Château de Gudanes

Château de Gudanes is an 18th-century neoclassical Château built on the ruins of a medieval castle nestled amongst the pyrenees in the Southwest of France and currently under restoration by the Waters family. Each summer they open the Château doors to a series of workshops from cooking in the cuisine, to floral design, restoration, and the art of the brocante (French antiquing). For two years now I have spent a a week each summer at the cooking workshops, first run by Julie Marr and most recently by Craig Likefelt where I learned my now go-to salad dressing, a very fruity take on gazpacho, and a seriously mind-blowing good omelette among so much more. 

Karina Waters, the visionary behind saving this abandoned chateau is the Alice in Wonderland guide to your stay and one of the most fascinating women to talk to. You can imagine, she being Australian and not completely fluent in French, how many endless stories she has facing the French bureaucracy, learning the rules of restoration on an historic chateau, the time the chateau caught on fire, surviving winter alone without modern heating, when she set off fireworks for Bastille Day and the police showed up, and on and on… and then in the most effortless mad hatter whim she puts together these magical dinner parties with over flowing champagne coups, classical music echoing throughout the chateau walls, the glow from the candles illuminating out of the open french windows into the night sky to the distant sound of laughter and cheers.

I’ll never forget seeing her drag a dead plum tree through the chateau into the music room to prop up on a table as a “tree of gratitude” where each dinner guest wrote what they were thankful for from the experience at the chateau and hung it on the beautifully bare branches for each of us to read. Or the time we had dinner in what once was the library and she pointed out that the mounted goat head set as decor on the banquet was the actual goat we were eating for dinner, killed and prepared by the local French women from the village below who beamed with pride from sharing their regional mountain traditional food.

Though France offers many exquisite Château experiences, this one is quite different. It’s raw.

I like to describe it as the outside is in and the inside is out. The chateau breathes with the mountains it is surrounded by, the cats and dog come and go as they please, as do the vines, and the wind and the rain, and the guests who are lucky enough to stay here for a brief untouchable moment in time. But what makes this place truly unique is that ninety percent of the chateau is without electricity. This means candle-lit dinners, candle-lit walks to your bedroom at night, falling asleep to the sounds of the old chateau shutters and trout steam below. It was in the purest sense of the word, magical. How does that work practically? The main chateau kitchen and its two adjoining rooms have both electricity set up with charging stations and wifi and a fourth room across the hall with electricity is a communal bathroom with 5 toilet rooms and three showrooms, not unlike an adult summer camp. The rest of the chateau is unwired. The rest of the chateau is candle lit romance.

What I love about this place is the layers of history caked on top of each other. Built on the ruins of a castle from the middle ages you can still run your hands over the natural stone from the earth they carved the original foundation from. No room in the castle is off limits giving you free range to explore and let your imagination ponder different ways of life throughout time. The center of the chateau is home to a petite chapel with a vaulted ceiling decorated by hand-painted gold stars shining on a midnight blue sky. Below the main floor is the medieval kitchen, torture chamber, jail, and slaughter rooms for the animals among other things. I even found a once functioning darkroom for photography. There was a library room, a music room for ballroom dancing, a champagne room they used to bring ice down from the mountain to put in the marble bowl for parties, and endless bedrooms, sitting rooms, terraces, and more. The attic is home to the bats which in my first year there liked to pay me nightly visits through my open bedroom window (I like to let in the cool, fresh mountain air) and circle around my room for a few minutes while I stayed motionless in bed with the antique monogrammed French linen sheets pulled up to my nose watching before swooping back out into the night sky. I LOVED it….

It was, and remains in my memories, a true fairytale.

Chateau wardrobe include designs by Brock CollectionKalita Official, Needle and Thread London, Three Graces London, Luxe Provence, Thierry ColsonSamuel Snider, Behida Dolic, Jacquemus, Rawson, Molly Goddard and Zimmerman with these French beauty products all carried to the Chateau in the Sweetheart collection by Steamline Luggage

La Bastide de Marie

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Tucked in the valley below Ménerbes, a small hilltop village in the Luberon region of Provence, lies La Bastide de Marie, the most romantic hotel, vineyard, rose garden and restaurant. There is nothing like watching the setting light in the south of France on a cool terrace softly leave highlighted kisses on the tips of velvety roses as the day comes to a close while sipping estate grown wine in the peacefulness that is Provence. The intimate and rustic restaurant at the property is dripping in romance was one of the best meals from our trip. There is no menu, just a seasonal offering that evening with a few items to choose from your server describes to you. The best way, in my opinion, to eat in France.

I think about this place often, in fact, I dream of it. 

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Hiram Bingham

All my life I have dreamed of taking the Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu. Pulling up to the station in Cusco to board we found the proud historic royal blue train cars waiting for us in pristine fashion. My heart fluttered as I peered in the windows, a foreshadowing of what was to come in glimpses of white linen table tops and sparkling glasses just waiting to be filled with life. Usually when I choose to take a train it’s because I want to be able to work for those few hours of a journey…. but not here. The beauty of the old train cars, the history of luxury travel, the celebration they created demanded all your attention. We sat on red velvet seats and drank pisco sours to the beat of live musicians in the lounge car. We took pictures and smelled the fresh mountain air off the back of the last train car while we wound around and around mountain passes. We dined on classic Peruvian food paired with locally made wines and watched the river  flow by in a happy steam leading us right to the heart of Machu Picchi and the next leg of our adventure found only in south americaHiram_Bingham__01

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The last romantic train trip I took was on this journey….

See more about Peru HERE & all my South America stories HERE

Portraits of Each Other

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In line with all the sentiment I put into our anniversary picnic, mementos from our life together, I chose this Pablo Neruda poem, a souvenir from our time in Santiago, Chile, to read to Kevin over our picnic spread… a verbal anniversary card if you will…which now unfolds into our visual history with these intimate and simple snapshots of each other capturing this time alone – he & I on the beach with nothing but the sea.:

“I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

 

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.”

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Romantic Beach Picnic

The perfect date night, a romantic summer picnic on the beach.

For our 2nd anniversary this past Monday I wanted to do something low key, but utterly romantic so I planned a surprise sunset beach picnic for Kevin. I tried to get as creative as possible and make every aspect of the picnic a walk down memory lane.

For starters, instead of a blanket, I used a rug we bought together from the flea market in Paris which gave the scene a more formal feeling. I then surrounded the rug with clusters of sandalwood incense we bought on our recent trip to Bali. Everywhere we went on the island, this beautiful and sexy smell drifted by our noses; now it reminds us of those unforgettable sunrises from only a moment ago. I made it personal with our monogrammed glass hurricanes lanterns flanking the view of the setting sky. I brought our go-to Pinot Grigio by one of our favorite studio clientsEcco Domani, which brings back such fun studio memories – one of our first shoots at our new place. Just as I was talking about yesterday with “upgrading the everyday”, we toasted another year of marriage with monogrammed stemless wine glasses, formal, lovely, and personal (plus much less likely to spill on a sandy beach setup!)

Kevin *loves* crab, so I asked my friend Molly when she was over for dinner for a crab salad recipe that would go well with the Pinot Grigio for our picnic (recipe below!). I also had lots of beautiful fresh finger foods from the farmer’s market such as morning radishes with a little pile of Maldon salt, a couple of flaky, yummy farm stand cheeses, the most beautiful petite blackberries, an avocado, salami for depth and to finish it off – grapes. So classic. And just so there were no pesky bugs around, I threw down some citronella candles in terra-cotta pots. To finish it off, I had our assistant Carly stop by and snap a few photos of us together, just like we did 2 years ago when we said “I do“.

We sat on the beach and sipped wine, took black and white photos of each other in an intimate dance we’ve been doing now for years, shared food, and watched the colors of the sky paint their way into darkness. Happy Anniversary to my husband, thank you for my beautiful anniversary gift (scroll down to see!) I’ll cherish forever which will remind me of this magical era of our life and cheers to forever, wherever that may take us.

Thank you again, Ecco Domani, for the memories…

 The perfect date night, a romantic summer picnic on the beach. The perfect date night, a romantic summer picnic on the beach. The perfect date night, a romantic summer picnic on the beach. The perfect date night, a romantic summer picnic on the beach. Continue reading “Romantic Beach Picnic”

Cumberland Island

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I remember that photograph. It was instantly synonymous with American style, American royalty, and that fairytale wedding to Prince Charming. I never forgot that image, the beauty of the moment, the elegance and intimacy of the chosen venue. Such an interesting choice to make for such a famous last name. Fast forward nearly 18 years later, and I’m standing on the steps of the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island thinking about all the dreams that one photograph gave me as a child. I remember reading about how the guests stayed at the Greyfield Inn where the reception was held but as time passed these little details faded away, now those faded details are a part of my very personal memories. Cumberland became more than a dream, but a cherished experience.

The day is full of delight with the kind of youthful energy and discovery you find in a F. Scott Fitzgerald book. We went on hour long hikes, took bike rides to old cemeteries and rode around horses grazing beneath the ruins of the Dungeness mansion. We rode for hours down the seashore without ever seeing another person, finding seashells and chasing horses. One of the most charming rituals of the Inn is how they make their guests picnic baskets for lunch everyday you can take with you on your private adventures.  On our second morning we rode with the house naturalist on a tour of the island where we visited that famous church, saw the house where President Jimmy Carter ate at multiple times, and discovered Plum Plantation which took my breath away. The history and nature, preservation and privateness is so far beyond anything I have ever experienced that I can only describe this stretch of land, twice the size of Manhattan, as magical.

If you ever need to find that corner of the world where things just are… where you can sit in the natural silence of the world alone and breathe in the sunlight, taste the salt of the sea and feel that life is just simply beautiful… then come to Cumberland Island. My heart will be there waiting for you.

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Greyfield Inn

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While we were in California last year, spending the day photographing Lake Tahoe with our friends, Adam Katseff and his wife Amy, they told us about the Greyfield Inn…the magical place they stayed on their honeymoon, one that they knew I would LOVE (turned out to be a major understatement). I knew the name sounded familiar, and once they mentioned it was on Cumberland Island, it all came back to me…an enchanting wedding, an all-American couple…but more on that tomorrow…

After hearing about it, I knew I had to see Greyfield Inn for myself and with the trip down to visit SCAD, it was the perfect opportunity. I’m an extremely visual person and I’m sure it comes to no surprise to you that I quite often dream about the way life looked “back then”. I think walking through the doors of Greyfield will be as close as I will ever get to knowing the way it might have actually looked…

You leave your car on Amelia Island and Mitti, one of the four owners and inheritors of Greyfield and the Carnegie property, takes you by boat to Cumberland Island. Walking up from the dock the giant, old live oaks seem to wave at you with their long fingers of Spanish moss, diffusing the afternoon sun into a sparkling haze underneath their centuries-old canopy. Then, from behind the trees you catch the first glimpse of the four story white mansion they call Greyfield. Built in 1900 as a wedding gift to the Carnegie’s daughter, Margaret, this home is still furnished with many of the original pieces of that era but with exceptional modern day comforts (ummm…air-conditioning). As you walk up the grand staircase to the second floor porch lined with rocking chairs and swinging daybeds, you regret how short your stay is. Now, up in the canopy of live oaks, you overlook the property of white picketed fences and fields of grazing wild horses and as they offer you organic rosemary lemonade, if you’re like me, you think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

The house, grand as it is, still holds a very sweet intimacy. At night, sitting out by the waterway looking back on her, she stands a soft pearly white in the light of the moon, framed by Spanish moss draped trees with a golden light glowing out of every window, so warm and welcoming you would swear the evening was meant just for you. The charm extends to the inside with its historic clawfoot bathtubs, immaculate upkeep, full service bar, organic meals, classic high quality southern linens and L’Occitane toiletries. Every evening, men in dinner jackets and ladies in our sweet southern dresses snack on hors d’oeuvres and classic Southern cocktails (recipe for my favorite below!), awaiting a dinner bell around 7:30 where we all move into the formal dining room for that night’s seasonal meal which at times can harvest ingredients from Greyfield’s own impressive garden.

I know on busy New York days or times when I’m caught in a blizzard, I will think back on this memory and my soul will fill with the warmth of these sunny afternoons, lost on Cumberland Island in a dream called Greyfield

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HowAboutWe…

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It’s that time of year, where were we all desperately want 60 degree days and to see the color green again fill our parks… but alas, here we are, soon the snow will begin falling quietly outside. The mother of a friend taught me something new recently that I have been trying to live by since my recent transformation: “Make it fun”. We all get stuck in situations that are not ideal (like winter) and instead of being negative about it, find a way to make it fun!

A couple of weekends ago Kevin used HowAboutWe for Couples to turn these last few winter days into a fun memory of the season with a romantic snow-covered mountain horseback ride! I’m beside myself with excitement waiting for the next season of Game of Thrones to begin so it was quite fun being a couple hours outside the city in complete silence pretending I was Khaleesi. You know I love horseback riding…I love seeing the world from a slightly higher perspective, watching winter’s angular shadows dance by as if they were the ballerina legs of nature.

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This is Glamorous~

glam•mour: an exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness : alluring or fascinating attraction- often used attributively

As seen on This is Glamorous 

• Styling by Anne Sage

• Makeup by Alex Almeida

• Accessories by Bando

• Dresses by Ashley Cheeks & Jenny Yoo

• Model Theresa Berenato

All images taken with my Hasselblad 500c & Kodak Tri-x 400 film & processed at home