A Tale of Two Villages… more autumnal gifting enlightenment this holiday season
Most towns with an “Upper” and “Lower” Village release the buildup of civic tension by staging occasional rumbles – West Side Story style. We all remember with great fondness the finger-snapping Pierre Lafond crew pirouetting in tight formation as they surrounded international master jeweler Daniel Gibbings – and the high-kicking Grande Battement with which Gibbings broke the Lafond snare, crying “Not today, daddios!” *sigh* What a town!
But come “the Holidays,” our upper and lower villages make that yearly rapprochement that has become tradition. Emissaries from the two precincts meet in neutral territory, the olive branch is extended, and the delegations ceremonially set aside their differences: the lower village doing those uncomfortably lengthy hugs with the eyes squeezed shut, the upper village satisfied with a murmured pleasantry and robust pat on the back. It is always more awkward than emotionally stirring but does signal the season of peace.
Having documented the Lower Village’s seasonal offerings in the MJ’s previous issue, we now turn to the flagstone-and-greenery-bedecked Upper Village, and beyond. You know, to maintain equilibrium.
Yes, as store names go, Imagine Artful Things should possibly be followed by an exclamation point. So insistent! But the vaguely instructive nature of the store’s name suits it. “I don’t know what I’m looking for but I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.” While this sentence is often uttered in a spirit of mild hopelessness, upper village destination Imagine Artful Thingssees the comment as an incantation and welcomes the stymied shopper. Imagine’s unclassifiable gift-shopping experience does indeed look like a figment of imagination made real. As their own web site summarizes, Imagine carries … “exquisitely crafted, carefully curated unique clothing, gifts and jewelry…” Yeah, that almost describes the place. Your dear gift recipient “who has everything” could use some of Imagine’s … imagination. A Nehru Coat? A pristine scale model ‘30s sports car hand-built by legendary Hughes Aircraft machinist/model builder BB Korn? Gorgeous and mesmerizing glass marbles from your favorite fever dream? A Primal Table Lamp? Look, nobody has everything – not even your dear pal with that tastefully objet-stuffed smörgåsbord of a house. For those laboring under the illusion that they do, there is Imagine Artful Things, since 1983. Time to surprise the ___ out of your favorite completist.
Arrediamo, in Summerland, sells world-class rugs. If ever a “retail” destination obliged a fuller description, Arrediamo is that place. Loaded with history and heart, Arrediamo’s back story is a winding trail of many turns that connects this shop on a Summerland hillside to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Yes, that Istanbul; today’s so-called Queen of Cities grandly descended from ancient Constantinople. In 1986, Rem Yildirim began working with his father and uncle in carpet restoring at the Grand Bazaar. When Rem felt the deep, inexorable pull of the hand-made carpet, he set up shop in Florence, traveling around that country and restoring Renaissance-era carpets, furniture, oriental rugs and tapestries, soaking up the old-world knowhow and deepening his love for the craft. Then back to Turkey in ‘90, his own carpet marketplace there in ‘96, and ultimately his traveling to the U.S. in 2001. Rem landed in El Paso, Texas, of course, traveling the Lone Star state and stunning his lucky customers – until he laid eyes on Santa Fe, NM, where the culture of genuine artisanal appreciation and creative fervor provided the perfect marketplace for his rugs. Now a Summerland staple, Arrediamodeals in contemporary rugs, Southwest U.S. rugs, traditional rugs (jute rugs, Afghan Kilim rugs, Moroccan handmade Beni Ourain rugs, Tribal Oriental Persian rugs, Bohemian rugs, hemp rugs, hand-knotted Portuguese Cotton rugs), and genuinely old antique rugs that wear their worldly years and stories with a loveliness that grows deeper with time. “We buy our rugs from the producers, usually small family-run businesses that design and produce,” Rem says. “We buy only a few pieces from each one, to keep our inventory alive.” Arrediamo also cleans and appraises rugs. Rem Yildirim brings the ancient tradecraft into
the current moment.
Marc Gelinas Interior Design in the upper village is what we may call “the gift you inhabit” – literally. Gelinas has been lending his professional expertise and unerring intuitions to clamoring interior design clients since 1987, his assignments leading him by the hand through a selection of style-inclined burgs with names like Aspen, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, his home state of Rhode Island, naturally; and a former frontier outpost called Santa Barbara. Gelinas’ trademark is his reportedly instinctive, much-lauded feel for interweaving a client’s very personal and inimitable sense of style with the surrounding domicile. Approaching a project in calibrated phases, Gelinas’ thoughtfully expressed design aesthetic finds its fuel in the client’s personality, drawing on an innate expertise in color, scale, and balance. For all that, his work is effectively that of a tailor – forming a deeply nuanced look and feel that is authentically of the client; representative of the inner and outer person.
Gelinas’ portfolio is as fluid as one would expect of a working artist/designer bringing his aesthetic craft to multitudes. From subtle decorative amplification to something as sweeping as a full-scale renovation (floor plans, elevations, hard surface selections, and project management), he assembles the necessary team – architect, contractor, specialty trades – and brings the project seamlessly home. As a startling added bonus, Marc Gelinas Interior Design’s Upper Village base is a window-wrapped glass box – a showroom in plainer language – displaying a curated selection of 18th-century antique furniture and accessories. Gelinas is also Southern California’s sanctioned purveyor of the storied Saladino furniture collection; a functional menagerie born of designer John Saladino’s association with Parsons School of Design, New York School of Interior Design, Save Venice, and the Sir John Soane Museum Foundation in London. If you seek the Saladino touch, Marc Gelinas Interior Design is a necessary stop. Unless you happen to be near Saladino’s other showroom in Stamford, Connecticut. Gelinas’s work has been tastefully hollered about in the Wall Street Journal, House Beautiful, and Traditional Home. This Artisan of the Interior awaits your casual visit.
That’s it for this Holiday Guide installment. We’ll see you at the dance where, it is hoped, the Upper and Lower Village gangs will keep their cool and not throw down any challenges. These frightening rumbles – with their relevés and pliés – can be tough on the tendons.
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