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Standing
above the waterfall on the Duchin property
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Was
supposed to go up to Litchfield County, Connecticut on
Friday for the opening night preview of the Washington Connecticut
Antiques Show and a little dinner Peter Rogers was
hosting at the ultra-chic (read: $$$+) Mayflower Inn. The car’s
battery died -- d.e.d. Had to be replaced.
So JH and I drove up late Saturday morning. It was
a damp, slightly chilly early autumn day. It's a two-hour drive up
684, and the foliage is just itty-bitty-beginning. As we traveled
north, the roads got wetter from the occasional light rain.
It's really beautiful country there in Litchfield County. Hills and
even small mountains. Lots of lakes. And for this New England
bred boy, the air was rife with early autumn nostalgia wafting and
winding through the air like smoke from the chimney of some nearby
fireplace.
We stopped by Mr. Roger’s temporary
house where we met his friends and landlords, Bette
and Bill Weed. They were all around Peter’s
dining room table looking at the Sotheby’s catalogue
of the upcoming sales of Bill Blass’ estate
contents. Mr. Blass, who died a year ago last spring,
lived nearby in an old stone house that was originally
an inn, and was a friend to many of his neighbors. Style
mavens considered Blass’ country house to be the
last word in taste. His presence in this county, which
once upon a time was nothing but farmland and apple orchards,
also attracted many other fashionables who like getting
away from it all (including the Hamptons). And alas there
is little farmland or even orchards left.
From there, we all, including the Weede’s Jack Russell “Atlas, ” went
over to visit Brooke and Peter Duchin who live somewhere
in that neck of the woods. |
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Peter
Duchin in his office
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The
upstairs loft
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The
Duchins house is a converted old mill by a stream and
over a rather large waterfall. Back in the 18th Century, according
to Peter Duchin, there were ten mills along this stream. Brooke
Duchin is also known among her friends for her taste
which I would describe as eclectic international homespun
exotica which pretty much covers the territory. Lots of
leather couches and chairs, the ancient mixed with the modern,
with Persian carpets, handcraft objets.
If you like converted barns with ancient aged wood beams and cathedral
ceilings and fireplaces and little staircases that go here and there
and up and down and all around, this is the place for you. And me,
and everybody else.
The Waterfall is sensational. As we stood in the gentle rain, above
the falls looking down, a heron swooped up from below the falls and
flew off down the pathway of the rushing, rocky brook. In the summertime
the Duchins open their windows overlooking the falls at night and
go right to sleep to the muffled thunderous white noise. Yet when
the windows are closed, the sound is barely perceptible.
The
Duchins are a very glamorous couple whatwith their
backgrounds of show business, society and literary culture. Brooke
wrote the definitive show business family biography (Haywire)
about her life growing up in Hollywood (and mainly this part of
Connecticut) as the daughter of Margaret Sullavan the
movie star and Leland Hayward, the agent/Broadway
producer, and their multi-marriages (Sullavan was also married
to Henry Fonda and director William Wyler;
and Hayward was also married to Slim Keith and Pamela
Harriman).
Peter’s beginnings as the son of bandleader Eddy Duchin and
society beauty Marjorie Oelrichs was immortalized
years ago in The Eddy Duchin Story, (starring Tyrone
Power and Kim Novak as the boy’s
father and mother), Peter himself, as most people know, has had a
long and illustrious career as a society bandleader.
We
had a little housetour. There is wonderful illustrative
and photographic memorabilia as one might expect, all placed or
hung or tucked here and there throughout and all fascinating. Pictures
of the families of both, movie stars and otherwise famous faces,
including an unofficial shot of the smiling Harriman, Churchill and Stalin at
Yalta; and another of the very young and scrawny John Kennedy
Jr. leaping from the side of his stepfather’s yacht The
Christina in the Mediterranean. Peter and Jackie,
who were both born on July 28, were friends from childhood (their
mothers went to Spence together) and throughout their adult lives. |
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The
garden path that leads to a 4-acre stroll around the Duchin property
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After
our brief look-around, we all drove over to another part of
the forest to the site where Peter Rogers is building a pavilion
style house up a very long and winding driveway, on top of
a mountain with unobstructed views of rolling green hills and
mountains all around for miles and miles.
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Bryan
Memorial Town Hall where they were holding The
14th annual Washington Antiques Show
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Beautiful site.
They had to blast away the top of the mountain of granite to make
the lot and so the land is currently surrounded by huge rocks and
boulders, all of which the builder intends to use. The property
on completion will then be called “On The Rocks.”
Then
we went to lunch over in Washington Depot at the GW (for George
Washington), a rustic and contemporary restaurant full of a contemporary
and rustic looking clientele from this part and that part of the
territory.
After Bloody Marys, soups, salads and sandwiches, it was then on
over to the antiques show, which benefits the Gunn Memorial Library
and Museum in Washington (CT). |
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Peter
Rogers gives us an enthusiastic tour of the site
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DPC,
Brooke Hayward Duchin, Peter Rogers, and Bette Weede marvel at
the view
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This
was the 17th annual show and chaired by dealer Lou
Marotta, who has a shop in Bridgewater as well as
Manhattan (on East 60th Street). Mr. Marotta is another whom
the style mavens across the hills and dales regard as having
Very Good Taste.
The show’s
honorary chairman was Robert Couturier who also
gave a lecture on Saturday which he called “Taste and Tradition
(Why Would I Pay $72,000 For This Armchair?)” I didn’t
make it to the lecture so I can’t answer that question except
for the possible: “why not?” Also lecturing at the
Gunn Memorial Library on the same day were Jeffrey Bilhuber (“Jeffrey
Bilhuber’s Design Basics”) Jeffrey Simpson (“What’s
Old Is New Again: The Perennial Interest In the Early American
Interior”), and Christopher Spitzmiller (“Design
Realization In Clay”).
Yesterday, Sunday, the last day of the three-day show, there were
more lectures – by Eric Cohler (“Decorating
with Art & Antiques: a User’s Guide”), Stephen
Szcepanek (“Japanese Country Textiles: Hilsory Meaning
and Cultural Influences); and finally, Ann Smith and Robert
Austin (“Artists of the Litchfield Hills").
Jeff took pictures of the booths, and by then it was late afternoon
and time to head back to Manhattan. The drive back to town took longer
than the drive out because the traffic going into the city was so
jammed up. There were too many cars but what else is new? |
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