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Observation: Graph Paper Gives Me a Woody

Posted on June 6, 2023

The one strength I do have however, is design – I can spend days perfecting a layout on pads of crisp white graph paper. How intoxicating it is to remove the cellophane on a fresh 5 pack of paper covered in beautifully even spaced vertical and horizontal perfection aligning into perfectly controlled ¼ inch scaled boxes. Don't even get me started on a pack of freshly sharpened HB number 2 pencils!   My graduation from Lego to actual architectural layouts and design came during a grade 9 drafting course, where I learned...

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For Sale / Movie Houses: The Houses of “THE AMITYVILLE HORROR” (1979):  108 Ocean Ave., Amityville, N.Y

Posted on May 29, 2023

Those of you who know me, or at least those who have read any of my posts, you know I loves me a good old creepy house – put that house on the water and normally I’m sold.  But even I have my limits – those limits would be personified by this one.  The Amityville Horror house in Long Island.   Even if you’re not a believer in the occult – this is the home where the very real 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. who at 3:15 am on November 13, 1974, shot...

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For Sale: The Bishop Mansion – The Largest Home in Detroit, Michigan

Posted on May 17, 2023

Ok, now this one does have a real “Pseudo-Institutional”, stern private school look about it, which I believe was the original intent by design, but this place still is kind of cool – mainly due to its history. This gothic monster is a 32,000 square foot Tudor Revival mansion constructed between 1924 and 1926 on a prime 2 acre lot in the heart of Detroit’s preeminent Palmer Woods neighbourhood (1880 Wellesley Drive). The massive official looking residence was originally designed not only as the home of the Detroit Bishop Diocese,...

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For Sale: Granot Loma – The Worlds Largest Log Cabin

Posted on April 28, 2023

Now here’s one that has real potential – it’s a log cabin, but nothing like the one you associate with Daniel Boone or the one where Abe Lincoln is reputed to have been born, nor the one where the Clampetts began their epic journey to Beverly Hills – Seriously – this one looks like a cabin on Crack.  The Architects (Benjamin Henry Marshall and Charles Eli Fox of Marshall and Fox) certainly had very few limitations when designing it, but oh what a structure they created!  It was listed as...

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Movie Houses: Following The Draw of The Tuscan Sun

Posted on April 27, 2023

I  might be alone on this one, but it seems that whenever/wherever I travel, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like to live in these idealic worlds, far from the everyday stresses of home.  Be it lakefront cottage communities near my home, oceanfront Nova Scotian fishing villages, Palm Springs desert view mid century moderns, Palapas in Puerto Vallarta or historical European towns.  (Not so much Florida these days though due to their whack a doodle politics of late – shame though as I used to enjoy Fort...

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Observation: Thoughts On Home Improvement Projects

Posted on April 19, 2023

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to household projects - I can nail wood together and do basic repairs, just nothing complicated like: electrical, plumbing, drywall, roofing, tiling and anything structural.  Basically, my strengths lie in the design, the layout and the finishing, which I guess could be called decorating.  In one recent project, I changed out the handle on our garage door (ie, remove the broken handle and install the newly purchased Home Depot handle into the existing holes, and to my satisfaction (and...

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Observation: Thoughts on Twin Staircases

Posted on April 18, 2023

The first double staircase (recently referred to as “signature staircases”) I remember seeing was in photos of Candy Spellings famous monument to excess, arrogantly named “The Manor”, located within sugar borrowing distance from Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in LA’s Tony Holmby Hills neighbourhood. This set of shag carpeted lumber was shown off again and again during her narcissistic vanity project “Selling Spelling Manor (2011)” (which she both produced and stared in).  The 2-episode, (and so very relatable) production followed the trials and tribulations of selling and packing up Spelling’s 56,500...

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Movie Houses: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Cameron Frye’s House

Posted on April 18, 2023

There are very few people out there who do not recall that pivotal moment in the John Hughes film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when Ferris’s friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) knocks his father’s cherished Ferrari off its jack sending it crashing through a glass wall and into the ravine below.   The house used as Cameron’s family home in the movie is known as The Rose House and Pavilion, a 5,300 sq. ft home, located at 370 Beech Street in the woods of Highland Park, just north of Chicago.  The house was designed and built...

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Movie Houses: Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) Bruce Wayne’s Residence

Posted on April 17, 2023

I need to be very honest in sharing the fact that Super Hero Movies are more my colleague Nick Maylor’s thing than mine. The Superhero movies I have seen I have enjoyed, especially when dark deco styled metropolis sets are involved, or in seeing how historic Wayne Manor is depicted.  My younger self is fascinated by the idea of this scenario, where a historic setting is easily adapted into the ultimate clubhouse in which a man of means can fulfill his ultimate fantasy life with caves, toys, and secret passages....

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Movie Houses: Mid Century Modern Houses in Movies

Posted on April 17, 2023

Mid-Century Modern (MCM) is an architectural design and decorating style based upon clean lines, clear expanses of glass, open sight lines, a blurring of interior and exterior spaces and a complete lack of clutter.  The style was developed and made popular by architects of the time, including Frank Lloyd Wright (Falling Water, Pennsylvania), Philip Johnson (Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut), and I.M. Pei (John Hancock Tower, Chicago) from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1970s.  The style was initially popular in southern US locations (LA, Palm Springs, Miami) but spread to some...

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