The Bee Cottage Story

by Frances Schultz

  Interestingly, Jane said the fountain is what ultimately inspired her design and gave the garden the light-hearted, touch-of-whimsy tone that made it sing. Like music, gardens are a tonic for the soul if ever there was one.

  Notes on Landscaping and Pools

  Definitely, definitely have a master plan for your garden and landscape. It helps you determine priorities and budget accordingly. The landscape frames the house and says as much about its inhabitants as the interiors do. Don’t be frustrated if you can’t do all you want at first. I don’t need to remind you how quickly time flies.

  Working with a professional to develop a plan will save you tons of time and probably pay for itself in due course. If you are a novice gardener like me, just be sure to ask questions at every turn about maintenance and care, and be realistic about your budget both for money and time.

  That said, once you have the master plan, know that it will change, and allow it to evolve. It bears repeating that gardens are never finished. That is their madness and their joy.

  Trim hedges narrower at the top so sunlight can reach bottom branches.

  Don’t think deer don’t eat everything because they do. We put netting over the ivy on the front of the house and over the hollies at the side. It seems to work—for now.

  If at all feasible to irrigate window boxes and containers, do so.

  Do think about how you are going to use the pool. If you are going to swim laps, take the occasional dip, or even just look at it, it can be quite shallow. A shallow pool is less expensive to build and to maintain because it requires less of everything.

  Consider a salt water filtration system. It is so much better for your skin, eyes, and hair.

  Remote controls for pool lights and heat are convenient. Though I am usually too cheap to turn on the heat, I like knowing I can.

  Chapter 27

  Collections

  To be honest I never fancied myself a collector, per se, because to me the term implies a refined and conscious pursuit of a particular item of a certain quality. My approach is more haphazard, more a guided accumulation of things that make me smile, or remember fondly, or merely please me. Somehow many of these things have ended up at Bee Cottage, so the question becomes what to do with them. Here is a sampling: baskets; bee things (well duh); bird’s nests, houses, and cages; books (I swear they multiply in my sleep); botanicals; china; sand; shells; shoes (but we won’t go there); small paintings of land- and seascapes; my own silly sketchbooks; Staffordshire figurines; and stones. All carry memory and sentiment; few claim intrinsic value. What’s important about collections in decorating is that they reveal something of the heart of the inhabitant. A collection—whether it’s Monets or matchbooks—is by definition personal, and decorating void of personality might as well be a hotel lobby.

  Apart from the books, which I’ve done nothing clever with but stick them in shelves—including in the “dining library” in Chapter 20, the umpteen Staffordshire figurines inherited from Mama were the most demanding of accommodation. (I do love them, but thank goodness my sister got half.) Niches in upstairs and downstairs halls took on a few pieces. We built shallow shelves at the foot of the stairs for the rest.

  This brightly painted landing between garden room, living room, and butler’s pantry is a little showcase for Sunderland jugs and Staffordshire. / Leave it to me to bring sand to the beach, but well-traveled sand it is, from the beaches of California to the deserts of Africa. / The collage of paintings at my bedside continues to grow. They are lovely to wake up to. / The dining room(also at left) is a cabinet of curiosities, with plant specimens, china, books, birds’ nests, elephants’ teeth, river rocks, shells, and Lord knows what else.

  It is an old saw in decorating that the massing of like objects has greater visual impact than those dispersed higgledy-piggledy. It is as true of porcelains as it is of more modest prizes, like sand from places I’ve traveled to, from the Namib Desert to Nassau. Sand is a great souvenir, and free. I have canisters for some of it, and glass vases for the rest. That they vaguely resemble containers used for flour and sugar may be what prompted me to place them in the kitchen. I just hope no one tries to bake a cake with a cup of St. Bart’s beach.

  Part of my mother’s collection of Staffordshire figurines.

  Kitchen baskets within easy reach./

  My baskets are not consciously collected. They are more functional than anything else. But because they are so often used, it is nice to have them visible and accessible. They look pretty hanging in the kitchen and don’t take up valuable shelf and cabinet space.

  Some collections are more theme- than object- oriented. I love birds and gravitate toward birdy things. Birds and bees go together, after all. And though I do not like the idea of a caged bird, I do like bird cages. I also like birds’ nests, eggs, and houses. Note that the groupings rule need not always apply. While the houses can form their own little neighborhood on the porch sitting wall, they can also be scattered about to create a composition or vignette, or just to add an interesting shape.

  A few of the bee things collected by me or gifted by friends.

  An appliquéd pillow, needlepoint coaster, pin tray, slippers, straw skep/antique print/beehive candles, and a tiny bee ornament.

  Why I have such a thing about pressed plants, I do not know. Was I a botanist in another life? The dining room holds about five collections of these, and there are more in the basement (oy). Hanging them floor to ceiling was a practicality because of the limited wall space; it’s also an effective display. I wouldn’t do it with a Chagall, but a daffodil is okay.

  Detail of master bathroom shelf. / Houses for birds and butterflies. / Some collections, like China, silver, and linens, are useful.

  Upstairs, old sketchbook pages are framed and hung in a grid in the Study (Chapter 23), and another group of small paintings occupy a wall in the master bedroom (Chapter 22).

  Sometimes it is fun to arrange items in unexpected places, like a decorative display of plates in the kitchen, or a collection of figurines and other “smalls” on bathroom shelves, a departure from the usual hairspray and Kleenex. Little surprises keep a house from being too serious.

  Notes on Collections

  Arrange objects by theme, color, texture, shape, or whatever pleases your eye. Balance them by visual “weight” and scale. There are no rules here; play with your groupings and change when you feel like it.

  There are no rules either as to where collections are displayed. Kitchens, baths, hallways, and stairwells can always use a little perking up. A house that arouses a bit of amused astonishment is fun.

  Hang paintings or decorative plates in groups. Balance your composition by keeping about the same space between each. And nothing says you can’t go floor to ceiling or combine paintings, plates, mirrors, brackets, figurines, and sculpture. Trying arrangements on the floor first is always a good idea. If your collection is large and varied, start with the bigger pieces and fill in from there. If you feel overwhelmed by the task, call a professional art installer. If you don’t know one, call a local art gallery for a recommendation. It is money well spent.

  Painting backs of shelves a bold or deep color shows off their contents and adds contrast and drama, especially for stodgy old books.

  Lighting is key. Even the humblest of objects looks sculptural and substantial when well lit. Home stores today offer an array of DIY options for picture lights, spotlights, up-lights, and in-shelf lighting.

  You can collect and display just about anything, from the serious (art and antiques) to the silly (Pez dispensers, anyone?). What do you like? What makes you laugh? What evokes fond memories? What do you want your home to say about you? Your collections can speak volumes.

  Epilogue

  Bee Cottage, August 1, 2014

  It is my sixth summer at Bee Cottage. Every day here is special, maybe more so now that there are fewer of them—East Hampton is a long way from California. Um-hmm. Life has changed and boy howdy. I almost can
’t remember what it was like Before Bee. (Of course, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast. Wait, did I have breakfast . . . ?)

  Seriously. Tom Dittmer, the handsome fellow I had the blind date with in Chapter 12 is the same one who gave me the porch heaters in Chapter 25, and the same one I’m married to in Chapter Now. We were the bride and groom from AARP. The thing is, Tom lives in California. Or rather we live in California, on a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley north of Santa Barbara. The landscape couldn’t be more different from East Hampton, or more beautiful. No one feels luckier than I do, or more surprised. Hey, and I had children after all—a son and daughter who are both grown and married, two grandsons who are fond of lizards, two granddaughters who are not, and a little baby granddaughter who is as yet undecided regarding lizards.

  The mother of Tom’s children, also named Frances if you can believe, was also a wonderful part of our lives. She came to our wedding. We spent Thanksgivings together and visited at other times. And now that I think of it, damn if Frannie didn’t encourage me to write a memoir. She died earlier this year in a plane crash. I wrote her obituary. There was a lot to say.

  California is home now, though we keep a pied-à-terre in Manhattan. I manage about six weeks a summer at Bee, offsetting costs with occasional renters. The bi-coastal thing is a challenge, a “high-class problem” for sure, but one that does require much energy and time. The same goes for maintaining three households. (The ranch runs fine without me, though nicer with me, if I do say so myself.) My margins are narrower now, in everything from energy, to time, to money. That’s been a while sinking in, and now that it has, I’m thinking something’s got to give. When we are pulled in twenty directions, our compass gets confused.

  This summer, a relentlessly rainy Fourth of July found me mopping water in Bee’s basement that supposedly does not flood—unless it does. A morning of tossing wet, ruined things prompted donating or selling even more. The stuff was perfectly good but merely taking up space. Providentially, I had just read a book called Everything That Remains: A Memoir by the Minimalists, by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, and something sparked. I was ready to do some clearing—in the basement and elsewhere.

  Tom Dittmer and I were married in 2012, in the olive grove at Rancho la Zaca, our home in California.

  If we are paying attention, God, nature, or a flooded basement gives a nudge, and we have to act. Awareness in one area of life, even the basement (maybe especially the basement)—can lead to awareness in another. What’s in the basement of my head? My heart? My life? Is it adding value? Is it helping me to add value to others?

  Maybe it is not so much perfect bliss we seek, but rather self-awareness. The Buddhist principle of detachment from self-imposed suffering is in its essence the ability to recognize our own neurotic patterns and step aside from them. We aren’t necessarily “cured” of them; we just aren’t caught up in them. The openness and effort to learn sustains our momentum to grow and change. It gives us the confidence to admit that things, thoughts, people, or places that worked for us at one time in life may not work in another. Letting go creates the space in our closet/day/life for the new/better/right to come in—or maybe there is just space, and that’s great, too. There is no magic pill for a muddle-free existence, but there may be a way to keep one muddle from spilling into another.

  The answer for me, in a word, is Authenticity. Your own word may be different, but your desire the same. By being true to who we are, we know who we can be. Being authentic allows us to see our soul’s blueprint, intuit our purpose, fulfill our mission, and make our hearts sing.

  Anything else is clutter.

  So the journey continues with another series of choices—not in paint colors and curtains, but in priorities, in recognizing what’s important, in winnowing away what no longer serves, in finding my own truth. At the end of the day, it’s all housekeeping.

  They say when a door closes, a window opens. What they don’t say is that the new view may not be what you expected. My new husband does not care a thing about the beach, the ocean, or East Hampton, though he does love our friends there. After ten days or so, the mountains and California call him home. His lack of enthusiasm for East Hampton, however, does not diminish my own. The house is too small for him, but he appreciates what I’ve created, and he gets that I need time to be there. I love him for that.

  It is one of life’s greatest reliefs—right up there with the ending of your child’s school play—to realize that no one person or relationship can fulfill all your needs, much less mirror them. Just as no one person, situation, thing, or house will make you “happy,” as if happiness were an egg that hatches when you pick the right nest.

  Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle. It stands for permanence and separation from the world.” Yet while the ideal is ephemeral, the metaphor is enduring. The house, whether cottage or castle, stands for who we are, how we live, and how we love ourselves and others. I wish for you a home you can be yourself in, and a self you can be at home in.

  The end,

  for now.

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude, they say, is good for you. Thank goodness for that, because I am overflowing with it right about now. So many people helped make this little book happen, starting with Stephen Drucker and then Newell Turner, who, as successive editors-in-chief of House Beautiful magazine championed the column, “The Makeover of Bee Cottage.” Thanks, also, to Shax Riegler and to David Murphy at HB who shepherded it along. To Trevor Tondro for his beautiful photographs. Ditto to Tria Giovan.

  A while back, House Beautiful and FrancesSchultz.com reader Leslie Basham wrote me a lovely note about the magazine column. On the back of the envelope she wrote “You should write a book about Bee Cottage.” I still have it. Thank you, dear Leslie.

  A huge thank you to John Tomko of Rain Management Group, and to Beth and Tricia Davey of Davey Literary & Media, who got me where I needed to be (when I wasn’t on a plane going somewhere else–lol). To the talented and unflappable Janice Shay of Pinafore Press, whose design of this book truly brings it to life. You all were so wonderful to work with, I don’t even know where to start. Let’s do another!

  To Julie Ganz of Skyhorse Publishing for saying yes to a project that that is neither fish nor fowl, and who yet believed it would swim and fly.

  Stephen Drucker (again), Frank Newbold, and Valerie Smith deserve their own paragraph at the very least. Their guidance, support, and generosity in sharing resources were, and are, invaluable. I treasure your friendship. Thank you.

  For building, plumbing, heating, painting, planting, handymanning, and slip-covering Bee Cottage and garden: Victor Aguilar, the Awning Company, Andrew Graham of Celtic Stone, Island Gunite Swimming Pools, Lillie Irrigation, Marek Janota, Kevin MacFarlane, Joe Marciniak and sons, Seila Mejia, Basilio Parada, Elga Petite, Gerardo Salinas, and Wainscott Farms. Well done. I hope you are as proud of you as I am proud of you.

  To Jane Lappin of Wainscott Farms, your garden is one of my greatest joys and brings joy to all who enter it. I am grateful for that every day.

  To my neighbors, Geoffrey Garrett and Jacques Minou, Mitten and Styvie Wainwright, and Sandy and Mike McManus, thank you for being there. I am always happy to see you.

  Tom Samet is Chapter 19, enough said, but a bold-faced footnote there is Tom’s partner Nathan Wold. Nathan came on the scene a year or so after we started work on Bee. Nathan and Tom are a formidable team, and I don’t think either of them has sat still for more than 20 seconds in their entire collective lives. I am so grateful for you both, thank you.

  There is a special group of people sort of behind the scenes who do much of what in turn allows me to do what I do. Diana Harty, Gina Stollerman, Christine Cunningham, Perfect Boto, Stephanie Valentine, and Wyatt Cromer. To my husband and dear family near and far, thank you for everything you do and are. Thank you, too, dear Rosana Grannum.

/>   To Shelly Branch, who got me thinking about decorating with Mama’s things and helped me turn it into an article by that very title in The Wall Street Journal. The sense and sentiment of that piece echo throughout this book.

  To Don and Mike Citarella of era404 Creative Group who design and maintain my website. They are bound to have a guaranteed place in heaven.

  John Oetgen has been part of every design project and, like, my life, since about 1992. His spirit and knowledge are everywhere in this house.

  Early readers whose friendship and advice I value tremendously are Alex Hitz, Duvall Fuqua, Nina Griscom, and Sarah Hanner.

  To my healers and teachers at a vulnerable if not fraught time in my life, you have made all the difference: Dr. Maria Theodoulou, Anna Schalk, Dona Montarelli, Christel Nani, Rebecca Grace, Marge Piccini, and Sheliaa Hite.

  To Anthony Gerard, my abiding affection, admiration, and respect. To Rupert and John Gerard, lots of love from Aunt Ruby and me.

  And finally, I would like to thank the readers of my blog at FrancesSchultz.com, as well as House Beautiful and Veranda. Your enthusiasm and support mean more than you know, and if I could hug every single one a’ y’all, I would. Thank you.