Let the Adirondack Bells Ring

This bell has been hanging on the exterior of the main lodge at Penwood for as long as I can remember. At least since the 60's, but probably before. I think it was meant as a dinner bell - to call the loungers by the water, at the dock and at the beach to come up to the house. Last summer, we rejuvenated it by adding a strip of knotted leather as a pull with which to ring the bell. We don't use it any more than we did before, but we could, and it looks rustic and - well, Adirondack. The Old Forge Hardware sells strips of leather cheaply. (They also sell a lot of other great things, from books to yarn, furniture, Adirondack souvenirs, and games. The last time I visited, there was a great selection of heavy iron puzzles, the kind you can put on a coffee table and let the guests go to it. Anyway, if you have not been there, you should go: the Old Forge Hardware is on Main Street in Old Forge.) Ding!

Orchid Obsession

Gardening is hard enough, but orchids require something special. A lot of patience and knowledge and experience, to begin with. But the payoff is huge - look at this orchid! Orchids in the home are like small, delicate pieces of living sculpture. The variety of orchids is astounding and, for many reasons, the orchid brings out the obsessive side of people. In designing and decorating your home, the object is to create a place of beauty and repose, a refuge from the world and a place of peace for you and your friends and family. Orchids will help you along in this work. For more information about orchids, and to purchase orchids, visit Calyx & Corolla or Piping Rock Orchids. The experts can be found at the American Orchid Society.

John Derian Decoupage is Out of this World

John Derian started producing gorgeous decoupage pieces by hand several years ago. Taking antique prints, letters, postcards and other antique papers, he created designs for glass trays, paper weights, and other items. Now, his designs are very popular in New York and around the country. Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue as well as other fine retailers, carry his work. His little shop in downtown New York City has so many wonderful things that I am afraid to visit it too often. Next door, his impeccable sense of style is on display in a store featuring art, sculpture, and other items for the home. John Derian is amazing, as the tray shown here, from his Halloween collection, demonstrates. Visit him online or stop by his shops in New York.

Stealth Camp

Some of our friends who have Adirondack homes like to remove trees and brush to open their view of the lake. We take a different approach, trying to blend the home with the woods and taking out as few trees as possible. Of course, some trees die as a result of the trauma of construction, but here you can see how well the house blends with, becomes a part of, the woods around it. From the water, you can see only a bit of the evergreen shingling and yet we have great light and views of the lake. Being a steward of the Adirondack Park means being a good stewart of your own land, keeping it healthy and treading lightly. We think a stealth camp is much better than a camp that shouts for attention.

Snow Transforms the Landscape

With winter upon us, I have been thinking of how dramatically the landscape changes in the Adirondacks at each season. This little boathouse, at Twin Coves, looks and feels like a different place in the winter than in the summer. You can see it out the windows from one of our guest rooms and I always snap a few photos of it when I have the chance. Standing in the same spot, taking the photo, it even feels as if I am in a different place - the silence surrounds and penetrates the forest when it snows. The boats and fishermen are gone. The waves no longer lap up against the shore and the breakwater. The beach is frozen, mute. This boathouse is in a small bay called Pine Bay and is eerily quiet when the snow comes. Isn't it grand?

Great Furniture is a Family Affair

A family in Arkansas makes stunning Arts & Crafts style furniture. We discovered them on ebay and purchased two twin beds and a side table from them. Dryad Studios provides great service and fine workmanship. Really, they provide old fashioned dedication to their craft and to their customers. That is a rare thing today. Our table and beds arrived on time, in great shape, and look fabulous. This small side table or night table is an example of their excellent work. Visit Dryad Studios to learn more or check out ebay for Dryad's latest auctions or sales. You will be very glad that you did.

Fresh Flowers Everywhere

Each week, we replenish our supply of fresh flowers. These are calla lillies in an arts and crafts vase sitting atop a dining table by Stickley. Flower arrangements in the home can be very simple and still be as stunning as an arrangement from a good florist that costs $200. Pick a simple but well designed vase and keep the arrangement simple and you can't lose. Never try to do too much, with too may colors. Change the flowers often and try them in different places throughout the home. Bring nature inside and see what a difference it makes, for you and your guests. Remember to do a fresh flower arrangement for your guest room before your guests arrive; nothing shows you care about their visit like a fresh flower arrangement. We love Calyx & Corolla for fresh cut flowers, plants, bonsai and holiday arrangements.

The Adirondack Boys Love: Antique Clocks

Antique clocks are a little like antique boats, like our 1953 Chris Craft mahogany runabout. They are temperamental; they have their odd quirks, but they're beautiful and add a richness and sense of history to our Adirondack lives. The clocks need to be wound every day. The Chris Craft needs to be driven every day, at least started. But the sound of the clock ticking, like the sound of the Christ Craft engine roaring to life, are unlike anything made today. No beeping. No synthesized cute tunes. Just: tick-tock. . .and roar! Both antique clocks and antique boats have passionate followings, especially in the North Country. There is a clock repairman who also sells antiques from his house across from Fifth Lake every summer - he also has a great collection of antique post cards for sale. And antique and classic boats are everywhere on the Fulton Chain. What would lake life be without them?

To shop is human, to collect divine

We admit that we're antiques junkies. Whenever we find ourselves in a new place, the first thing we look for are interesting antique shops. When others go hunting, we go antiquing. A well-collected interior brings interest and a story to a home, such as is the case with these Japanese paper dolls. Visitors to our house always ask us about them. Although they're small, they never escape notice. All in all, I've never regretted buying an antique that I love. I have, however, regretted walking away from one for one reason or another. Sometimes, the antiques I didn't buy stay with me more than those I did.

There is no substitute for woodwork

If you're thinking about building in the Arts & Crafts or Adirondack style, you cannot underestimate the importance of woodwork. Wood creates depth, presence and texture, even in a small home. It can instantly transform a new house into something that seems to have decades of history behind it. It humanizes any space. When we were picking stain colors for all of our woodwork, we went rather dark, inspired by the Centennial finish that Stickley currently offers. Everyone tried to talk us out of it: our contractor, our cabinetmaker and even our architect. And yet, once all the staining was done, everyone agreed that the finished woodwork lent a presence to our house that no one could have imagined.

For Arts & Crafts interiors, quartersawn white oak is the classic choice of wood for all millwork, but it can be prohibitively expensive. So we chose to be strategic about our wood choices. For much of the woodwork, we chose to use red oak and then reserved white oak for showstoppers, such as our front door.

The Adirondack Garden: Cinnamon Ferns

The Adirondack gardener faces huge challenges to success: a very short season, deer willing to eat almost anything, exceptionally cold winters, and soil quality that varies by the foot. We had great success this year with hydrangea and with river birch trees. The deer seemed to stay away from them, which is a big hunk of the battle. The cinnamon fern, above, thrives at the water's edge. This one comes back every year, right by our bridge. They bloom into incredibly full, vibrant plants and are more stunning than anything we have brought to the property.

Furniture for the Forest

The new snow in the Park this past week has gotten us thinking about our outdoor furniture, like these two simple Adirondack chairs. Every homeowner should think about his or her outdoor furnishings as carefully as they consider their indoor furnishings. Chairs, benches, tables - they can do more than serve a utilitarian purpose: they can invite guests to share a view, visit a special spot, take a break, look out at the lake. They can also be sculptural - punctuating the forest, decorating and enhancing it. We love Marston & Langinger for garden and outdoor furniture.

The Importance of Art in the Adirondack Home

Art is important - in our lives, in our homes. The Adirondack home is no different. Surrounding ourselves with beautiful paintings, antique prints (like the one above, given to us by a friend of ours and frequent Penwood visitor), fine photographs or sculpture is important. These things uplift us, they change the mood of a home and reveal your taste, style and interests to your guests. Our house is eclectic in its art collection: we have modern prints, antique engravings, black and white photographs of native americans, along with the artwork of my grandmother, Dorothea Gordon, whose china painting was extraordinary. One of her pieces is posted below - Lady with Poodle. Every home can be an art gallery; walls should not just be covered -- they should be adorned.

The Thanksgiving Table, Adirondack Style

We had always wanted to have Thanksgiving in the Adirondacks. Now that we have a year-round home, we celebrated the first Penwood Thanksgiving at this table. The table is by Stickley, as are the chairs. The chairs are Harvey Ellis by Stickley, each with inlay in the back of the chair. The snow was beginning to build up outside and the fire was burning inside. The table was set for the culinary show. We love round dining tables like this one because nobody is at the head - and it promotes great conversations.

Blackie, Our Baby Black Bear

Black bears are a part of life in the Adirondacks. We just don't want them in our garage eating packages of Hostess "donuts" left around by the caretaker. This little guy visited us briefly and scared the hell out of my little brother Rob. On another day, the bear and his mother visited Penwood, took a bag from McDonald's from a tractor and ate french fries while watching the workmen build our house. Still, I like them far better than the deer, which love to eat our plants, and are beginning to push me over the brink. My father had the grand idea of putting a salt lick out on an old tree stump to feed the deer. Now they think they own Penwood and have been tearing through the plant life like crazy. We'll take a baby Black bear over deer any day.

The Adirondack Boys Love: Antique Alabaster Lamps

Overhead lighting is so - over. We love lamplight because it's gentle, elegant, and beautiful. A lamp like this one, in alabaster, is an inexpensive way to add style to a room. Here, the lamp sits beside a bed in the guest bedroom with a copy of American Bungalow (great magazine, by the way, for all Arts & Crafts bungalow fans), on a handmade adirondack wood table purchased at the Inlet craft show a few years ago. Alabaster lamps are regularly available on ebay and can be customized with a beautiful shade (this one is linen). Whatever you do, stay away from fluorescent lights: it makes us sick even thinking about them.

Adirondack Trees in Jeopardy?

Are the trees of the Adirondack Park dying? We have noticed that more trees are diseased and dying at Penwood in recent years than in years past. Some are destroyed by disease, creeping up the majestic trees and strangling them from the roots to the top, slowly, deliberately, until they are sufficiently weakened that a strong gust of wind can finish them off. Others are taken out by the weather - record winds this past weekend downed a dozen trees at Penwood, including a venerable old friend that stood at the entryway to the Nina's Camp driveway. Trees on the Penwood peninsula have had a tough time of it: the forest was decimated by raging fire prior to its acquisition by Helen Seymour Sylvester and her husband William. At that time, around 1901, the land was known as Burnt Point -- for obvious reasons. The Sylvesters set about building not only a spectacular great camp lodge, boathouse, pump house, dock, lean-tos, privy, and other structures, but replanted the land with hemlocks and pine trees. Today, we are replanting as well, though so far we have mostly planted white birches and river birches. Plant trees now: it's nothing short of an investment in the future of the Park.

No better place for them ...

Now, I love New York City. And I happen to think it's one of the best places in the world for dogs (of a certain kind). Few places have the number of services, products and activities continuously available to its canine denizens. I've long believed that New Yorkers expend so much cash and energy on our dogs because we feel somewhat guilty to subject them to life in the megalopolis day after day, and we feel the need to compensate them for making the stresses and uncertainty of the City that much more bearable. And so in our neighborhood, we have scores of pet stores, daycare centers, grooming salons and health and wellness providers. We even have two dog parks (one for large dogs, other other for small ones). In New York, velvet ropes are not exclusive to humans.

And yet, as much activity as our dog, pictured here, sees in the City, it falls short of the pleasure she experiences at Penwood. In the Adirondacks, Audrey expresses an entirely different side of herself. It's as if her inner wolf comes out. Quite simply, she gets Penwood in ways that I never will. She can navigate the forest easily in the darkest of moonless nights. She can sense creatures that I scarcely notice. Even the quality of her bark changes. When we get ready to go up to the house, she can hardly contain her excitement and drags us all the way to the garage a few blocks away, only to fall fast asleep once she reaches the back seat. She's not stupid - why stay up for a long, boring drive, when you can rest up and gather all your energy for your arrival at the destination? And she expends that energy. She roams the forest, digs, runs endlessly and stalks a whole host of creatures that frequent the forest. And so, our dainty, rather well-mannered city dog who prefers playing with Shih-Tzu's (but not poodles), eats organic treats and keeps a monthly appointment at the doggie salon transforms into something else. I guess that, in the Adirondacks, she just becomes more of herself.

Adirondack Reader

Among the greatest pleasures in life is reading a good book. Aside from reading them, books look wonderful almost anywhere in a well decorated house. They add visual interest, provide places to explore on a rainy afternoon, and reveal your style. The writer and photographer Ralph Kylloe has published some of the most beautiful books about Adirondack style and design. His new book, Adirondack Home, is our favorite. Our copy sits on our coffee table in the camp's living room for our guests to read. Sometimes I put it in the guest room to give the guests a visual introduction to the Park on their first night in the woods. For more on Ralph Kylloe, see www.ralphkylloe.com. By the way, there is a great little bookstore in Inlet called The Adirondack Reader. It is in the middle of town, near the Town Hall, across the street from the Tamarac Restaurant and movie theater. It is run by Reggie Chambers, a teacher and resident of the area for many years. It's not Barnes & Noble - and that's why we love it. Stop in to visit Reggie if you ever pass through Inlet.

The Perfect Little Balcony

This is the balcony in our camp's guest suite, which we call the Hideout. The Hideout balcony is small but it works well for its intended purpose: a place to look out at the bay on Fourth Lake, to have coffee in the morning and read the newspaper. French doors lead to the balcony, so guests can open the doors and have a breeze and enjoy the view. It feels a little like being in a tree house, to sit on the balcony or rest on the bed just next to the doors. The chairs are from the Sundance Catalog, but have been discontinued. The balcony floor is made of fir. Shingles are cedar shakes, stained by hand in Evergreen. The pulley in the corner of this photo was used by our stone mason to haul granite up from the ground as he built our chimney. We try to set up as many opportunities as we can for our guests to appreciate the views, the silence, the air. This is one place they - and we - love to enjoy.