Back in May, we stayed there (an atrium balcony suite in the Garden Conservatory upgrade thanks to Marriott Platinum status) and visited the Nick Cave Feat. exhibit at the Frist. First, though, here’s the room:
The living area was by the balcony, and the bedroom was just as one enter’s the hotel room.
Our view:
Supper one night was at the Old Hickory Steakhouse which, from reviews (people on OpenTable where I made my res like it better than people on Yelp), looks a little hit or miss, but we had a great experience.
Our table was outside under the atrium, so we got to view the rest of the area while we were dining
We started with the seafood tower, which had lobster, crab claws, shrimp, and oysters
I was boring and only wanted a Caesar salad for my entree. It was as expected suitably boring.
…though I did have a good amount of the creamed spinach and kale with gruyere and a poached egg atop which was delicious
…annnnnd a bite of this steak which was beyond:
…and and annnnnd ohmystars this crazy chocolate cake which completely rocked and no we didn’t even finish a third of it
Lunch that following day was at Arnold’s, which is always good — not mind-blowing, but solid yummy meat-and-three
Oh! And on the way home, we stopped at Stan’s in Columbia, Tennessee for anytime breakfast and cracklin cornbread:
Let’s get back to that exhibit though. Tomorrow. Pics of *amazing* Nick Cave works. Promise.
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