Once, Upon an Island...

I'd like to introduce you to one of my favourite places in the world. The tiny island outpost of Harbour Island, in the Bahamas.

I discovered this divine little island when I travelled there a few years ago to do a photo shoot on a famous little hotel called The Landing, which is owned by a lovely Bahamian and an Australian expat, and features interiors by India Hicks. Unfortunately, a hurricane hit the area the night I flew into the capital, Nassau, and I had to hole up in the Atlantis Hotel for a week until it passed. By the time I arrived on this far-flung island, I was ready for a cocktail, a swim in a serene sea and a couple of nights of calm, Hurricane-free sleep. The Landing happily obliged.

The hotel and island are two of the most idyllic destinations you can imagine. Think of the charm and clapboard prettiness of New England's architecture crossed with the pastel colours of the Caribbean, then throw in an extraordinarily beautiful pink beach, a charming bustling harbour, a lot of eccentric but marvellous (and astonishingly good-looking) locals, and a culture that's part colonial British and part Bahamian, and then wrap it up in an island that's only a few miles long, and you have Harbour Island. The place is enchanting

I'll post a story on The Landing and hopefully also India Hicks, when I get an interview with her, early next year, as we hope to travel there again to get married. But in the meantime, here are some vignettes of its gorgeous island charm.

A Garden and a Library...

Many of us harbour a romantic dream of an Arcadian idyll; a blissful, bucolic refuge far from the city, society pressures and stress. We imagine we can wander out to our potager to pluck some dew-fresh Listanda de Gandia or some Royal Purple Pod beans before retreating to our enormous country kitchen to create a Maggie Beer-style spread. We imagine we’ll have so many rooms in this rural retreat that we can convert one to a study, one to a flower room, one to a painting space and one to a library. (The hubster, naturally, gets the shed out the back.) As Marcus Tullius Cicero once said: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

This is what happened to my partner and I. Seduced by the idea of a villa rustica (working farm), a villa urbana (country house) or even a villa rundowna, we started looking for a country home. The problem was, we wanted an enchanting place with a large, mature garden within easy stroll of a village, in a high-rainfall area, within an hour’s drive of Melbourne. Easier dreamed than done. To paraphrase Jane Austen: If only we could all find such a place. Then a real estate agent suggested a old timber house called ‘Windermere’. It needed work and had been on the market for a year, he said: were we interested? It was love at first doorknob. We didn’t even make it to the butler’s pantry. We took one look at the rambling overgrown garden, the colonial-style floorplan, the enormous rooms and the lovely country road (Arthur Streeton's old estate was just across the way), and signed off the same day.

There was just one problem. The house, like us, was worn around the edges from stress and wear. Soon after we moved in, the walls gave way, the rotten deck collapsed, the oven died, and the central heating gave up in sympathy. The garden, meanwhile, limped along until it, too, fell onto its horticultural derriere, and a brutal winter and sodden summer finished off the rest. The idea of ‘Howard’s End’ had turned into World’s End. We were at our wit’s end.

Then Mother Nature intervened. Spring came and the magnolias and rhododendrons burst into life. Our 100-year-old rhodies erupted into the prettiest shade of Pompadour pink, while the camellias bloomed into flowers Chanel would have been proud of. Motivated, we tugged on our gumboots and went to work. My idea, rather ambitiously, was to design a ‘creative retreat’, filled with books, photos and mementos of our travels; a house for those, like us and our friends, who love to garden, read, write, create or simply contemplate life over a glass with a lot of gin in it. Having long been drawn to the work of Cecil Beaton, Fréderic Méchiche, Kelly Wearstler, Windsor Smith, Mary McDonald and Jane Coslick–people who mixed cheeky irreverence with sublime design–I imagined a space full of whimsy, personality and delightful surprises. We knew we had a long way to go.

A year on, we are still working on our endearing old house, and have come to love it, despite the ghosts (two), the faulty electrical system, the endless To-Do list, and the horrendous weeds. (A result of the high rainfall.) We have converted the garden to a Writer's Garden, with beds shaped like exclamation marks and full stops, and renovated the interior with a pitifully meagre budget. Thanks to our lovely Afghanistan tradies, who not only painted a two-story house for $2000 but regaled me with tales of their home country, the place is looking a treat! It's certainly come a long way from the days when I couldn't even grow a hydrangea.

Winston Churchill once said that we shape our buildings and then they shape us, and I think the same could be said of our homes and gardens. We try to create our homes and gardens by giving them form, depth, dignity and character, but in the end, I think it’s our homes and gardens that give those things to us.

An Encyclopedia of Nostalgia...

I am currently reading a beautiful, fabulously whimsical book called Let's Bring Back: An Encyclopedia of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful, Chic, Useful, Curious and Otherwise Commendable Things From Times Gone By. (I know! If they'd made the title any longer they would have needed another book!) It's full of, well... I won't repeat the title here, but it's full of the kind of lovely things we used to know, have and love and now miss. Such as calling cards. Parasols. Bookplates. Butlers. (And butler's pantries.) Typewriters. Top hats. Kitchen larders. Hand-written letters. Head scarves. (Very Jackie Kennedy-in-Capri.) And afternoon siestas. There are dozens more, of course, but I'd like to add a few more of my own here. These are the things I wish the world would bring back.


Old-fashioned beach holidays. With old-fashioned deck chairs and old-fashioned umbrellas. (Shot on Shelter Island, near New York, 2010)


Old-fashioned Wellingtons (gumboots to Aussies), in whimsical, old-fashioned colours. (Rosemary Verey's Barnsley House, Cotswolds, 2010.)



Old-fashioned beach houses, with old-fashioned furniture. (The Adams beach house on Tybee Island, which was part of the film The Last Song. Shot on Tybee Island, 2010, as part of the book Coast: Lifestyle Architecture.)


Old-fashioned crockery cabinets, with old-fashioned dinnerware.
(Shot in Maine, 2010)


Old-fashioned heirloom vegetables, for use in old-fashioned meals. (Purple Podded Dutch peas, shot at Glenmore House, Sydney, 2010.)

Let's Get Personal

We need to talk about Christmas. Around this time every year the letterbox starts being weighed down with catalogues. Hundreds of them. Poking their suggestive noses through the tiny protesting gap. My hubster, who is a Catalogue Fanatic (is there an AA for that?), adores the onslaught because it means he can shop for New Boy's Toys. However, I hate The Catalogue Battalion that attacks each November and December. It's such a frightening sign of our consumptive times. We spend so much on Christmas presents each year that I'm worried our wallets won't keep up with the annual increase in gift inflation. ("What? You only got me a Maserati this year? What happened to the Bugatti Veyron I wanted?") I remember when we used to receive one big present each year followed by a stocking full of smaller things. I also remember when I used to create hand-made gifts... Ah, those were the sentimental days.

All this catalogue-ing - and the reminiscing and nostalgia-ing that has gone with it -- has started me thinking. I want this Christmas to be different. I want our family's gifts to be a) thoughtful, b) meaningful, c) inexpensive, and d) inexpensive. (Did I mention inexpensive?) So this year, I've decided to do something different. I've decided to use the camera for something other than work and take really beautiful, memorable, black-and-white portraits of each member of our family, and then offer copies to others. (For example, my mum will want a duplicate of everyone.) I know. It will be difficult persuading them that these portraits are better than a Maserati/iPad/first edition book/flight to New York. I know I'll have to do some serious selling. ("How can you SAY that you would have preferred a Bugatti?!") But I can only try. Who knows? Perhaps one day, in years to come, they might look back on their beautiful portraits and thank me for the memorable gift.

Chasing Your Dreams...

I was chatting with my friend Ruth at Specklefarm last week, and we wandered onto a subject that we often talk about: career dreams. Unfulfilled dreams, as many of us know, are difficult things to deal with. They're particularly difficult during our thirties and forties because it's then we realise that the years are running out. We look at our life to-do lists and wonder if we'll ever find the time? Or the confidence? Or even the drive?

Ruth told me that one of her unfulfilled dreams was to write a book. When I heard this I encouraged her whole-heartedly. And then told her what to do. Because if there's one thing I've learned in my career it's that it's important to inspire people – just as others have inspired you. (I think it's called Creative Karma.)

It took me years – years – to get a publishing deal for my first book. When I finally found a publisher who would listen to my pitch, she told me I had fifteen minutes to persuade her before she went on a month-long holiday. I got on a plane that same day, flew to Sydney, told her what I wanted to do – and why it was commercially viable - and walked out with a two-book deal ten minutes later! A year later I tried to pitch another book – a memoir – to another publishing company without success. Eventually Murdoch Books picked it up and it went on to sell 13,000 copies in a year. It was testament to my tenacity – and writer's dream – that it even reached the marketplace.

I once interviewed Herbert Ypma for Vogue Living. I asked the author of the bestselling Hip Hotels series, about his career, and how he conceptualised this iconic series. He said it took him ten years – TEN – to persuade Thames & Hudson to do it. They eventually agreed to trial it. The books have since sold more than four million copies, according to various reports. Thames & Hudson are clearly very happy.

I also once met a gentleman who had known Walt Disney. He told me that he and Walt often went camping together, and while they were on their horses (this was the 1930s!) Walt would tell him of his dreams, and how he wanted to start a "fun park" but didn't have the money. This gentleman (who was 95 when I met him) said Walt scraped together every cent he had to open his now-legendary Disneyland. His determination was greater than the problems he faced.

I'm writing all of this because I've just been interviewed by MAP magazine on this very subject, and why it's so important to chase down your dreams. Never, ever, ever give up on them. Find a way to make them happen, even if it means sacrificing other things in the process. If they mean that much to you, you'll find the means! As George Eliot famously said: "It is never too late to become what you might have been".

Paris? London? Ljubljana?

I've heard so many wonderful things about this concept that I thought I should share it. It's called Creative Caravan, and it offers house swap or short-term sublets for those working in the advertising/media/fashion/art and design industries. Much like Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet did in the film The Holiday. If you're a journalist, writer, blogger, photographer, illustrator, art director, film director, artist, stylist, designer, make up artist or just a creative spirit, then you may want to consider it, because it's the perfect way to travel, regardless of whether you're on business or holiday. There's a range of stylish places to stay, from grand Parisian apartments to SoHo lofts, and the people you meet are likely to become great friends, or in the very least inspirational contacts.

www.creativecaravan.net

Pondering Paris

I'm very pleased (and a little proud) to announce that Pan Macmillan/Plum has just released my new book, Paris: A Guide to the City's Creative Heart. I don't want to bore you with a million details, other than to say than the Plum girls have done a beautiful job on design and production and I'm very touched with the outcome. This illustrated design guide for creative professionals was intended to be a visually rich sourcebook of the city's best (and often secret) quartiers, bookstores, boutiques, bistros, paperies, galleries, hotels, design museums, parks and other splendid places. It's a fresh look at Paris through design-tinted glasses. There are lots of lovely ephemera, mementoes, notes and photos to inspired readers, which gives it both a joyous sense of place and a real feeling of intimacy. In essence, it's a tactile package of pleasurable Parisian layers.

It's in bookstores now, just in time for Chrissy shopping, but rather than focus too much on the content here, I'll simply post a few of my favourite Parisian scenes from the book.

Enjoy, and if you'd like to recommend any of your own great destinations, just let me know!

Design Wise: Jeffrey Bilhuber

I had the good fortune of meeting the interior designer Jeffrey Bilhuber when I photographed his Long Island home for a book I was writing on beach houses of the American East Coast last year. (Coast: Lifestyle Architecture. Images Publishing.) This gracious gentleman would have to be one of the most courteous, most generous and most charming men I have ever met. He may spend his days designing homes for the rich and chic (Anna Wintour and David Bowie among them), and he may have even been invited to Obama’s inauguration (I spotteed the invitation discreetly framed in his downstairs bathroom), but you’d never know it from his demeanour. He is as down-to-earth as an Australian sheep shearer. Only with more manners, of course. And more taste.
His Oyster Bay hideaway, which is more of a grand Great Gatsby mansion than a humble weekender, is testament to his design talents, and one of the most intriguing interiors I’ve ever photographed. Bilhuber is as confident with colour as he is with form and space, and his rooms reflect this. I shot a hall wallpapered in whimsical tangerine and cream, a sitting room dressed in plum and duck-egg blue, and a living room dressed in bold lime, with sofas the colour of summer-ripe apples. The bar and main bedroom, meanwhile, were decorated were in Bloody Mary red, while the kitchen was in black, white and Tiffany blue. Simply extraordinary. For more details, see his new book, The Way Home: Reflections on American Beauty (Rizzoli New York, October 2011.)

www.bilhuber.com