Author: ginger

(image, 2024)

(image, 2007)

Pentecostal Explosion Ministries
Vicksburg MS 2024 and 2007

Trespassing is Against the Law
Stay off this Road
Woodville AL, 2020.

I ran across a pic of some Bernard Coffindaffer roadside crosses — if you’ve traveled the rural South much, you’ve likely seen them on occasion. He (1925–1993) was a West Virginia-based businessman/evangelist and this was his “Crosses of Mercy” project whereby he’d install one gold and two blue crosses. At one time it was estimated that there may be over 1000 of these, maybe even over 1500 installations, and people still to this day take on the task of restoring these utility poll crosses as needed in many locations.

Above in Money, Mississippi and these below in Edwards, Mississippi I spotted last year:

There’s a very nice book available for preview on Blurb of more of Bernard Coffindaffer’s project.

Finally finally finally this made it to the Dwell Hotel in Chattanooga and it was lots of fun. It’s more grownups only (though I’m having a harder time finding it now, it may only be 12+), not because of any…reason but I think just to keep things a bit more sophisticated and careful around the fun design details.

It’s a 16 room boutique hotel set in a 1909 downtown building, part of the Design Hotels collection which is part of Marriott. Among the international hotels: Papaya Playa Project in Mexico; the 101 Reykjavik in Iceland; Hotel St George in Finland — plus it has an Ai Weiwei dragon; Le Collateral and Domaine des Andéols in France…

We had drinks one night at the hotel’s bar, Matilda Midnight.

Garden and Gun included it in its 2023 piece on Seven Southern Hotels for Midcentury Design Lovers

Ours was the Puzzle Room.

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Extra credit: besides staying at the Dwell and having a cocktail their Matilda Midnight, we visited Company Chattanooga, a little speakeasy inside the Kinley Hotel:

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Supper at Ernest Chinese which was mostly us checking out some small bites:

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A visit to the Hunter Museum of American Art and walking around that neighborhood including a little something at pretty-pretty Rembrandt’s Coffee House

Frank Stella, River of Ponds III

Karen LaMonte, Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery

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A visit to Shrine of Our Lady Virgin of the Poor in extreme NE Alabama

Rickwood Field, America’s oldest baseball park
Birmingham AL, 2024.

Back when it was warmer, we took a couple of trips to Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee. Putting together pics here from those plus a visit I made with Anne. What we really want to do: creek dining at the winery!

David Arms Gallery:

Patina Home & Garden:

Lunch at Fox & Locke

Leipers Creek Gallery:

Leipers Creek Gallery has so many really fine works including a good set of quirky/unexpected pieces — like those of P.E. Foster who creates things like this.

So many very interesting pieces here. If you put a visit to Leipers Fork Gallery together with north Georgia’s Timpson Creek Gallery (and there are so many terrific ones, but I love Timpson Creek for our drives out to Ramah Darom) you’d have a lake house set for art and furnishings.

I mentioned creek dining — that’s 100% in our plans for this spring/summer

 

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Head Hunter Beauty Salon
Tuscumbia AL, 2024.

Since August 2023, the 21C Museum Hotel in Nashville has been sold and is now operating as the Bankers Alley Hotel Nashville, Tapestry Collection by Hilton. With 124 rooms, the hotel was built out of what was the Gray & Dudley Hardware Company building. RJL Lodging Trust (with 97 hotels in 2023) purchased from the 21C (operating under Ennismore which is majority owned by Accor) and said that they will keep the art museum space on the first floor and will change the art. Looking at the current hotel gallery of images on the Hilton site, there seem to be a good amount of pieces on view. And the room furnishings look very familiar — this is from my stay in 2018:

Following, a small selection of the art the 21C had on display at that time:

Wim Botha, A Thousand Things Part 190

Walter Oltmann, Armour — btw, his Bristle Disguise reminds me of the spike suit at the Menil (just got to see it again earlier this month).

 

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This Hank Willis Thomas Intentionally Left Blanc

is this (you can only really make it out if you photograph it with flash)

Norbert Brunner‘s You Are Enchanting

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Indianapolis will be getting a 21C and that hotel will open in 2028. The 21C Savoy in Kansas City — has just been rebranded to Hilton Tapestry just like the one in Nashville did. That KC hotel had been open continuously since 1888 save two years when the 21C bought it and did a renovation in 2016. Up until then, it was the oldest operating hotel west of the Mississippi.

That will leave 21C with the Louisville, Cincinnati, St Louis, Bentonville, Durham, Chicago, and Lexington locations.

The Sun-n-Sand sign in downtown Jackson, Mississippi has been restored and I got to snap these pics — have been photographing it for several years and thrilled to see it looking so nice:

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In 2019:

2015:

2005:

Back then, I wrote on my Flickr:

The Mississippi Heritage Trust put the Sun-n-Sand Hotel on its 2005 top ten list of endangered historic places in the state.

From their website:
Entrepreneur R.E. Dumas Milner launched the hotel in October 1960, naming it after a landmark Mississippi Gulf Coast hotel he owned as well. The hotel was important as a second home for state legislators, especially after the King Edward Hotel closed in 1965. It was moderately priced and within walking distance to the Capitol Building. The legislators could meet informally for meals, entertainment, and legislative negotiations. In 2001, House Ways and Means Chairman Billy McCoy said, “We have passed many important measures because of our conversations after hours in the Sun-n-Sand.”

In addition, its free form, space-age sign recalls the mid-twentieth century Las Vegas style atmosphere and hints at its reputation as the place to party in Jackson. When the legislature legalized liquor in 1965, the Sun-n-Sand was one of the first bars to open in Jackson. One legislative insider remembered that “a year before the state repealed its anti-liquor laws, the place was hopping.… I would go to the Legislature and see some of the lawmakers speaking against liquor … then I’d come back to the Sun-n-Sand and watch them take a drink. They were voting dry and drinking wet.”

The hotel closed in October, 2001 and was boarded up shortly thereafter. Currently there are no plans for the property and it continues to sit vacant and deteriorating. The colorful history of this place will be lost if something is not done to save the building.

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So great to see it now! A+ Signs in Jackson did the work. They also did the work on the Mayflower Cafe and the Capri.

This was fun! We went to Culture & Co in Nashville — it’s in the L&L Market on Charlotte Avenue along with a Five Daughters doughnut shop, a taco place, a pasta place, a few other little eateries, and a Masaya furniture showroom plus other retail spots.

One thing that really sets Culture + Co. apart is that you sit at a bar around a conveyor belt that brings all the little offerings from the open kitchen. You just take what cheese / meat / breads / whatever sounds good…and there’s a menu to help sort it all out.

There were dishes like North Country Wagyu Bresaola, Graza Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Black Pepper

Capocolla, castelvetrano olives, crostini

Von Trapp oma, sun dried cherry and pistachio shortbread

Mmmmmm, there were things we liked better than others (though we really liked almost everything) and getting a taste of so such a great variety was terrific. Enjoyed the experience!

Maybe not a once/month kind of place but certainly something different, especially if we have other friends with us next time. Would definitely go again!