By Deba Leach
FORTY YEARS AGO I met an artist named Doris Lee. Sadly I did not meet her in person. I met her then and kept on meeting her through her work. She showed her Midwestern roots and her sense of humor through a small black-and-white etching called “Country Wedding,” a gift to my sister who had married a guy from Iowa. A few years later the joke was on me as I married my own “farm boy,” also from Iowa.
Since then Doris has kept reintroducing herself to me in unexpected ways–a charming 1950s movie-star head shot of Doris on a Life magazine cover peeking through the stacks of archived issues in the then-perusable stacks at the Library of Congress. Doris had been sent to Mexico, or maybe it was Morocco, and her colorful travel sketches captured the color and design of the local garb. Years later on a trip with my sister to an antique warehouse in Santa Barbara, I spy in their racks an unclaimed, lively still-life painting by Lee looking for a home. Mine.
Doris Emrick Lee, born in Aledo, Illinois, in 1905, died in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983–so I COULD have met her if I had tried–after a long and productive life, much of it spent in the company of other more well-known artists like Milton Avery in Woodstock, New York. Her art is in major museum collections, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA).
Her estate–organized by its New York art dealer and Lee champion art dealer D. Wigmore–was rich in art and archives. Boxes of notebooks for sketching, clippings used as source material, letters to and from her galleries and her collaborators all reside safely in the archives of the NMWA Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center. Some have been chosen for sharing in a display case on the fourth floor. The museum’s sole Lee painting–I will let you discover which one but it has to do with fruit–will hang above the display case. A visit to this small informative exhibit should be a nice lunchtime diversion for anyone who works nearby or near a Metro stop. Oh, and another painting by Lee, a late one showing how she kept pace with modernism–this one (untitled but called “The Baby”) hangs in my bedroom and is used as a focal point for my fellow yoga classmates for a steady tree pose. I am pretty sure Doris would have gotten a kick out of that.
“Doris Lee: American Painter and Illustrator” opens Nov. 17 at NMWA and runs through May 8, 2015.
Deba Leach, a former Washington DC art dealer, is set to begin research on American art as a graduate student at the University of Iowa.
Juleanna Glover / Photo by Dave Kennedy
The quintessential political insider, Juleanna Glover has worked on the staffs of prominent Republicans, including Dick Cheney and Senator John McCain, whom she advised on his 2008 bid for the White House. For the past 11 months she has been working as a corporate consultant, advising companies on mergers and change management issues. We talked to her last month about how she entertains.
JK: Traditional, sit-down parties given during the days of great hostesses like Katharine Graham have vanished. Now they’re events in honor of someone, for a cause, a book party, that sort of thing.
JG: My entertaining is low-key and unstructured and bookended by my demanding job and family life (I have four children ages 3 to 16). I do it because of a personal connection to someone, say to an author, or to an organization. Entertaining helps you do your job. Washington is a funny, nepotistic city. The ability to know allies and opponents is inherently a benefit in coalitions, campaigns and press outreach.
JK: You and your partner Christopher Reiter (who owns the 14th Street boutique Muleh) recently gave a party at your home for Wayne Pacelle, CEO of The Humane Society, in honor of his book “The Bond: Our Kinship With Animals, Our Call to Defend Them.” What’s the connection? What did you serve? How many people were there?
JG: A friend of mine who’s a prominent fundraiser asked if I’d be interested in hosting a book party. We’re fans of the organization — our cats and dogs are all rescues — and we were delighted to be helpful. I think it must have been the first-ever vegetarian cocktail party. We served pizza, sushi and macarons for 120.
JK: Are your parties professionally catered?
JG: Not really. We order from Buca di Peppo or Moby Dick House of Kabob or a sushi restaurant. Franco Nuschese from Cafe Milano has sent a pizza chef who comes with dough and ingredients for guests to create their own pizza. For servers, I typically work with a church congregation; they send out folks who work on parties. Also, it’s a family affair — everybody pitches in. I don’t know whether it’s legal or not, but my kids inquire whether guests want white or red wine. Even my 3-year-old was a big help. He laid out wine glasses with only a couple of casualties.
JK: Do you have any secrets to share about hosting a good party? Long- time Neiman Marcus PR person Patti Cumming’s rule of thumb was to always have a bottle of white wine out and open sitting next to glasses so even as you fuss with the first guests’ coats, people can busy themselves with getting something to drink.
JG: It helps to be a serial introducer and know how to put people together who don’t know one another. I look for people who might not be actively engaged and bring them over to other guests.
JK: Any dress code for your events?
JG: People can wear whatever they like. Bringing their wits with them is most important.
JK: What’s next on your social agenda?
JG: An event for the opening of “La Boheme” at the Kennedy Center. People like me struggle to have time to go to the opera. This party is a cocktail reception during a rehearsal, designed to interest younger people in opera. Also, it will last only two hours, not four.
JK: Have you scheduled any just-for-fun holiday fetes?
JG: Haven’t thought about it yet. My three younger sisters and I have done “a night before night before” Christmas party in past years, but I don’t know if we’ll have time this year.
–Janet Kelly
Luxury is a Turkish suite in the Marti Istanbul.
IT’S HARD FOR A white-bread American to visit Istanbul, the bustling old soul of Turkey, and not feel foreign. Yes, in the heart of downtown you’re surrounded by people, locals and tourists alike, in jeans and running shoes. But there’s the skyline, punctuated by minarets, and the sound, five times a day, of competing muezzins calling the faithful to prayer. And of course there’s the Grand Bazaar, seemingly an entire indoor city, complete with “street” signs overhead, its shops selling everything from tacky souvenirs to underwear to antique copper and fine jewelry.
So maybe you retreat to your hotel room, where chances are it will seem as if you never left home: air conditioning, check; bathroom toiletries, check; minibar, check. Even the buffet breakfast will feel familiar, with omelets, toast and corn flakes mixing it up with the olives and cheese Turks favor for starting their day.
All the more reason to spend time at the Marti Istanbul and specifically in one of the two-year-old hotel’s Turkish Suites. The Marti doesn’t waste its Turkishness on the lobby, which is as sleek and modern and business-like as any top-notch international hotel. But the roomy, soothing Turkish Suites–ah, there was the difference.
Let’s ignore the neckroll on the lavishly swaddled bed embroidered “Eternity”: The next day I planned to travel to Washington, not to my Final Reward, so the mention of the hereafter was a bit disconcerting. The catnip was the hammam-style bathroom.
Hammams, Turkish baths, dot the city, but quite frankly their exotic looks coupled with unfamiliar routines turned this tourist into a wimp. A hammam in the privacy of my own hotel room brought Turkish culture to rest side by side with the minibar. Was that just too, too American of me? So be it. I had tramped around the Taksim Square area earlier in the day, run an errand in the Grand Bazaar and taxied the congested streets with a friend to get to Ortakoy, a lively area by the water filled with young people eating enormous baked potatoes topped with yogurt, eggplant, slices of sausages, olives and anything else Mediterranean in nature. In a city of 11 million people, all in one another’s way, I craved the serenity of my Turkish Suite.
The entire marble-clad bath complex in the suite was quite large. An extra-long soaking tub extended along one wall; opposite were two tiny rooms entered through marble arches, one for the toilet and bidet, the other for the shower. So began my watery evening: first a long soak with the provided bath salts, then, in the shower room, a rinse-off with the hand-held spray, then a full-on dowsing from the overhead rain shower. The little shower room was rimmed with heated marble benches, so I sat and contemplated the fourth water feature, the curious small hammam basin with its own faucet. Tucked into one corner of the bench lay a true Turkish towel, a thin, incredibly absorbent veil of linen. Underneath were soap and a scrub mitt and a shallow copper bowl. A quick consultation with Google revealed the technique: allow water to fill the marble basin, then dip the copper bowl to pour the water over my shoulders, whether lounging on the heated marble or just standing like a self-conscious American tourist.
Like several other luxury hotels in the city, the Marti Istanbul offers apartment-size Roman and hammam baths on the spa floor, the bubbling, cascading waters creating a languid atmosphere indeed. But I was smitten with my in-room perk. So relaxed–and water-logged–was my evening that I spared only a few minutes for Mixo Terrace, the hotel’s stunning rooftop bar, with its panoramic view. And after one of those baked potatoes, dinner would have been redundant.
But the four kinds of water features in my Turkish Suite? Not redundant at all!
–Nancy McKeon
Marti Istanbul Hotel, Abdulhakhamit Caddesi No. 25/B, Taksim, 34435 Istanbul, Turkey; phone +90-212-987-4000, martiistanbulhotel.com. Nonrefundable-price king or twin room, about $243 weeknights, $224 weekends; nonrefundable-price Turkish Suite, $460 weeknights, $440 weekends.
Ilona Smithkin, Joyce Carpati and Lynn Dell of “Advanced Style.”
HMMMM. HARD TO KNOW what we expected, this mixed crowd of age, beauty and style of one sort or another who sat expectantly at the AMC Loews Georgetown last Saturday to see a screening of “Advanced Style” (see previous post). And, my guess is many of us are still puzzled. Ari Seth Cohen tells us at the beginning of the film, a documentary about fashionable women “between 50 and death,” that he was inspired by his two very stylish grandmothers to photograph stylish older women of New York City. The personalities whom he chooses to focus his attention on become much more than mannequins to him. His interest is in more than their particular styles; through them one senses he is extending his fantasy of his grandmothers in ways that they may never have imagined for themselves. That is as deep as I am prepared to go in trying to find the reason for this film.
Finding creative, expressive individuals of all ages has not been a problem I’ve experienced on the streets of New York. Admittedly, finding women willing to become the subjects of a documentary looking into their personal lives may be harder–but these are women hungry for recognition of their perceived achievements, who have been waiting to be “found” in one way or another–and some, sadly, are still waiting.
I found the film slightly uncomfortable rather than celebratory or even reinforcing. It objectifies these women just as surely as a Playboy centerfold (are those still around?) but with less honesty about exactly what is going on. To find it so unusual that these older women, or women of any age, for that matter, who enjoy fashion and style and are interested in and meticulous about their daily clothing choices, seems a bit condescending to them and to the rest of us. One can appreciate the pent-up and/or expressed creativity, energy and all that New York brass in these few women who are still full of life and living it as best they can, as we hope we all will as time moves on for us. In that sense, I applaud their moxie–but as for their style, well, hmmm.
–Christine Singer
JOYCE, LYNN AND JACQUIE are in their 80s; Debra and Tziporah in their 60s and Ilona is 94. Not the ages of women you’d imagine would ever be the focus of a fashion blog, let alone star in a film.
Inspired by his beloved and fashion-conscious grandmothers, the San Diego-raised photographer Ari Seth Cohen moved to New York and started a blog called “Advanced Style.” The subjects are stylish women over the age of 60 he photographed on the streets–or runways as they’re compared to–of Manhattan. He published the images in a 2012 book and now, with filmmaker Lina Plioplyte, has produced a new documentary featuring intimate portraits of seven women ages 62 to 95, who are challenging ideas about beauty, aging and our culture’s youth obsession.
“Ari and I met in 2008 at a coffee shop in New York where I was working. We bonded over our love of bold, clashing patterns,” says Plioplyte. When he started taking photos, she asked him if she could take some film.
“I was 25 at the time and worried about growing older. The future seemed dark, but then I met these women having the time of their life. It was inspirational.”
When the book came out, these women were becoming famous– they were in ad campaigns and on TV. There were videos on YouTube that were very popular; people wanted to know more. It was clear that a three-minute video about their closet contents was not enough. Plioplyte and Cohen decided to make a documentary.
Getting up close and personal with some of the faces is startling, a reminder of the inexorable process of aging. You see Ilona’s dramatic fringe of eyelashes, which she creates from cutting her own orange-dyed hair, and you think caricature. But Ilona has no fear of the fashion police. She loves and has a closet full of flamboyant colors. You see her in an art class telling her students that painting is 90 percent seeing and joking that her age is “between 50 and death.” You begin to admire her. As you do Debra, in her late 60s, who sports a pink-tipped spiked pixie hairdo and multiple layers and textures of clothing for her preferred sculptural look. “Style is healing,” she says. For Tziporah, dressing is a religion. It’s her art, her livelihood. And if she doesn’t have the head-to-toe 1920s look she’s going for all put together, she waits to wear the outfit until she does.
The message is that clothing has the power to change your day, your life. Put something sparkling on and your mood changes. But it’s not only these women’s passion for fashion that makes the movie, it’s their approach to living, their zest for connection to the world they live in that makes them so appealing and worth emulating.
What’s next? The “Advanced Style” movement? If photographer Ari Seth Cohen has anything to do with it, yes. In the meantime, I’m going to follow my mother’s advice about not going out of the house without looking my best. True, you never know whom you may meet, but more important is the way you’ll feel when you do.
The film will screen this Saturday, Oct. 25 (at 3 and 6 p.m.) at the AMC Loews Georgetown. Tickets are $18 and available via the EventBrite link at www.fadgeorgetown.com. The price includes popcorn and a post-screening moderated Q&A with filmmaker Lina Plioplyte and one of the film’s stars, Debra Rapoport.
–Janet Kelly
Lauren Greenberger, son Matthew and daughter Claire.
IN THE PAST THREE years, Lauren Greenberger has lost her job, gotten divorced, found a new career and moved from Westmoreland Hills in Bethesda to a farm near Poolesville. How did this happen and how is Lauren managing so many changes?
The Past
In 2011, Lauren and husband Rick Gittleman were working side by side in a remote region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the same country where they had met 35 years before, literally on the banks of the Congo (then Zaïre) River when both worked for the Peace Corps. This time Rick was working as a lawyer for an American-based mining company, which also hired Lauren because of her public health work in Congo and elsewhere in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. She worked with government and community leaders on public health initiatives such as well- and latrine-building, and instituting malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS prevention and controls for close to 150,000 people. Previously she had worked on projects for USAID, CDC and WHO, including an early Ebola study.
Making the Career Switch
Several years before, Lauren and Rick had begun searching for a place in the countryside around D.C. where they could spend time and eventually retire. In 2006, they found “a little farm we loved” in Barnesville at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain. Lauren spent weeks fixing it up to rent for the time being.
The former smokehouse is now Lauren’s tool shed.
In 2009, after their younger child left for college, Rick’s law firm moved him temporarily to San Francisco, and while there Lauren determined to “learn more about planting, harvesting, crop-rotation and composting” to prepare for their future farm life. Volunteering at Green Gulch, an organic farm in Marin County that was also a Buddhist Center, Lauren realized she’d learned a lot over the years–starting with her own mother’s organic vegetable gardens. She realized that that she cared about “stewardship of the land” and so began to focus on landscape design.
From California, Rick and Lauren were offered jobs in Congo by the mining company Rick had represented for many years while working at his law firm. They worked there for two years until Lauren’s job ended in a bureaucratic reshuffling in late 2011. Rick stayed in Africa to complete his work, but Lauren moved back to the U.S. to help with her father, who was now alone, and “So I could get ready for the next stage of our life. I had lots of ideas for the farm–as a teaching facility for school groups, an arboretum of native plants, a working farm and gardens.”
She enrolled in a three-month Master Gardener Certificate program offered through the University of Maryland– something else her mother had done –which she completed in 2013. The certificate, well respected in the landscaping community, led quickly to part-time work for Hilltop Gardens in Rockville and soon thereafter to her own clients –a very quick turn-around, for which she had worked very hard.
Challenges and Joys
Between the rigors of a long-distance relationship and other issues, the marriage ended. Unable to keep both houses, Lauren had to decide: Bethesda or the farm. But, she said, “When we decided to divorce, I knew I would move. The momentum was there.” Last spring, they put the Bethesda house on the market. By early August Lauren had settled by herself in the country farmhouse: from most windows, there is no other house in sight.
Work is never done, on the farm as in life.
The hard parts of being alone include making all the decisions by yourself, Lauren said: “If I don’t decide which trash service to use, the trash won’t get picked up; if Comcast isn’t working, it will stay broken until I fix it.” Although she managed most of the household affairs before, Lauren misses having someone to confer with. “Thank God that Matthew [their son, now age 26] grew up, because he explains tech-related things with remarkable patience,” she said.
Lauren also admits that her perennial can-do attitude, when moving to Africa with Rick and afterwards moving to Barnesville, has involved “having the blinders on” about potential difficulties. Now, she says, there is still a little anxiety, “the feeling that I need to have my life all planned out, although in the last year or so I’ve learned to allow myself not to have it all figured out.”
The good part: “Knowing my time is my own,” she said. Going to a bi-annual “native plant sale” in Alexandria, a big deal because small vendors come from all over, she said. “It was so much fun that I could stay all day, without needing to coordinate with anyone else or feeling guilty that I was away too long.”
Also in the summer of 2012, she and her daughter, Claire, who had a stressful job, took Transcendental Meditation (TM) training. Lauren now meditates at least once a day, and says TM provides “that moment in the day where the scattered, anxious thoughts in your head slow down, and it has helped navigate the ‘crazy time’ of the last couple of years.”
Early Signs of Success
In fact, Lauren says, her horticultural success has been growing over a lifetime: from taking the lead years ago on a wild plant sanctuary near her Bethesda home to being recognized at Green Gulch as knowledgeable and resourceful to getting hired for the first time in her new field: “having someone pay me to do what I love–cool!”
Another success: taking a class in “Landscape Graphics” without much drawing experience, she says, “I did well. When I saw my designs next to those of other students, mine were pretty good.” At the Edgemoor Club in Bethesda, where Lauren plays tennis, the members doing a renovation asked her to help with a redesign of the landscape, which she did as a project for the class. “And they’ve implemented much of it!” she said.
Remaining Challenges
Lauren is now doing more work than she wants to but says, “I don’t want to say no. I’m torn because I also want to be out at the farm, get settled, establish myself there.” Until the landscaping pays more, Lauren has some alimony, but she believes that with more confidence and experience she will be able to charge more: “Now I still spend too much time [on each project] because I’m learning as I go.”
Feeling torn as well between two worlds: “My old friends are not far enough way to leave the old world behind.” Also, to avoid bad traffic, she needs to leave the farm early, around 7 a.m., because her clients are mostly in the D.C. area.
Other issues connected to country living include testing the well water, being careful what you put in the drain, etc. During her first week, Lauren was working inside a small shed when the door shut with no inside latch. She was locked in. Unlike Bethesda, she had no neighbors close by. After several hours, she heard a car pull in at the nearest house, called out, and someone heard. And she made a new friend.
Positive Farm Experiences
Returning from a trip, Lauren found a delicious apple pie made from her apples on her front step, a gift from the local girl who waters plants when she’s away. A neighbor, “who just stopped over with her dog,” told Lauren not to get rid of extra china or silverware because “there are so many potlucks out here, you’ll need them!” From an acquaintance “down county” as she now calls Bethesda dwellers, she has met a group of friends in the area, including members of a local watchdog group called the Sugarloaf Citizens Association, which invited Lauren to join their board. “This is my community now!” she said.
While the absence of a grocery store nearby means planning ahead, there are many farm stands, including some that sell milk and eggs. Buying most food at the farm stands means “I eat just what’s in season,” she said, currently: eggplants, tomatoes, onions, apples, peppers. For meat, the farmer who uses Lauren’s land for grazing “owes me a cow.”
Above all, Lauren said, “It’s beautiful. I love driving down my driveway. I love coming home.”
–Mary Carpenter
THE VENERABLE men’s clothier Brooks Brothers has been a fixture in New York since being founded in downtown Manhattan in 1818. But it can be argued that the beating heart of the company resides some 20 miles west of Washington, D.C., in an industrial park in Chantilly, Virginia. 
That’s where the official Brooks Brothers historical archive resides in soothingly dim light and 68 degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus two degrees.
The repository of Brooksiana, shall we call it, owes its richness and its very existence to two men. The first, Donald C. Vaughan, was the company’s director of advertising from 1915 to 1948. He kept files of Brooks’s newspaper advertisements, brochures and historical photos. He even collected novels and other books that mention the company, which made and sold ready-to-wear work clothes for the mining expeditions of the 1849 California Gold Rush, uniforms for Union soldiers in the Civil War and made the custom-tailored overcoat Abraham Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated.
“It’s fair to say we have every piece of paper that mentions Brooks Brothers,” says Kelly Stuart, a lively young woman who bears the rather cumbersome title of Director, Brand Training and Development, but who fairly gushes Brooks history and lore (“I’m a history junkie, and this is the most powerful crack there is,” she says). Vaughan was extraordinary in another way, she explains: In addition to writing the history- and culture-laden advertising for Brooks in the 1930s and ’40s, he answered every customer letter from the 1920s to the ’50s.
Vaughan was the historian of the company. Under him, and following him, Milly Schlesinger was the first to codify all the material; it was she who created the upstairs museum at the Brooks headquarters, which moved to 44th and Madison to take advantage of Grand Central Terminal and its steady flow of business commuters. She was the one, Stuart says, who first gave context to the historic materials, with her “Dear Future BB Historian” letters. Every year Brooks gives a Values Award in Schlesinger’s name.
The other Brooks archive “enabler,” and the reason the archive is in the Washington area, is Bruce Weindruch, co-founder of D.C.’s History Factory, a company created in 1979 to compile and/or manage historical archives for corporations and other organizations.
Being “a lifelong devoted” Brooks customer, Weindruch approached Brooks in 1982 and was invited to visit the Manhattan “attic” where some historical materials were being collected and stored, not necessarily in organized fashion. Six years later, Weindruch and company were assembling the company’s heritage in an archivally responsible way.
For its first 125 years or so, Brooks was a stable company, passing down from the original brothers. The clothier passed out of the family’s hands in 1946, when Henry Sands Brooks’s great-great-grandson, Winthrop Holley Brooks, sold the firm to Julius Garfinckel and Company of Washington, D.C. As the decades passed, the clothier was sold again, to Allied Stores (1981), then to British retailer Marks and Spencer (1988).
Retail turmoil in the 1980s and ’90s made the maintenance of an archive just about the last consideration for the company’s embattled owners. Soon Weindruch was maintaining the collection at his own expense–600 linear feet of processed material–out of belief in the brand and its place in history.
Then came 2001 and new owner Claudio Del Vecchio, who took the company private. The Italian billionaire, a Brooks enthusiast and a lover of its history, thanked the History Factory for preserving the archive, to which Weindruch responded, “No thanks necessary: You’re the guy I’ve been waiting for!” With a stroke of Del Vecchio’s pen (on a bank check), the decade-long back rent and expenses of the archive were satisfied and the collection set firmly on a new footing.
The collection continues to grow. “When you sell clothing,” Kelly Stuart says, “you don’t necessarily think of your clothes as part of your ‘archive,’ but they are.” The National Park Service certainly saw things that way in 1990 when it asked Brooks to make a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s overcoat to be displayed at Ford’s Theatre; Brooks also performed some 300 hours of restoration work on the original.
Those who tend to see Brooks as a company selling stuffy, conservative clothing–the company did lose its way a couple of decades ago–will be surprised to learn how innovative the clothier has been through history, introducing button-down shirts (1896), Harris tweed (1900), madras fabrics (1902), the Shetland sweater (1904, and then in a wider range of colors in 1938) and argyle socks (1957) to the American public.
Most of the men who have led Brooks seem to have been devoted Anglophiles, and a lot of these styles have an obvious British heritage. For instance, the button-down shirt was first spotted by John E. Brooks, grandson of the founder, at a polo match in England in about 1896. He noted something odd about the players’ shirts–the points of their collars were buttoned down “so as to prevent their flapping in the wind,” the Brooks history recounts. The button-down polo shirt, offered by Brooks in oxford cloth, arguably became the most imitated item in fashion history.
One Brooks innovation was imported rather more directly from England. For decades the retailer displayed its suit jackets in stacks and stacks on open tables, the way we find clothing shown today at places like Costco. The jackets were laid out, one atop another, inside out, with their lining showing, the point being to impress shoppers with a garment that was finished as well inside as out.
The habit continued into the 1960s, and was changed after a store visit from England’s Prince Philip, who commented that the display looked rather messy!
Using the now-current archive, including pieces of clothing, Brooks has recently fashioned a garment based on its traditional livery coat. An old scarlet riding jacket (a “pink”) has been restored and may soon inspire some new fashion. Perhaps Brooks is looking to the legacy of designer Karl Lagerfeld who, rather than be constrained by the severe lines of the traditional Chanel jacket, found ways to honor its history while turning it into wildly modern fashion.
Whatever the case, Brooks Brothers quite clearly sees looking back into its rich history as a brilliant way to move forward.
–Nancy McKeon
“I’M THE NEWEST EMPLOYEE and I’ve worked here 11 years.” That was the
T-shirt-clad Matt Sember as he stood behind thousands of dollars’
worth of white and fancy yellow diamonds at the new Liljenquist &
Beckstead store in Fairfax Square, the collection of handsome luxury
stores near Tysons Corner. And it went a long way toward explaining
why a handful of employees had joined four of the company’s partners,
the Liljenquists and the Becksteads, on a glorious Labor Day to ready
the new store for its September opening.
Beyond the impressive glitter of gems and the muted glow of modern
gold, the most noteworthy aspect of the new store is how, well,
impressive yet muted its interior is. That’s no accident: When
planning the new store, which replaces the Tysons Galleria and Fair
Oaks mall stores, the partners reached out to interior designer Barry
Dixon, less known for designing retail stores and more for exquisitely
curated residential interiors in his palette of modern muted neutrals.
The partners’ faith in Dixon has been borne out: A lightly figured
ivory-beige broadloom covers the floors; walnut panels accent sales
areas–diamonds, Bulgari, Marco Bicego, Roberto Coin; parchment-color
faux leather with the texture of ostrich eggs surrounds a
store-within-a-store for Rolex watches, designed by the Rolex
architecture team, headquartered in New York and Switzerland. Says
company president Tom Liljenquist, “We immediately saw the potential
in Fairfax Square: I knew that we could accommodate a sizable Rolex
Corner, and add all of the luxury elements we desired.”
As if the space required more luxury, a charming custom-made
chandelier hangs at the entry through a recess in the ceiling. The
orbs of crystal that dangle from their golden stems look like pussy
willow buds.
The interior acts as a lush but quiet jewel box to house all the
glitter. Watching me gaze, dazzled, at all the diamonds, company vice
president Sid Beckstead passes by and says, “People sometimes think we
use trick lighting. But it’s all about the light of day. Take this
[diamond] out into the daylight and it will really glitter.”
Sherrie Beckstead, another partner, is walking around, rummaging among
the little Bufkor padded stands that allow earrings to dangle and
bracelets to nestle. They’ve lost something, but the unpacking
continues, nobody panicking–on God’s green earth everything has to be
somewhere. Little notes on display cases instruct staff on what goes
where; one Post-it note declares: “$75,000 limit per case.” Amen to
that.
Partner Sheila Liljenquist is putting out more treasure while store
senior manager Denise Rasor sorts through even more boxes. Liljenquist
and Sherrie Beckstead agree: “Working on this project and seeing it
come to fruition has been a highlight of 2014.”
Sherrie Beckstead emails me later with more information about the
store. And good news: They found the missing parcel.
–Nancy McKeon
I HAVE A CASHMERE sweater that I bought 25 years ago, and it still looks great. (Okay, maybe not great on ME, but still….) Every cashmere item I’ve bought recently, though, pills in a nanosecond–whether it’s ridiculously expensive or from the T.J. Maxx sale rack. Sure, I can always razor away the scruff, but it’s no fun being a slave to your sweater. Why has quality taken such a nosedive?
Pure cashmere is a rare, luxury fabric, according to Karl Spilhaus, president of the Boston-based Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute. It takes roughly three Mongolian goats (who can only be combed for the stuff once a year) to make one sweater. And once the hair is harvested, it must be sorted and washed by hand. Trouble is, very few people want to pay today’s going rate for primo quality, which can be $600 and up per sweater. “Western retailers have tried to push down the price in order to increase sales. This has created an incentive for suppliers and manufacturers to cut corners on quality and authenticity,” explains Spilhaus.
A product labeled 100-percent cashmere may actually contain lambswool, yak and/or acrylic. Fraudulent labeling is illegal, but it’s tough to police the industry. “A store should send a sample from every batch of sweaters to check for purity,” says Spilhaus. Needless to say, most don’t. Even when a garment does contain cashmere, it may not be of the highest quality. Cashmere is judged by the thickness and length of the fibers. The finest cashmere is only 16 or 17 microns in diameter. (A human hair is 75 microns.) Thicker strands feel rough and scratchy. Short fibers (less than 32 cm) are also suboptimal, since they tend to come loose and pill.
While it’s impossible to tell if a garment is legit just by eyeballing it, here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. Look for products made in Italy, Scotland or Japan. Easier said than done, since China (which got in on production in the early 90s) now controls well over half of the world’s raw material. This is not to say that China doesn’t ever turn out authentic, high-quality cashmere, just that Europe and Japan have been at it a lot longer and have a better track record. “Rarely have I seen a fraud that says “Made in Scotland,” says Spilhaus.
2. Rub the sweater/scarf/pashmina over your chin (an especially sensitive area). Fine cashmere is never scratchy.
3. Move your hand vigorously over the garment. Steer clear if you notice fibers start to bead up or fray.
4. Tug on opposite sides of the sweater or scrunch it up in your hands. It should bounce back promptly in to shape.
5. Go for flat, tightly woven sweaters rather than loose, downy knits. In order to get the coveted fluffy look , the fibers must be washed repeatedly. This brings shorter ones to the surface and results in a more fragile garment. You really have to pay up for loose-knit cashmere that lasts, says Spilhaus.
6. Two- (or three- or four-) ply sweaters should be sturdier. (The number of ply indicates how many strands have been twisted together to make the yarn.) Many labels don’t mention ply, though, and if the fibers are fake or cut-rate, it’s a moot point anyway.
7. Buy from a reputable store with a liberal return policy. I purchased a pricey sweater from Nordstrom, which pilled after two outings. They refunded my money–no questions asked.
8. Make it an investment. The finest cashmere will last indefinitely. Some stores that carry the best of the best include Relish (made-in-Scotland cashmere from Hania, Italian cashmere from Marni and Massimo Alba), Neiman Marcus, which sells Italian brand Loro Piana; Brooks Brothers, which carries cashmere made in Scotland, and Massimo Dutti (Italian cashmere).
9. If expensive cashmere is out of reach, mid- or bargain-priced products will do. Just remember that you get what you pay for–at best.
–Mary Ganske
Mary Ganske is a freelance writer based in Cleveland, Ohio.
THE LINE SNAKED AROUND the escalator as a crowd of women awaited the arrival of their heroine, Sarah Jessica Parker, aka Carrie Bradshaw. The “Sex and the City” star was coming to Nordstrom in Tysons Corner to introduce the second season of her line of shoes. Even though many of them had probably seen the HBO hit show (1998-2004) only in reruns, they stood patiently.
It’s not surprising that the stiletto-wearing actress’s collection (exclusive to Nordstrom) is stacked with high heels (which range in price from $350 to $375 for pumps, to $455 for booties and $695 for boots). What’s clear is that she has a personal connection to the designs.
“A pump is a living, breathing thing,” she says. As if to reinforce the point, the shoes, which are made in Italy, have names. There’s the Marlene in blue or gold patent; the Rachel, a riff on a slingback, named after Sarah Jessica’s sister; and, of course, the Carrie, a T-strap pump in red, purple, beige or black. The high-heel-challenged (myself included) might go for the Gelsey skimmer flat in red, black or beige.
Sarah Jessica’s love affair with shoes began well before her “Sex and the City” stint. She recalls living in New York in the 1980s when Charles Jourdan heels were shorthand for sleek and chic. “Those shoes really made an impression on me. He was the first person to do color; the single-sole silhouette was so sexy.” Forward to the late 1990s and Carrie and her Manolo Blahniks–whose design owes a debt to Jourdan, as well as Maud Frizon and Walter Steiger–were inseparable. Sarah Jessica raves, “The Manolo BB [named for Brigitte Bardot] is one of the great shoes of all time.”
Showing a knack for business and an eye for reinvention, last year Sarah Jessica partnered with Manolo Blahnik CEO George Malkemus to produce the SJP line with its signature grosgrain ribbon on the back seam of each shoe, a nod to a childhood wearing ribbons in her hair. Are the shoes comfortable, we inquire–well, as comfortable as wearing three-and-a-half-inch heels can be? Parker proudly points to the shoe’s plush padding under the ball of the foot.
From the looks of customers clutching shopping bags filled with shoe boxes at Nordstrom (the collection will be sold at Tysons Corner and Pentagon City), Sarah Jessica, known for being down-to-earth, is enjoying the high of a new hit series.
Downsizing from a house in Maryland to an apartment in the District with half the space had caused enough stress in my life for two months and counting to make me want to escape somewhere, anywhere, that didn’t remind me of my never-ending to-do list.
So when I was idly searching the Web for a weekend getaway within a two-hour radius of D.C., the White Moose Inn in Washington, Virginia, captured my attention. Anyone who knows me can tell you I’m not a fan of fussy, and I adore all-white and/or neutral rooms, having been introduced to the look more than 30 years ago by interior designer Frank Randolph.
In the photos, the inn looked like an oasis of calm. Furthermore, and just as important, the six-room bed and breakfast (five in the main building, one free-standing cottage) had availability. “It’s kind of a slow time,” said manager Sara Loveland, who in the first sign that I was going to like this place, called me the morning of the day of our arrival to let me know check-in time was 3 p.m. and happy hour was 5 to 6 p.m.
Getting to Washington, Virginia, on a Friday summer afternoon is not half the fun. Traffic can be brutal. Word to the wise: Leave before 3, maybe even by 2 if possible.
When we arrived that early August afternoon, my first impression of the town was there wasn’t much there there. The Inn at Little Washington is the focus on Main Street, the main drag whose claim to fame is that it has no stoplight or stop sign.
As we entered the door of the White Moose, I worried, What were we going to do for two days? The inn’s rustic decor lifted my spirits.
White painted floors, a plastic white moose presiding over a fireplace, taupe and white sofas, a fur-covered ottoman, cheeky photographs (two cowboys staring at a Prada sign across the highway) and a superb collection of fashion and interior design books welcomed us. A Saarinen tulip table surrounded by white Eames chairs was set up in the breakfast/cocktail hour area. Lounge chairs and small tables offered outside seating and views of the Blue Ridge; Adirondack chairs on the grass under umbrellas provided more sun protection, though.
We weren’t able to get a reservation at the Inn at Little Washington for dinner, but our appetites were well sated at Tula’s off Main with jambalaya and grilled salmon with pearl couscous.
A last-minute getaway decision, we didn’t come equipped with running or hiking gear, like our fellow inn mates. But the following day we were just as happy to taste wine at a nearby vineyard, Gadino Cellars, poke around for antiques in Sperryville and browse for art — Haley Fine Art was a favorite. On one side of the inn, the Little Washington Wellness and Spa offered an excellent massage; on the other, R.H. Ballard, an elegant design shop to peruse John Derian plates, La Rochere glassware, exotic soaps and lotions, jacquard kitchen linens, unusual lamps.
My husband was enamored with the blue tooth showerhead and insists we need one at home. Hmm. For me, breakfast was the key to my heart and stomach. The first-rate French-press coffee, blueberry and banana bread came courtesy of Red Truck Bakery, now in Warrenton but soon to open in (little) Washington. The tangy yogurt was served with fresh-picked blueberries. If that wasn’t enough to satisfy, out from the oven came a fresh-baked squash quiche.
My well-traveled pal and colleague who is intimately familiar with the Rappahannock area opines that she doesn’t think White Moose would be too cozy in cold weather. I’m not in the least deterred.
— Janet Kelly
ALONG WITH UPDATING your wardrobe for a new season, getting back to work means recharging your beauty routine. For expert advice on how to accomplish that, we went to Ada Polla, CEO of Alchimie Forever, a gentle, anti-aging line of skin-care products. She had just returned from a vacation in Greece when we talked about how she gets back to business.
JB: What’s one of the first things you do when you get back from summer vacation?
AP: I schedule an appointment to get my hair cut. Sun, water, wind, salt and chlorine wreak havoc on your hair. Get it trimmed.
JB: Okay, is this blasphemous to ask — what if you have just a tiny bit of color, ahem, tan, from your vacation break; how do you keep it for a while?
AP: Exfoliate your skin — use something gentle like Aveeno’s. Of course, I’m partial to Alchimie’s Gentle Refining Scrub. It will actually brighten your skin and make that light tan last longer. Don’t use a aggressive scrub or peel, though. On skin that already has a high melanin content, it can lead to hyper- or hypo-pigmentation.
JB: What if you spent the summer at your desk and look it? Any suggestion?
AP: Get that glowing vacation look without the rays. Use a bronzer, but only until the beginning of September. After Labor Day, a tan looks fake.
JB: What’s your take on facials?
AP: I’m a fan. Whether you have them routinely or not, post-vacation, it helps exfoliate your skin and get it back in good shape. It’s great to use a waterproof sunscreen, but that total sunblock you need can clog your pores.
JB: Should you then change your sunscreen after vacation?
AP: I use an oil-based, waterproof La Roche Posay product with a very high SPF when I’m on the beach, but when I return to the city, where my time outside is limited, I use one that’s not quite as serious. Still, don’t underestimate city sun; wear sunscreen.
JB: Any more post-vacation skin tips?
AP: Don’t forget about your feet. People get pedicures, but it’s not just how your nails look. Feet get a beating from constant exposure during the summer. Alchimie’s Dry Skin Balm softens and moisturizes the skin; any Jergens body lotion also does the trick.
JB: Final words of advice?
AP: Find yourself some attractive new office supplies. I go to Paper Source and Dandelion Patch. It’s easier to go back to work when your surroundings are cheerful.
–Janet Kelly
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I JUST ATE a peanut butter sandwich. On one slice of bread, I applied a thin layer of Whole Foods’s Peanut Butter made with “organic dry unsalted roasted peanuts” that I had as delightedly as a child ground at the Upper Georgetown store. On the other slice, I spread an equally calibrated dose of Winn Dixie’s Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter from near the bottom of two prized jars I packed in my recent exodus from the Sunshine State.
Nutrition information for Winn Dixie’s product states that a two-tablespoon serving contains 200 calories — 16 grams of fat, 85 grams of sodium and only two grams of sugar; Whole Foods’s version also contains 200 calories (but one less skinny-pinching gram of fat), 10 grams of sodium and three grams of sugar. Most important, a serving of each contains eight grams of protein.
So, have I eaten a balanced lunch? To my mid-menopausal “body-shifting” mind, yes. Then again, there is a good chance that I shall tackle the Winn Dixie jar before the end of the evening, most likely just as I’m sitting down to watch the eleven o’clock news. And not as a transparent paste. Instead, I’ll willfully — or will it be gleefully — gouge out the peanut chunks with the tines of a fork before I scrape the sides until the level of the jar is once again even. Finally, I’ll ruefully stare at the dwindling contents and wish I’d bought half a dozen jars at the Miami store before I squirrel this one back in a corner of my cupboard.
I shall then sleepily — or, aw, shucks! — guiltily contemplate the calories I just ingested: two to four hundred, perhaps? But they’re nutritious peanuts, right? I’m not going to step on the scale and have gained five pounds? At least not from the peanut butter, I delude myself over and over again.
These same thoughts about eating peanut butter have crossed my mind for at least 40 years. Not, however, when I was a little girl, recently arrived from Cuba. That’s when my love of peanut butter began. I may not remember going through the Cuban refugee processing center in downtown Miami, but I have a vague recollection of my parents returning to our tenement apartment with provisions.
Recently, I decided to check out those childhood memories. I searched “peanut butter distributed to Cuban refugees 1960s” and several entries came up. An article titled “Survival in the Oil Patch” caught my eye. It features the story of a young Cuban boy, Silverio, “Sil” Bosch with whom I appear to have much in common. His family arrived in the United States just more than five months after mine.
I was delighted to find that Sil and I have another thing in common. Yes, peanut butter. The author describes Sil’s adjustment to the United States, but my eyes became big as saucers when I read the following:
America welcomed Sil’s family and helped with some clothes and food. He remembers getting a brand new jacket at the Cuban refugee processing center, and from time to time they received some surplus foods that were left over from stocking civil defense shelters. Amongst the food he remembers eating were powdered eggs and peanut butter. Neither food was especially tasty but it sure helped with the food budget and also kept the three Bosch teenagers’ bellies full.
Peanut butter kept this little Cuban girl’s belly full, too.
So did powdered eggs. But that’s a different story.
— Georgina Marrero
Georgina Marrero is a freelance writer/researcher who now lives in D.C.
RUTHLESS. That is my plan.
The purple apron that my friend Julie made me that I’ve worn twice in 30 years. Gone.
The Lladro figurine my sister-in-law brought us from Spain which doesn’t go with our rustic pottery. Gone.
The matching lamps on our nightstands that we bought in New York that are classic but the shades need replacing. Gone.
Or, maybe I should replace the shades.
No, gone.
I’ve taken a hard line with my husband.
His baby grand will take up one whole room.
His bike is a health priority.
We can squeeze in the espresso maker.
But if he wants to keep the dozens of labor-history books he thinks he will read in retirement, then he must let go of the vinyl record albums and the old Stereophile magazines and the enlarger and the baseball cards.
He must critically review each and every T-shirt and select only a few. (I remember how good he looked in a Kelly-green T-shirt and a jean jacket in law school. And that he sometimes wore a T-shirt that said Men of Quality Respect Women’s Equality.)
Oh my. That’s what we will face. Digressions from ruthlessness. Diversions into sentiment and shared memories. The siren call of the photo albums.
I must be vigilant or we will never finish.
What to toss? What to give? What to sell?
My world is spinning. My head aches.
My heart just wants a soft landing.
How We Did It
We found the perfect two-bedroom condo before we had our four-bedroom house ready to sell, so we had only about two weeks to get the house ready to list. We needed to get rid of all the stuff the real-estate agent said had to go, and all the stuff that we wouldn’t have room for in the new place.
— Robin Talbert
Robin Talbert has been a lawyer, nonprofit executive and consultant.
While You’re At It
I’m also a survivor of the downsizing and moving wars, having recently left a 3,000-square-foot house in Bethesda for a 1,760-square-foot apartment in D.C. As my friends will attest, my husband and I don’t have a lot of “stuff”; even so, the “de-accessioning” process was tough. Relatives were the recipients of several large pieces of furniture, including my Brown Jordan patio table, umbrella and chairs (sob). Someone on our neighborhood chat bought our guest bed. We made several trips to Goodwill to donate clothes and small household items and drove two or three carloads of books to the Friends of the Library, both in Rockville. Montgomery County Habitat ReStore took TVs, old phones, a grill and a few sections of a sectional couch.
But my secret weapon in this move was a woman named Tyler Whitmore of Tada Homes, who specializes in space planning, organization and downsizing, and oh by the way, is an interior designer. She was recommended by my real estate agent when we mentioned we wanted help in transitioning from home to apartment.
Tyler suggested items we should part with, either because they wouldn’t fit in the new space or weren’t worth moving. (We didn’t want to rent storage space, if not absolutely necessary.) Some of those, including an entertainment cabinet and several art posters, went to her consignment store on Kensington’s Howard Avenue. She arranged an appointment for us at the Container Store to buy fittings to maximize our closet space and alerted us to pieces of furniture we’d want to look at that would fit nicely in the new space. We bought a sleep sofa for the guest room at Room & Board. For me, what was most valuable was, once everything arrived in our new space, she and her colleague helped us unpack, arrange furniture, hang pictures and organize the kitchen.
Not that we’re completely settled in. As I write this, I’m sitting in the guest room/my office, surrounded by files, boxes of pictures, office supplies and odd decorative accessories that we’ve yet to find a place for. Let’s just say it’s a work in progress.
–Janet Kelly[subscribe2]
BETH ABERG OPENED her first Random Harvest in 1983 on 75th and Columbus in New York City. “I have always loved the idea of transforming interior spaces,” she says.
When her husband’s career moved them to the D.C. area, Aberg remained committed to her passion and opened a store in Old Town, followed by ones in Georgetown, Arlington and Bethesda. Her personal taste is a mix of antique and traditional. Through the years she has added what she calls transitional styles–furniture with cleaner lines but still graceful. “Not starkly modern,” she says. Prices run the gamut from a pillow for $110 to a European antique sideboard for $2,000.
What’s new is that the store is now designing its own line of upholstered pieces and dining tables. “We couldn’t find the price point, style, scale and quality we were looking for in the marketplace,” says Aberg. All the stores offer a design service; it’s $300 for a two-hour in-home consultation, plus a meeting in the store.
“We’ve very user-friendly,” says Aberg. There’s no pressure to buy a lot at once. We’re fine with your buying one piece at a time and updating with lamps and pillows.
Downsizing? Random Harvest specializes in small-scale furniture to fit the apartments and town homes empty-nesters have moved on to.
–Janet Kelly
DONNA McCULLOUGH remembers waking up one day deciding she had to learn how to weld. As a child she was impressed by the Degas dancer she’d seen at the Baltimore Museum of Art and then in the 1980s fell in love with Deborah Butterfield’s larger-than-life bronze horses. Welding was a means to an end — sculpting metal.
So, McCullough, who has been a graphic designer in the advertising department of The Washington Post since 1989, went part-time in 1995 to take general sculpture classes, learning to work in clay, wood and steel at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.
Her first piece was a life-size dog named Rudi, a memorial to her beloved German shepherd. She still sculpts animals, but her work, which she calls a three-dimensional diary, is primarily fashion-focused.
“On a personal level, [fashion] has become my creative vehicle for exploring the emotional roller coaster of life,” says McCullough. Her inspiration comes from the dichotomy between the perception of women as fragile, delicate creatures and the reality of their strength. The sculptures, which are about 56 inches high, are crafted of steel and embellished with flourishes of wire mesh, screening, cut-outs and bits of found objects.
When her grandmother and aunts passed away the same year, McCullough looked for a way to honor their memory. “They all grew up on farms in Montgomery County and were great cooks who were always canning fruit from their big gardens.” Using canning as a theme for the series (which she named the Jones Girls because one of the tin cans she used to create it had Jones written on it), McCullough made fabric for their dresses out of food tins that she cut into strips.
When a curator in Texas was putting together art related to the Lone Star State, McCullough found some vintage 5-gallon oil cans and made dresses that “looked like vintage cheerleader outfits.” She calls that series “The Drill Team.” In deference to where she lives — in central Maryland, near Morgan Run — her newest work has a water theme. She created Betty by the Bay for her mother, Betty, who lives on Kent Island and loves the water.
Expressions in contrasts of light and heavy, supple and rigid, McCullough’s wardrobe of dresses telegraphs the artist’s vision of the female personality.
See McCulllough’s work up close locally:
In a group show, “Altered Ego,” at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts (1632 U Street NW) through August 23.
In “The Grace of Craft, at Washington Art Works (12276 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville) through the end of June.
Also, at Artist’s Proof (3323 Cady’s Alley NW) and Zenith Gallery ( 1429 Iris Street NW).
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MOST OF US at one time or another have been given or have inherited jewelry that isn’t quite our taste. The pieces just sit in a jewelry box, never seeing the light of day. The question is what to do with these treasures of days past when there’s not much chance you’ll ever wear them.
One seemingly simple option is to sell them. But where? And for how much? Before you head to your nearest jeweler, some important things to consider.
Know What to Expect
Take a peek at what gold is selling for on the stock market on any given day. Gold is made in a unit of purity for gold alloy in Karat or “K,” rather than weight. A good rule of thumb to remember is the higher the karat, the higher the purity of the gold. For example, 21 kt gold is purer than 14 kt. If you’re selling 14 kt gold jewelry, be prepared to receive about half of the selling price for an ounce of gold on any given day. Also, know the weight of your gold. Gold is weighted in grams and ounces. There are approximately 32 grams in one troy ounce (a unit of measure for weight that dates back to the Middle Ages). Some dealers will buy your gold in pennyweights. There are 20 pennyweights in one troy ounce of gold. So before selling, ask your buyer if they are offering you a price per pennyweight or per gram – they are two different calculations. Remember to get the total dollar price of what the buyer is willing to pay you.
Know What You’re Selling
Get the jewelry you want to sell appraised. You’ll feel more confident about entering into a negotiation if you’re knowledgeable about the value of what you’re selling. However, the amount shown on your appraisal is not necessarily what you can expect a buyer to pay. According to Tom Ross, a Registered Jeweler in Atlanta and owner of Ross Jewelry Company, if you look at your appraisal or receipt from a purchase, you’ll think its worth “X” amount of dollars. Not so. As a seller, you need to remember that jewelers can make the piece of jewelry or buy at wholesale two to four times less than its appraised value. A jeweler won’t even pay you the wholesale price because, if he buys your piece, he then has to sell it and cover his overhead. Something else to consider is how much the original markup was at the time of sale. This could lower your re-sale price even more.
Know Where to Go
According to Ross, the best place to sell jewelry is frequently where you bought it . The original jeweler, who can vouch for the item’s authenticity, quality and its value/appraisal, presumably likes working with old customers and hopes they’ll keep buying. Stores will not give you cash for your piece but a “credit” or a discount toward the purchase of something else you want to purchase. They make very little on a piece of jewelry someone wants to return because they normally break apart the piece and sell it for “parts,” meaning the stone and gold separately. Or they sell it for less than the original price.
Another option, the one most likely to get you the best value for your jewelry, is to try to sell it to someone else. If a piece is worth over $25,000 an auction house, such as Sotheby’s or Christie’s, may be your best bet.
The best time to sell your jewelry is in late summer. Brian Diener of Diener Jewelers in Washington, D.C., says merchants are getting ready for the Christmas season during the summer months. He admitted, “I might give a slightly higher price to sellers then because I am building my inventory.”
So, whenever you finally decide to sell Mom’s charm bracelet or Aunt Arlene’s brooch, just remember that the cost of owning jewelry is that you never get what you paid for it.
–Lynn Sauls and Rebecca Crews
Lynn Sauls began a rock collection when she was 5. She still loves jewelry and brilliant color. Rebecca Crews contributed to this story.
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IT’S TIME TO LACE up those walking shoes. Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, and the area offers hundreds of options for taking it all in on foot.
Whether you’re in the mood for smooth strolling, serious trekking or just a sweet little picnic spot, My Little Bird went on the hunt for the best walking spots. We found some hidden gems that will invite you to wander off the beaten path a bit. We think you’ll be glad you did.
Block House Point
14750 River Road, Darnestown, Md.
There’s a little bit of everything at this conservation park just outside of Potomac. Walk, hike or just wander and you’ll come across archeological sites, Civil War encampments and Native American dwellings. Walk for half a mile – or eight. Two main trails – Pennyfield Lock and Violet’s Lock – will lead you to breathtaking views from bluffs over the Potomac River.
“Those bluffs can give you a rush,” says Larry Broadwell, guidebook editor for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. “You’re wandering through the forest, then all of a sudden you’re at the edge of a bluff dropping 75 feet.”
Getting there: Head northwest from Potomac. There are three parking areas off River Road. The first is at Pennyfield Trail, the second is a gas line clearing (you can’t miss it) and the third is at the upstream edge of the park at Califia Farms Stable.
Nearby eats: Travilah Oak Market, 12944 Travilah Road, Potomac, Md.
Potomac Overlook Regional Park
2845 N. Marcey Road, Arlington, Va.
Just outside of Arlington, Potomac Overlook offers a picnic area, a nature center, peaceful woodland trails and excellent bird watching. It’s convenient to get to and ideal for short circuit walks.
Getting there: From Chain Bridge on the D.C. side, cross into Virginia and follow Military Road.
Nearby eats: Jetties Inc., 1609 Foxhall Rd NW
Turkey Run Park
George Washington Memorial Parkway Headquarters, McLean, Va.
Time is of the essence! Virginia Bluebells and Trout Lilies line the floodplain of the Potomac in the early weeks of spring, attracting numerous butterflies, but they disappear soon after. It’s also home to more than 100 species of birds. Craving more? From there you can hop down to the 10-mile Potomac Heritage Trail.
Getting there: From Potomac Overlook Regional Park, return on Marcey Road to Military Road and turn right. Travel 1.4 miles and turn right at the Chain Bridge sign, just before the T-intersection on Military Road. Continue 0.4 miles and turn left onto SR 123. Proceed 1.0 miles to the George Washington Memorial Parkway/I-495 entrance. Continue 1.9 miles north on the parkway and turn right at the Turkey Run Park sign. Proceed 0.1 miles and follow the signs to the park.
Little Bennett Regional Park
23701 Frederick Road, Clarksburg, Md.
The largest of Montgomery County’s hidden natural gems, more than 20 miles of trails will lead you through forests, meadows and streams – into the solitude of the forest and back out again. For a brief visit, check out the old Froggy Hollow Schoolhouse. In the summer docents tell of 1930s rural life. From there, take the short and easy Froggy Hollow Trail, which meanders along the creek beyond the schoolhouse.
Getting there: Take I-270 N to Clarksburg. Froggy Hollow Trailhead Parking is a gravel lot on Clarksburg Road, just south of Kingsley Road.
Nearby eats: Clarksburg Grocery, 23329 Frederick Road, Clarksburg, Md.
It’s a little further out, but there are a number of very easy trail systems in, around and on either side of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The town itself offers hiking trails, mini museums and eateries.
Getting there: Start at the visitors center, in West Virginia above the town. There’s a $5 entrance fee to the national park site. A shuttle bus will take you down near the confluence between the Potomac and the Shenandoah. Take a rest on one of the many sandy beaches. Feeling adventurous? Enjoy the rapids in a tube or canoe.
Nearby eats: Cannonball Deli, 148 High Street, Harpers Ferry, West Va.
Rachel Carson Greenway & Northwest Branch Stream Valley Park Trails
On this trail, at the intersection of NW Branch and Colesville Road, there’s a downstream trail. It’s a little rocky but worth it. Almost immediately it drops into a gorge that Teddy Roosevelt described as second only to Great Falls for its scenic view. The natural surface trail extends north to Wheaton Regional Park.
Getting there: Parking is allowed on both sides of the street where Colesville Road and NW Branch Trail meet.
Nearby Eats: Trader Joe’s, 10741 Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, Md.
The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club guidebooks can be found at REI and Hudson Trail Outfitters. The club also teaches hiking classes of all levels and interests. Learn more at www.patc.net.
— Mia Cortez
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