The decadent luxury of Blakes in London

A stay at Blakes Hotel can be counted as a special and memorable experience indeed. If there is a hotel anywhere that should be included in "Shelter Porn" this is definitely it. Dark and decadent, our room was a warm cave, print room and classic boudoir rolled into one, with Turkish, Indian and  English Georgian influences. 

The bathtub was amazing, and I got to really enjoy it on a couple of occasions when I was jetlagged and insomniac....lying there in the bubbles at 4am, examining the prints that line the walls. Minimalist and modernist it is not...it is an ode to excess and luxury, and I cannot imagine the person who would not savour its charms.

 Claiming to be one of the first 2 boutique hotels in the world, Blakes was created by fashion designer and former Bond girl Anouska Hempel in 1978 . Celebrity clientele include Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss, and Jean Paul Gaultier regards it as his home when in London.

The only blight on our stay was some noisy renovation work , and one side of the building facade was under tarps.

I just read this week that it is up for sale, room by room (there are 40 of them), prices starting at a million pounds each, for  a 99 year leasehold. 

Hope it doesn't mean we will not be able to stay there again.

House Painting and Happy colours

2010 was the year of exterior house painting, for us anyway.

Between the 8 resident households in our terrace house community, it took a long time , and much agonized deliberation and voting ,to settle on a colour that everyone could live with. In such cases, the tendency is to go toward a selection that will be safe, polite, not cause a stir in the neighbourhood.....

in other words, often a little dull.

Anyway, not so for this house, in our immediate neighbourhood.

It was painted around the same time as ours. Initially, I thought the colour yellow to be too bright, too....yellow, jarring, not in keeping with the facade of the house......I hated it.

But after a little adjustment, I very quickly came to love it.

It is happy and unapologetic, conforms to no polite sensibility, and stands out like a sore thumb on Leavenworth Street. In the nicest possible way. The contrast it provides on a bleak, grey or foggy day, is simply delightful.

I see it on morning doggie walks on the way to the coffee shop. And it makes me smile. Especially so, when serendipitously, this local yellow car is parked in the same line of vision. Perfect. It's almost as if the car owner, and the house owner ( who are most likely not the same person.....or could they be?) have conspired to splash the street with this burst of happy yellow, in perfect co-ordination.

The Gentle Charms of a Bungalow @ Chateau Marmont

The Chateau Marmont is enjoying renewed attention after being featured in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere"(2010)

We were fortunate enough to spend four days there, over Christmas, in Bungalow # 82, and it was bliss.

It is preserved in perfect period detail, unflashy but beautiful and elegant, and provided all the right creature comforts.
A peaceful dose of gorgeous old school Hollywood.