A $600,000 House

Minutes away from my own neighborhood is the old beach community of Pass-A-Grille. As you can see by the map above, it's an historic district that boasts water views in every direction. Recently, a house in Pass-A-Grille (indicated by the red dot) sold for a little under $600,000.

Here's the $600,000 house!

Here's the view from the $600,000 house. Don't you suppose a slightly larger house will soon be built here?

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My Collection of Cement Galleons

After World War II, there was a building boom in Florida, and most of the houses, like my own, were built in a masonry style that's held up very well. The developers and contractors of that period – the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s – seem to have had a love affair with Spanish galleons.

And that's probably because in 1513, almost 500 years ago, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed from Spain in three galleons with a combined crew of 200, set foot on what he thought was a large island, and named it "Florida."

Some of the post-war houses of Florida celebrated that association by building galleon medallions into their designs, and I've been noticing them all over my town for years. I thought it would be fun to make a collection of them! So without further adieu, here are a few of the cement galleons of St. Petersburg, Florida.

The small gray header above the collection is the logo of the former Horizon Magazine.
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A Button-Buying Spree

I'm very fond of late 19th century buttons, which were often made by combining various metals in intricately detailed layers. Last weekend I purchased these little gems, and they please me as much as if I were collecting Vermeers. The buttons above are made of cut steel and brass. Such buttons were usually made in two layers, as in the illustration below.

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Bok Tower

Located in Lake Wales – Florida's highest point – Bok Tower is one of this country's most beautiful National Landmarks. It's a 60-bell carillon that was built by Edward W. Bok, who gave it to the American people in 1929.

Edward W. Bok came to the United States from the Netherlands when he was six years old. At an early age, he had an amazing facility for making friends with important people through letter writing. It was an asset that would come in handy throughout his life in publishing. (Bok's talent for befriending famous people is well documented in Dale Carnegie's 1936 best seller, How To Win Friends and Influence People.) Eventually Bok became the publisher of The Ladies Home Journal, which he turned into a serious magazine, and the first to have over a million subscribers. He retired a wealthy man and then turned his attention to building his beautiful carillon.

Bok spared no expense. The 205-foot tall tower was designed by architect Milton B. Medary and was constructed from Georgia marble. The grounds, which cover a steep hill, were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

Lee Lawrie carved intricate flora and fauna details in the Art Deco style. I especially like this window.

Wrought iron fences, gates and hardware were fashioned by America's premier metal worker, Samuel Yellin.

The top of the tower features a filigree of ceramic tile by the artist J. H. Dulles Allen. The grilles, which are at bell-level, measure 10 feet wide and 35 feet high. The bells were made by the John Taylor & Co., Ltd. bell foundry of Loughborough, England. There are 60 bells in all, weighing from 16 pounds to almost 12 tons.

Click to read the sign

Bok Tower is open 365 days a year, and the carillon bells ring on the half hour. Live performances can be heard at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. One fun feature is an outdoor video that allows visitors to watch the carillonneur play in real time.

Edward Bok is buried at the base of the carillon, by a reflecting pool inhabited by two Mute Swans.

Adjacent to Bok Tower, and open to tours, is Pinewood, the estate of one of Edward Bok's neighbors. Pinewood has been preserved as it was in the 1930s, and is a perfect complement to the Bok Tower visit.
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The Meaning of O. N. T.

As my readers know by now, I have a great love for 19th century advertising items. And as I mentioned in my blog about Huyler's, it's especially satisfying to be able to match items that were once a set. That's one of the prime motivations in all collecting, isn't it? Above is a trade card for Clark's O.N.T. Spool Cotton. It advertised a bonus for buying Clark's thread, a charming little box that might have been used for any number of things.

And here's a later find, the actual box, and in nearly mint condition. Even the delicate ribbon has survived.

The top of the box

The label inside the box

You might be wondering, what does O.N.T. stands for?

In 1806, Napoleon blockaded Great Britain, which meant that silk thread was not available to British weavers. The Clark family had a loom supply company and they were also big suppliers of silk thread.

At the time of the blockade, Peter Clark developed a method of combining cotton threads so that they were strong and smooth enough to be used in place of silk, and he advertised this important advancement as "Our New Thread."

Throughout the 1800s, Clark's was one of the biggest distributors of trade cards, always with their trademark initials, O. N. T.
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Illustrator Bernie Fuches

Bernie Fuches (1932-2009) belongs at the very end of the Golden Age of Illustration. Amazingly, he chose a career in art after having lost three fingers from his right hand in an industrial accident, and with no formal art training. In the 1950s, Fuches moved to Detroit and painted car ads for the auto industry. In the late 50s, he moved to Westport, Connecticut to be closer to New York, and from a serene studio there, began illustrating for magazines that included McCalls, Redbook and The Ladies Home Journal.

Curtis Baigent  |  SOMA DARLING  |  Click to enlarge

Fuches' style and compositions were fresh and different and by the age of 30, he was one of America's top illustrators.

General Motors

Throughout the 1960s, Fuches' work was closely associated with the style of McCalls magazine, and he had many imitators. But while his legion of imitators swelled, Bernie Fuches moved on, and his work evolved into a second style that's also associated with him.

Jack O'Grady Gallery

Two detail shots of this poster follow.

It appears to me that Fuches scrubbed on an under painting and then worked from dark to light and from shadows to highlights. Much of his later work has the textural appearance of batiks. 

Jack O'Grady Gallery

Sports Illustrated

Fuches was associated with Sports Illustrated for many years. This painting accompanied an article on Jackie Robinson.

Bernie Fuches was the youngest person elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. He painted portraits of presidents, designed U.S. postage stamps and illustrated children's books. Though he never fully retired, Fuches spent his last years working through the Jack O'Grady Gallery, where his work was sold as fine art.

from The Phantom Darkroom

The perpetually youthful Bernie Fuches died of cancer just two years ago. Reportedly, he was sketching on his deathbed.

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My Exotic Mascot

Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse

Do you have a regular visitor to your yard, some exotic or delightful creature that makes you smile and whom you eventually regard as your very own mascot? Mine is the ibis, a bird about two feet high that almost always comes in flocks.

Ibises are wading birds who ordinarily feed on crustaceans, but because there are no crustaceans in my yard, I suppose that they have a varied diet. Remember the funny toy bird from decades ago that was made of plastic and sponges? The toy bird plunged his head into a glass of water and then would, through some simple law of physics, eventually become upright again. Well, the ibis makes the same movement, albeit at a more rapid pace. A flock of ibises will land in my lawn and then, with great thoroughness, move across it like a well-practiced and synchronized dowsing team. They have orange bills that tend to be dirty for the first six inches. I think they're drilling for grubs, and the sight is comical and endearing.

Photo by Alice Ruffner

Photo by Alice Ruffner

One distinctive feature of the ibis is that it has very blue eyes!

Egyptomania  |  National Gallery of Canada  |  Humbert, Pantazzi, Ziegler

The ancient Egyptians saw the ibis as a sacred bird and deified it.This is an 1888 painting titled Alethe, Attendant of the Sacred Ibis in the Great Temple of Isis at Memphis AD 255, by the artist Edwin Long. It illustrates a tragic story by Thomas Moore of an Egyptian priestess who was secretly Christian, and who became a martyr. Louvre curator Jean-Marcel Humbert notes that Long painted an "implausible" Egyptian costume.

Here I've recreated a hieroglyphic of the ibis god. Known as Tehuti by the Egyptians and named Thoth by the Greeks, he was the counterpart of the Greek's Hermes and the Roman's Mercury. Thoth was usually depicted with a palette and sometimes was crowned with a moon (like Diana). He was lord of the moon, the god of wisdom, writing and invention, and was the messenger and spokesman of the gods. He was also the protector of scribes.

So while I chuckle when I see my ibis friends, this blogger is also honored when they choose my yard for their sustenance!
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