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Words by Wendy

History Comes Home (opening only)

By Wendy Tweten

As published in WestSound Home & Garden

The sons of two American legends were drawn to one very special home on the shores of Bainbridge Island’s Manzanita Bay

By their hundredth year, houses, like humans, have a story to tell. Yet, while all old-timers have a personal perspective on the past, few have been touched by the history of a nation. On a rise overlooking Bainbridge Island’s magical Manzanita Bay, an architectural time capsule brings the American experience home to Kitsap County. The provenance is irrefutable, but, as with many centenarians, the details have become a bit hazy.

This much is certain: the sons of two of the most prominent men of their day found refuge in the same island hideaway a generation apart. The first was George Westinghouse III, only child of George Westinghouse, Jr., inventor and industrialist from the turn of the last century. Nearly thirty years later, Jon Morrow Lindbergh, the son of aviator and environmentalist Charles Lindbergh, would follow.

Since its construction in 1908, the home has changed hands at least nine times. Architectural icon it may be, yet this heritage home is no wheezy museum piece. In the care of its current owners, Richard and Barbara Ramsey, the house above the bay is just hitting its stride.

Great Grandma's Pocketbook (from a piece on locally crafted handbags: opening only)

By Wendy Tweten

Great Grandma had a pocketbook. The “pocket” part made sense, but I never understood where the “book” came in. But, to Great Grandma, it always was a pocketbook, never a purse. The item in question was modestly-sized, black, unadorned, a perfect match for her sensible shoes. A crisscross clasp allowed it to be shut with a decisive snap, useful for signaling the end of discussion. Though outwardly dowdy, her pocketbook was filled with delights. Butterscotch and peppermint candies appeared from the dark vinyl depths to distract little girls who squirmed during the sermon, and a sniffle brought forth brightly-colored hankies as though from a conjurer’s sleeve.

Yes, purses and I go way back. And I’m not alone among women in finding an emotional connection to handbags – one that most men will never understand. But a handful of local artisans do, and they’re working to bring to the Kitsap Peninsula handbags, totes, and clutches as individual as the women who choose them. Gone are the days when the only purses available were mundane and mass produced. If Great Grandma was still with us, she’d have to gussy-up those sensible shoes to do justice to her stylish new purses (plural, because when it comes to beautiful handbags, just one won’t do). The only thing missing from these modern-age pocketbooks is the smell of peppermint.

21 Things We Forget About the Holidays

By Wendy Tweten

As published in the Kingston Community News

Silver bells! Winter wonderlands! Chestnuts roasting on open fires! (Does anyone besides Martha Stewart actually roast chestnuts?) Every year as Thanksgiving approaches the coming season seems filled with possibilities: family moments, gilded Christmas cards recalling distant friendships, spices and sprinkles, and special cookies baked but once a year.

And then, gradually, we adults relearn all the lessons we’ve managed to forget from the last umpteen holiday seasons.

Ready or not, holiday music will be playing in the stores before the Halloween decorations come down.

There's no law against starting the Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving

Pumpkin pie should be a controlled substance.

Holiday crafts with your children will always be much harder than they appear in a magazine. You will end up finishing the project alone.

Gifts must be hidden where the children can’t find them, but you can.

Christmas cards will NEVER be finished all in one afternoon.

The second verse of Silver Bells is not “city sidewalks, silly sidewalks…”

Don’t wear black when baking cookies with children, unless you enjoy a game of “make flour handprints on Mommy.”

Three dozen cookies will last two days – tops.

10)

No matter how petite it looks in the great out-of-doors, the tree you choose will always be too tall for the room.

11)

Any ornaments you can’t live without should not be removed from the box.

12)

As soon as the finishing touches have been added to a homemade gingerbread house, it will collapse. Any child involved will be disappointed, but can be consoled by eating the wreckage. You’ll feel better if you help.

13)

Even though your family has seen the movie Christmas Story so many times you can recite all the lines, it’s still perversely fascinating to see a kid freeze his tongue to a flagpole.

14)

All the bows you saved from last year will be smashed.

15)

It takes hours to wrap all those lovely packages; seconds to unwrap them.

16)

Buy emergency gifts of candy in case someone surprises you with a present (and you can eat the candy yourself if no one surprises you).

17)

Holiday dinners and parties are the most fun on the day you think them up.

18)

Any party you plan will start at least two hours before you are ready.

19)

The holidays always come at least three days before you are ready.

20)

By dinnertime on Christmas Day, you will regret buying your child any toy that shoots or makes noise.

21)

It’s such a relief when the holidays are over, and so sad.

The Eye of the Eagle: Eagle Clan master carver David Boxley reawakens Tsimshian tradition

By Wendy Tweten

As published in WestSound Home & Garden (opening only)

Long before Columbus arrived at the shores of the “New World,” prosperous villages stretched along the coast of British Columbia. The people who lived there, the Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian, took their living from the sea – and the sea was generous. As their cultures thrived the tribes carved massive canoes from ancient cedar trees, built hundred-foot longhouses and developed one of the most highly-stylized and symbolic forms of art the world has ever known.

Enter any Tsimshian longhouse and you would find the elegant iconic images of Northwest Coast Native Design gracing everyday items from storage boxes and bowls to canoe paddles and ceremonial rattles. Intricately-formed performance masks – some with movable parts – were worn on special occasions, such as the inter-tribal gatherings known as potlatches. Cedar panels, carved with the legends of the people, separated the chief’s quarters from the common living area and served as a pass-through for potlatch gifts. Standing just outside the longhouse door, a totem pole depicted the history and status of the family-clan that resided within.

An ancient art reborn

Though generations have come and gone, the sophisticated images of this ancient art form have found new life in the studio of Tsimshian artist, David Boxley. His masks, paddles, bowls, bentwood boxes and drums could all have been plucked from the hands of a tribal warrior.

For Boxley, his creations carry meaning far beyond mere decoration; they are a birthright and a legacy. In addition to his international acclaim as a master artist, Boxley has become a “culture-bearer” to his people. He began his role as reviver of lost traditions nearly 20 years ago with the raising of a totem pole in his home village of Metlakatla, Alaska. He was instrumental in the resurgence of potlatches in both Alaska and Washington, and he has led several native dance groups, most recently the Git-Hoan, or People of the Salmon, which performs across the U.S. He has also composed more than 40 songs in the Tsimshian language, Sm'algyax, which he learned from his grandparents.

“What started as a hobby became my career; I didn’t anticipate how it would shape my life,” says Boxley. “The culture has such a pull on me. I’m very serious about preserving that culture.”

A Star is Born: No mere media room, this in-home movie palace pays homage to the golden age of the silver screen

By Wendy Tweten

As published in Home by Design

Although popcorn and soda pop are the preferred accompaniment to the typical movie experience, at the home of Bruce and Kandi Laughrey, a movie in the media room is an occasion more suited to champagne and caviar. With the grandeur of a motion picture palace of yesteryear – scaled back to private-residence proportions – the Laughreys’ theater room makes watching a show more than a pleasant diversion: it’s an opening-night event.

When it came time to plan a media center to complement their Italian country-style home in Central Florida, the couple looked beyond the usual boxy space with a wide-screen TV at one end and a couch at the other. In fact, they looked back nearly a century to the glory days of the American cinema. Of course, fitting a grand movie house into the floor plan of a private residence would require an experienced architect with more than a passing understanding of dramatic illusion. So the Laughreys turned to same firm that designed their home, Terry Irwin Architects, known for high-end custom design including theaters for Disney and NASA.

“The clients wanted the theater to be somewhat connected to the style of their house, only with the higher degree of detail found in Italian Renaissance design,” says company founder, Terry Irwin. “The challenge was to recreate the grandeur and passion of the big movie houses from a time when going to the pictures was a special occasion.”

If Irwin was the set designer, homeowner Kandi Laughrey took the role of director. Kandi, a former interior designer, was intimately involved throughout the project and a major contributor to the cohesive and opulent final product. Bruce Laughrey, an electronics enthusiast, served as technical consultant, selecting a 120-inch Draper screen with a Meridian 861 processor and seven Snell speakers for optimal surround sound.

Fun with Real Estate

By Wendy Tweten

As published in the Kingston Community News

I consider myself something of an expert when it comes to real estate. Not that I know anything about buying or selling, or property values or any of that boring stuff. I just know what I like, and what I like are radiant heat floors, slab granite countertops, panoramic Puget Sound views, and jetted Jacuzzi tubs that would make Cleopatra feel self-consciously self-indulgent. Not that I have any of these in my own home, mind you, but for several years (before the format changed) I toured this kind of home regularly to pen the profiles for the real estate section of the local paper.

The “big feature” home was often spectacular. The chosen abode could be anywhere from just down the road here in Kingston to Port Ludlow, Allyn, or even, heaven help me, Gig Harbor. I went to places I’d never heard of. Sometimes I felt like Sacagawea – except that she knew where she was going. Occasionally the sound of banjoes dueling out the theme from Deliverance could be heard playing softly, ominously down the tree-darkened dirt roads…

The main qualification for the job is the ability to find lots of ways to say “good.” At last count, I have a working collection of nearly three hundred glowing adjectives (seriously). The list of terms I’m not allowed to use is even longer and includes “grim”, “scruffy”, “unrepentantly pedestrian”, “snobsville”, “splendiferous” and “enough beige to bring on a coma.”

To help you decipher the technical language of real estate marketing, here’s my understanding of a few common terms:

-Must see: when mere words fail

-High-end home: anything round will end up against one wall

-Estate: a house with an attitude

-Secluded: bring water and granola bars

-Broad view: not a sexist term

-Stunning: have the wiring checked

-Sunken living room: not a problem as long as it was designed that way

-Breathtaking: used to describe the view, never the asking price

-Affordable: even space flight is affordable for some people

-Life begins on the second fairway: a golf course so good even the onset of labor can’t tear women away

It’s all right for the family room to “flow into” the kitchen, but not for the bathroom to flow into anything else. Leaded glass is a good thing, leaded paint is not. A “seasonal water view” can mean either a) when the leaves fall you can see Puget Sound, or b) at certain times of year the drain field backs up.

Can there be any more horrifying circumstance than a home on the market due to “family liquidation”? I don’t know about you, but before making an offer I want to know how they were liquidated – and where.

For those of you now inspired to pursue a career writing real estate ad copy, here’s my advice: watch the typos. I can’t tell you how many powder rooms I’ve turned into power rooms. Walk-in pantries are preferable to walk-in panties. Wall scones may be delicious, but they provide much less light than do sconces. It’s very nice if the wallpaper compliments the master bath, but, seeing as how talking (much less polite) wallpaper is difficult to find, the word you may be fishing for is “complements”. While a spacious home will attract buyers, a specious one will send them running back to their condos. And, finally, watch the vowels, especially when describing a home’s “big deck.” After all, “big dack” is nonsense, “big dock” probably misleading, “big duck” confusing (and not necessarily a buyer incentive), and the final possibility is guaranteed to get you fired.

Realtors are forced to follow some bizarre restrictions in their Multiple Listing Service verbiage, and they often insist you play along. For one, the word “family” is not allowed (except, oddly, in “family room”). Apparently “family” is considered exclusionary, as is “his and her.” “Walking distance” is another no-no, since not everyone can walk and the MLS considers them too emotionally delicate to be reminded of the fact (I’ve often wondered, since not everyone can see, why we are allowed to mention a view). There are no such limitations on the use of “cozy,” but just try using it and watch the realtors faint. This is, after all, the age of bigger-is-better, lost-the-dog-somewhere-on-the-third-floor, suburban mansions, and poor, homey “cozy” is just not big enough.

Though I miss visiting the homes, the current format of smaller, more succinct write-ups via phone interview makes better sense – as well as saving gas. But it allows me to continue crafting my splendiferous superlatives, lending a genteel refinement and stop-the-presses panache to these sultry and sensual architectural titans.

Wendy lives in an artistically unsophisticated and rurally urbane (urbanely rural?) cozy Kingston home with a big duck overlooking flaming Olympic Mountain sunsets. Send comments to her at wendy@wendytweten.com.

A Taste of IslandWood: Students of all ages eat up the lessons of the world-class kitchen at Bainbridge Island’s “School in the Woods” (opening only)

By Wendy Tweten

As published in WestSound Home & Garden

Hand them lemons and the chefs of IslandWood will make more than just lemonade: they’ll turn them into an epicurean banquet with a presentation to rival the most fashionable five-star resort. Whatever comes their way – from fresh local seafood and produce to prickly pear and nettles – the kitchen staff of this acclaimed “school in the woods” will transform it into gourmet dining. If it’s true that the cook is key to any organization, then the kitchen is the pride of IslandWood.

“There’s a lot of inspiration here,” says lead chef, Jim White. “When we’re offered something unfamiliar we study how it’s used in the culture it comes from and compare it to other foods. It helps us keep the menu creative as well as enjoyable.”

At IslandWood the cuisine is more than world-class, it’s part of the curriculum. Set on 255 acres at the south end of Bainbridge Island, Washington, IslandWood is hailed as the nation’s most ambitious environmental learning center. The campus is the site of numerous classes, camps, conferences, and community events. At the heart of it all is the School Overnight Program, which provides a hands-on outdoor education for elementary-aged students from economically challenged communities across the Puget Sound region. For inner-city children who may have spent little time outside their own neighborhoods, four days living and learning in the forests and wetlands of IslandWood is an ecological eye-opener.

Luxury Goes Green: The Reijnen Company brings high style to low impact (opening only)

By Wendy Tweten

As published in WestSound Home & Garden

For the past 23 years, landowners in and around the Kitsap Peninsula have turned to The Reijnen Company to create their dream homes, and, whenever possible, The Reijnen Company has built those dreams green.

Known for high-end custom construction and remodels, this Bainbridge Island-based company proves that when it comes to new home construction, high impact style can benefit from low impact innovation. Though its portfolio ranges from small remodels to prominent commercial ventures, the group specializes in an astounding array of million-dollar homes includiing clean-lined classics, gentrified log homes, and space-age steel and glass originals. But no matter the price tag or square footage, says company president and founder, Derek Reijnen, every project benefits from ecologically aware building practices.

“The whole concept of ‘green’ represents a constellation of choices,” says Reijnen. “Building green is a matter of picking and choosing from many materials and processes. Our job is to inform the client what’s available and lay out options. The client decides how far to go with the environmental aspect.”

Here's one last selection. Thanks for sticking with me to the end...

There Once was a Small Town Called Kingston…

By Wendy Tweten

As published in the Kingston Community News

Does anything rhyme with “Kingston”? “Homespun”… “king’s son”…“spring bun”…“undone”!?!. It’s possible there’s a limerick in there somewhere, but I’m darned if I can see it. Keep in mind that when composing a limerick it’s considered acceptable to use the same word as a rhyme for itself (which I consider cheating unless, of course, I do it). The almost-but-not-quite-rhyme is also viewed with indulgence. If desperate times require desperate measures, we may then apply these peculiar rules to blurt out…

There once was a woman from Kingston

Who could not find a rhyme for “Kingston”

At the end of her rope,

She at last gave up hope

And instead wrote a limerick on Eglon.

Except, as it turns out, I didn’t write a limerick on Eglon because it doesn’t rhyme with anything either.

Here’s a good explanation of the Irish five-liner. I didn’t write it – though I wish I had.

The limerick is furtive and mean;

you must keep her in close quarantine,

or she sneaks to the slums

and promptly becomes

disorderly, drunk, and obscene.

Props to Morris Bishop, anyone who can work “furtive”, “quarantine,” and “obscene” into one poem is all right by me.

By now you might be asking yourself, why is the limerick the appropriate poetic construct for these modern times? In explanation, I have written the following:

The sonnet’s as dead as the dodo,

so is the epic and ode, oh…

and why not, I say?

For they’d not get away

with rhyming dodo and ode, oh.

See...what’s not to like? When it comes to the limerick naughty is optional, but a wink and a grin are mandatory. Limericks are the lyrical refuge of the simple soul. And they’re easy to write with inspiration everywhere. For example, take a pouty two-year-old:

There once was a young boy named Will

who climbed up a very tall hill.

When asked to come down

he said “no!” with a frown.

As far as we know he’s there still.

I wrote that one for my youngest boy when he was the pouty two-year-old. In fact, each member of my family has his (or her) own personal limerick, except for my husband who saw the direction my poetry usually takes and opted out. It’s a shame since “Ted” is about as fine a rhyming word as you’ll find (bed, bled, fed, fled, dead, biped, hardhead, illbred…you can understand his reluctance). Yes, I even have my own limerick, which I'm happy to share since I’m now past forty and have no pride left.

There once was a woman named Wendy

who used to be really quite bendy.

But the years passed away

till she discovered one day,

all her stretch was now in her rear-endy.

One last thing before I go. Where would Kingston be without ferryboats and coffee shops?

Kingston commuters are strangely elated,

even when the boat’s badly belated.

With Cuppa Bella, and Moe Joe,

and Jitters Espresso,

their outlook is well caffeinated.

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