Friday Frivolity no. 4: The Onion House

designing my dream home // towels, glass boxes, and raspberry jelly // mordents of wisteria

The Onion House

“Life is probably round”

— Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo

“…we live in the roundness of life, like a walnut that becomes round in its shell.”

— Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Since childhood, I have often had this notion that my ideal house would be built like an onion—that is to say, round and in layers. Although I despise the onion as a vegetable qua vegetable, I must admit that as an architectural ideal it is irreproachable. After all, once it has entered that realm, taste and smell will be removed, everything will be abstracted for the noble purpose of Beauty, and the object inspired will separate itself from the source of its inspiration.

Now, let us then embark upon the streets of our imagination. We will have to take a left just up there, and then a right, and then down this street a little, past these houses, and then—ah yes, here it is! The last time I was here it was winter, and you could see the house through the branches. Now the green of summer has swept through them, and this froth of foliage covers all. Up the steps we go, and down the front path… you will see a lamppost, a basket of flowers on its arm, yellow and pink and white ones, cheerfully mingled. There are day lilies in the garden and foxgloves and roses and maiden pinks and dogwood shrubs. From the sweetness of this scene, the Onion House emerges, a globe of glass.

The front door, were it not for the path leading directly to it, the glass doorknob on it, and next to it the little glass button for the doorbell and a little slot for mail, would be indistinguishable from the rest of the house. Enter in, and you are in the outermost layer; it is a kind of extended foyer. Behind the glass is a white wall, with windows here and there, and it slopes down to the floor. Various trees come up through the floor and spread their branches and leaves; some bloomed in the spring, and I imagine they must have been very pretty then. If you look up, you will see that this layer has no floors: it is possible to see all the way to the very top of the dome and check in with the clouds. Interspersed throughout are various little seating areas. Near the entrance is a little table, curved to match the curvature of the wall, with a painting above it. This layer is the most public, and therefore it is very welcoming, with lots of sunlight and greenery.

The next outermost layer also has more of a public function. Unlike the first layer, which is continuous, this layer is divided into rooms or areas: the kitchen, flowing into the family room; the living room; the formal dining room. They are divided from one another so that each can be given its own personality: for example, the dining room has beautiful wainscoting, while the living room wallpaper is painted with birds and flowers that almost seem animate, like the painted garden from the Villa of Livia. 

painted garden from the Villa of Livia, Rome

The layer within that is the library, and only library—books from floor to ceiling, and many comfortable squishy chairs to read them in, of course. I am of the firm opinion that a house without books is not a home. Perhaps there will be more books than people or time to read them, but the possibility of knowledge, the physical gathering of so much wisdom from various times and places and voices and fields, sparks wonder and invention, and a home should have many potential sources of inspiration, for who knows when a book will one day call to you—as you sit there twiddling your thumbs—with a plaintive voice, pleading to be read? 

The bedrooms inhabit the next layer. I can’t quite say what the other bedrooms are like—some are for guests—but I know that mine is very cozy and filled with art and flowers and books. It has a lovely writing desk and one of those revolving book tables from the 1800s and a window seat and a little secret passage to—well, I don’t know what exactly, but isn’t it delightful for a house to have secret passages and little nooks and corners that pop up unexpectedly, like epiphanies? 

The innermost sanctum of the Onion House is a courtyard. All of the bedrooms have balconies that look out onto it—it is great fun to stand on your balcony and shout to someone across the way on their balcony. There is a large mosaic on the floor and several fountains sending out the sweet noise of water burbling up and falling and plants which change from season to season and a few tables and chairs for reading and conversation and board games and ivy climbing up the columns. 

The idea of this house was conceived in me in childhood, has stayed with me, and puzzles me. Why this organization? But, when one thinks of it, isn’t the self, too, built in layers? We all have our outward fronts—transparent, perhaps, but not with every door flung open—and to know someone means to proceed from layer to layer, accessing first the foyers of outer warmth and welcome, then the rather formal stiffness, the reservations, the solemnity, the decorum, proceeding to deeper knowledge, intimacy, and the gardens of delight where the heart is to be found. 

How possible this house really is, whether it ought or ought not to come to fruition, I cannot say, for as we leave the neighborhood of Imagination and walk off into the duller precincts of Reality, it starts to grow hazy and indistinct, until reduced at last to a speck on a street which has no name.

Mood Board of the Week

1. Jordgubbar Towel by Ekelund—This is very much in keeping with the theme of interior design/home decoration. I first came across these textiles by Ekelund in a little shop with my mother; the Swedish company has been in operation since 1692, and they have the cutest towels, table runners, napkins, pillowcases, etc. I love how bright and cheerful the patterns are, and this one seems especially lovely for summer. 

2. Valentin Loellmann’s house in Maastricht, photographed by Anne-Emmanuelle Thion for Milk Magazine—Loellmann is a designer (you can see some of his work here), and he shaped this river-facing house without a plan—it feels very organic. In his own words: “The changing reflections of light on the water, the wind, the vegetation, are an integral part of my balance. I was raised in a large house in the country, I love nature deeply, it soothes and inspires me continually…. What interests me is not so much the room that I create, but what I invest in it. My positive energy.”

   

   

   Home of Valentin Loellmann and Jip Linckens, photographed by Anne-Emanuelle Thion

   

   Loellmann's house photographed by Kasia Gatkowska for the NYT

3. 1927 René Lalique Box Primevères Frosted Glass with Pink Patina—I favorited this ages ago on 1stDibs and then totally forgot about it until some of the pink colors in this moodboard and the idea of interiors and home decor reminded me of it. It’s now sold out—unfortunately I think this design in pink is quite rare, because most of the ones being sold are clear/white. Lalique is known for his work in jewelry and glass in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, and the precision and delicacy of these flowers—primevères means “primroses” in French—is lovely. 

4. Grace Kelly in Monte Carlo in 1972—When people think of Grace Kelly, they usually picture her as the embodiment of 1950s glamor and elegance, one of Hitchcock’s iconic blondes. At the age of 26, however, she quit Hollywood to marry Prince Rainier III and become the Princess of Monaco, and this picture showcases an older Grace Kelly in a style that epitomizes the 1970s: colorful Pucci kaftan, pink turban, Rolleiflex camera. She looks so full of life here—the perfect vibe for summer.

5. John Ashbery’s house in Hudson, New York—John Ashbery is one of my favorite poets, and a few years ago I discovered the John Ashbery’s NEST project by the Yale Digital Humanities Lab. The project provides a virtual tour of Ashbery’s house, a beautiful Victorian home which he bought in 1978, restored, and decorated with furniture and objects that often made their way into his poems. The way the house is decorated reflects Ashbery’s diverse and eclectic interests, with art and objects from all sorts of eras and cultures: prints by Hiroshige and Hokusai, a Willem de Kooning lithograph, trompe l’oeil ceramics, a Popeye trash can, his father’s armchair. The virtual tour allows you to click on various objects and learn more about them, often accompanied by Ashbery himself reading a related passage from his poems.

6. Garden Scene Tapestry Skirt by Kristin Mallison—Mallison recycles vintage French tapestries into skirts, corsets, and dresses, and I would totally wear all of these, they’re adorable. She also has some lovely pieces made of sequins, lace, and organza. 

   

   

   Kristin Mallison

7. Ken Howard, Dora Reading—Howard was born in 1932 and died in 2022; he once described himself as “the last Impressionist.” He has a few more paintings also called Dora Reading, and the light, flowers, and coziness of these scenes are beautiful.

   

   Ken Howard, Dora Reading

8. Raspberry Jelly Earrings by Annele—I love glass anything, but especially when glass is made to imitate animals or objects from the natural world, and these glass bead earrings are imitative of raspberries! I actually think they look a little like clusters of grapes—either way, this color is so pretty, and I love their transparency and the way the light shines through them. 

9. Tess (1979)—Tess is Roman Polanski’s adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, one of my favorite books. The fact that Roman Polanski directed this movie pains me because I think this adaptation is the best and most beautiful, and Nastassja Kinski is one of my favorite actresses ever—but the creepy thing is that in 1977, Polanski was charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles, then fled for France; Tess is about a 16-year-old country girl who is sent to “claim kin” (dubiously) with a rich widow, but the widow’s son, Alec d’Urberville, preys upon her and rapes her in the woods. Tess eventually falls in love with and is loved in return by Angel Clare—they meet on a dairy farm, and pictured in the mood board is the scene in which he carries the four milkmaids across a swollen river because, of course, they can’t ruin their “white stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac gowns.” His preference for Tess becomes obvious—“Do you know that I have undergone three-quarters of this labour entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?” The cinematography of the countryside throughout is like a dream.

3 Things I’m In Love With

1. Minton Haddon Hall Salt and Pepper Shakers—Minton, created in 1793, was an important English manufacturer of porcelain and Majolica; in the 1970s it merged with companies like Royal Doulton and then disappeared. These are part of the Haddon Hall service and are so pretty—a lovely idea for a gift. 

   

   from Au Bain Marie

2. This person dressed as a column by artist and milliner Maryam Keyhani—I came across Keyhani’s work in Travel + Leisure and was intrigued by the hats, but then I found this image which is just so funny to me—it’s like the cartoonish cousin of Gianfranco Ferré’s 1992 Palladio dress for Dior. 

   

   Maryam Keyhani

   

   Palladio dress by Gianfranco Ferré for Dior (1992)

3. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)—everything else in this newsletter is so lighthearted that I was hesitant to bring this in, but the cinematography and colors are so beautiful that I had to. This is my third Werner Herzog film (after Nosferatu and Woyzeck, both starring Klaus Kinski, the father of Nastassija Kinski mentioned above) and my favorite so far. A dark tale about the limits of ambition—or white people blundering through South America to their own peril. 

Words of Wisdom

Jenny Holzer, image from Artsy

This is from Jenny Holzer’s Survival series. To me it’s about making the best of a bad situation—just said in a way that’s so poetic and vivid I haven’t been able to get it out of my head, which is what, I think, language is for after all!

Poetry Corner

The Mad Scene

Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,
Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust,
Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen.
Fingers were running in panic over the flute's nine gates.
Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed
To see us wrung white, gnarled together, one
Topmost mordent of wisteria,
As the lean tree burst into grief.

—James Merrill

James Merrill was one of the best-known American poets of the second half of the 20th century. His father, Charles. E. Merrill of Merrill Lynch fame, privately published Merrill’s first book of poems his senior year of high school; his first publicly published collection came out in 1946 when he was 20, and he went on to win virtually ever major poetry award in the United States. I love the way his poetry is informed by traditional verse forms while also incorporating a great deal of innovation and experimentation. There is a concision and elegance to it, and the imagery always surprises and delights.

This poem has been one of my favorites for years, but as it describes a dream, it also has the peculiarities of a dream—I can’t quite say what it’s about, or why I like it so much, only that the language and images are beautiful to me. I love how the dream is given a capitalized name—Laundry. I love the phrases like “milk-stiff,” “moon-marbly,” and “cloud-clot.” I love the way “roan mane” sounds, the way the ee sounds in “lean” and “tree” are echoed by the ee sound in “grief,” as if the those sounds have literally “burst” out. I love the second half of the poem’s description of a rainstorm, how vivid it is. Most of all, I love how the line “mordent of wisteria” takes an image from music and transposes it onto the “wrung,” “gnarled,” twisted shape of wisteria, echoing the “r” and “t” sounds to make that transposition even stronger, and how we have three metaphors layered together: 1) the couple “wrung together” like the laundry from earlier in the poem, 2) wisteria as a metaphor for the couple, 3) mordent as a metaphor for wisteria.

"mordent of wisteria"

Beauty Tip

Take an area of your living space that’s bland or boring and give it some color, pattern, and life—get some embroidered sofa cushions, hang up a print, find a lovely coaster.

Lingering Question

Is there something in your own life you can apply metaphorical thinking to in order to reconceptualize it?