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Fork and Pencil, a new antiques/consignment shop at the corner of Court and Warren Streets in Cobble Hill, had a very successful opening weekend, with many items bearing “SOLD” stickers by Sunday.
The store, which took over space previously occupied by Brooklyn Artisans Gallery, has an unusual mission. After costs, proceeds go to worthy causes including the Open Space Institute, New York state’s largest land conservation organization, and Rooftop Films, an independent film-production cooperative, as well as our neighborhood PTAs, Greenmarkets, and local arts organizations.
It all sounds very pie-in-the-sky, but proprietor Alex Grabcheski, who has a day job in the financial services industry, and his wife, Tally Blumberg, seem committed to their utopian concept.
They have a background in the antiques business (they had a store in Chatham, N.Y. for a while), and someone has a very fine eye. The merchandise is top quality and attractively displayed. Prices range from $150 for a wire chandelier of recent vintage to $850 for a 19th century landscape oil painting, $1,375 for a huge Staffordshire bowl with a Chinese pattern (which sold quickly), and $2,800 for an 1880s Italian settee covered in Brussels tapestry.
There’s also a colorful section at the back with new children’s toys.
The store is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 to 7. To inquire about consigning, call 718 488 8855.
IN THE PAST MONTH, since I signed a contract to buy a cottage in Springs (I’m still awaiting mortgage approval), I haven’t been trolling the Long Island multiple-listing websites as diligently as before. But tonight, out of curiosity, I searched North Fork old-house listings in the under 500K category, and what did I find? A lot of houses I recognized from several months back, still on the market.
Which means they’re probably highly negotiable.
Some of these houses have a lot to recommend them. Some I actually looked at with intent to buy. I photographed this one, a yellow Victorian on half an acre in Peconic, asking 459K, toward the end of a January day (click the link for pictures of the interior and of the house in summer).
There are a couple of chic but low-key shops on the adjoining lot. The Tasting Room, above, which sells local wine and food products, was already closed for the day, but I passed some pleasant time next door, looking around White Flower Farmhouse, left and below, an antiques/home furnishings store with an appropriately beach country aesthetic.
As I got into my car for the two-hour drive back to Brooklyn, I looked forward to getting home, putting my feet up, and opening a bottle of wine. Then I remembered where I was, so I stopped into Pindar Vineyards (it could just as easily have been Osprey’s Diminion, Lenz, Raphael, or Bedell, all within a mile of this house) and bought three.
ONE OF MY FAVORITE FLOWER BEDS upstate is a 4′x4′ square outlined in cinderblock, with foot-high boxwoods in each corner and a concrete birdbath bought for $40 in the center. I think the term is “pocket garden.”
Self-contained and visible from the house, this micro-garden is ever-changing and very satisfying. You can stuff all kinds of things into it: bulbs, herbs, annuals, perennials. It’s different from year to year, season to season.
Right: Early days: boxwoods in each corner, wooly thyme, crocuses in April
Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s gaudy. For a few years, I filled the birdbath ——————————————– —————- frequently with clean water, but the birds never seemed that excited about it. So I put a bit of soil and some pea gravel in it and planted it up with various types of sedum.
Left: Daffodils leave a whole lot of browning foliage to deal with – not the best idea in so small a space.
Below: Easy-to-grow annual cleomes (spider flowers) are a new discovery for me. Blue lobelia, an annual, is beneath. I love the delicacy of this look.
Bottom: Flamboyance in August, with perennial globe thistles and annual cockscomb and marigolds, bought as starters from a local farm stand.
Brownstone Voyeur is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. This is the third in a regular Thursday series walking you through brownstones, brick row houses, pre-war apartments, Victorians, carriage houses, lofts, and other Brooklyn abodes to see the colorful, creative, clever, cost-conscious ways people really live in New York City’s hippest borough.
TODAY we’re peeking into the c.1904 bowfront brownstone French-born interior designer 
Caroline Beaupere shares with her husband, photographer Matt Arnold, in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.
They bought the house in 2005, added a new kitchen and two new bathrooms, and brought all the original woodwork (of which there is plenty) back to life by stripping off dozens of coats of old stain.
Caroline worked with designer Philippe Starck on the avant garde Hudson Hotel in Manhattan’s West 50s, and has just finished decorating the Presidential suite at the New York Grand Hyatt, but the bulk of her studio’s work is residential.
Her style is eclectic, a bit exotic, and often unexpected, but grounded in the classics. There’s a free flow between modern and traditional. Colors are rich and deep. Accessories tend toward the ethnic. Bold ceiling fixtures dominate each room.
First, the front parlor…
Then the ‘middle parlor,’ below, with its Arts and Crafts-era mantel and built-in bookcases…
And the dining room, with its fearless red walls and extraordinary coffered ceiling….
Photo: Matt Arnold
Photo: Matt Arnold
Opening the wall between the dining room and new kitchen was one of few ‘modernizing’ alterations to the original architecture.
The serene master bedroom, above…
Photo: Matt Arnold
The fabulous master bath with a Philippe Starck soaking tub and farmhouse sink set into an old Chinese cabinet…
And Caroline’s office, below…
Photo: Matt Arnold
The basement den has exposed ceiling beams and a ’70s vibe (dig that shag rug!)
The adjoining bar and rec room are not for the faint-hearted: a Pop art portrait and over-the-top chandelier hang above the pool table; the walls are deep purple.
At the very bottom, see what the garden will look like just one short month from now.
Photo: Matt Arnold
On Thursday, casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn visit a townhouse in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens owned by interior designer Caroline Beaupere, full of rich color and unexpected elements.
It’s part of our regular Thursday series, “Brownstone Voyeur,” in which we take you behind the facades of Brooklyn homes to see the creative, colorful, cost-conscious ways people really live in New York City’s hippest borough.
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