What ESTATE Boutique owner Brittany McGinley will be wearing this fall. Photography by Matthew J. Rhein
As a mother of twin two-year-old boys and the owner of an even younger clothing shop, Brittany McGinley lives by a code: efficiency. She even has a formula for her wardrobe: one part seasonal stuff + one part staples + one part statement pieces. The seasonal component keeps her on point with the trends. The statement component’s treated as an accent, which limits wear and tear on the clothing (and her wallet). And the staples act as the canvas for it all.
Aide from being pragmatic, McGinley also knows her textiles and tailoring. She opened ESTATE Boutique in January in the same Doylestown building where she worked as a teenager at Sew Smart Fabrics, becoming deeply familiar with the minutiae of fashion design. Her inventory reflects an insider’s knowledge of craftsmanship, veering between the icons—Helmut Lang, Diane von Furstenberg, J. Lindeberg—and the emerging talent—Ulla Johnson, Smythe, Spr Wmn, IRO. It’s a rare cross-section. But, then, one-stop shopping is the only kind that works for McGinley.
Here, she shares her fall essentials—because she already had them figured out in July.
Jewelry by kismet by milka + Ilsa Loves Rick Like a lot of women, I love to layer my jewelry, like, say, a higher-end necklace from kismet by milka with another by the small-batch, Bucks-based collection Ilsa Loves Rick.
Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer and Foundation My ultimate drugstore makeup finds. Built-in applicators plus sunscreen (with the foundation) for under 20 bucks.
The Crossings 2014 Sauvignon Blanc I’m actually a New Zealand citizen. My dad’s a Kiwi. We spent three weeks touring the country by RV a few years ago, and The Crossings was one of my favorite vineyards we hit along the way.
botkier Crossbody + Torregrossa Ridge bags For everyday use, the smaller Torregrossa bag is my go-to. When I need to be more pulled together, I coordinate the larger botkier bag with my outfit and use the Ridge as my wallet. Both are cross-body bags, which is critical when you’re constantly juggling two-year-olds.
Milly Italian Cady Trapunto Tie-Waist Trousers The high-waist silhouette is going to explode this fall, which is great news because it’s not only flattering, it’s also a very comfortable fit.
Seda France Candles (Malaysian Bamboo and Japanese Quince) + Satya Sai Baba Incense (Nag Champa) I need to be surrounded by candles or incense. Seda France candles burn for days on end.
Burning Torch Flight Jacket I love anything that’s beautiful and functional, and this reversible jacket is that. The outer shell features this Japanese-inspired embroidery, while the inner shell’s clean olive satin
The clothing and accessories featured here are available at ESTATE Boutique.
You love art, but it never seems to love you back. That’s just pretentious gallery owners talking. We found a more considerate one who’s going to show you how to start that collection you always wanted. By Christine Olley • Portrait by Jennie Finken
The key to forming your collection, Van Haute says, is confidence.
Ward Van Haute’s Bethlehem House Contemporary Art Gallery isn’t your typical art gallery. Gone is the sterilized setting—the stark-white walls, the evenly spaced installations—replaced by a space that more closely resembles your home. Or rather, what you’d probably like your home to look like.
Before he opened the gallery a couple years back, Van Haute split his time between Philadelphia and New York, working as an art director and a set decorator for commercials, music videos, films and plays. He seems to approach his gallery in much the same way he did those projects. Set the stage, and our imaginations will take over from there.
The intimidation factor with art can be high. (As can the pretension factor.) It’s not cheap. And compounding the insecurity that’s coupled with that kind of purchase, we’re supposed to view art as an investment. When you’re not sure if the price is fair now, how are you supposed to know if it’ll appreciate? Lost in that conversation is art’s most basic function, which is that it’s supposed to speak to us. Above all, theoretically, it should mean something to you.
Van Haute’s found a way to restore that part to its proper prominence in the thought process of aspiring collectors. He’s filled his gallery with work by emerging, regional artists and furniture by local designers. Seeing everything fit together, it becomes a little easier to be inspired and then imagine incorporating some of those pieces into your own home. Without even realizing it, you’re relating to the art in a personal way, void of financial and perceptual concerns.
It’s a cool trick. We’re sold. Now what?
Start scouting local, working artists. That’s where you’ll find the greatest value, Van Haute says. Beyond galleries like his, seek out art centers and artist cooperatives. If you find yourself gravitating toward one artist or another, but his original work’s still a little steep, contact the artist—almost everyone has a site these days—and ask if he’s done any limited-edition prints.
“Many artists offer prints that are much less than the cost of the original and still hold a collectible value,” Van Haute says.
Still more than you’re willing to spend? (Remember, a collection’s going to take time. You’re not going to fill your house, or even a room, overnight.) Buy some art supplies and take a run at it yourself, Van Haute suggests. Best-case scenario: You discover a hidden talent.
Worst-case: You’re out a hundred bucks, and you’ve learned to be more patient.
Whether you’re buying it or making it, “Just let your own preferences and tastes come out, and be confident enough to stand by them,” Van Haute says. Read: Don’t think of the art as an investment. The stronger the bond, the less likely you’ll be to let go of it anyway.
Let’s assume you’ve found something to your liking. A couple somethings, actually. Connecting with it in a gallery space and displaying it at home are two different animals. For starters, don’t try to mimic the gallery. You’re always going to come up short. Look for the place you want to install it, not necessarily where you think you need to install it.
“Try to create a sense of harmony and balance rather than symmetry and color matching,” Van Haute says.
Part of that implies a place where it’ll be accessible and, in turn, easier to appreciate. If you, say, hang a painting over the dining-room sideboard, you’re always going to find yourself at arm’s length. Hang it, instead, in the living room, unobstructed. If it feels in the way, it wasn’t meant to be. No one’s saying it needs to stay there. Van Haute mixes up his arrangement constantly. You’ll be surprised how much a small, occasional shift can refresh your perspective. Getting back to the importance of identifying with your art, like any relationship, it’s always evolving.
A look at joeyfivecents’ new, locally inspired collection.
By Susan Forker
Last month marked an anniversary of sorts. Exactly 10 years ago, we moved our family from our Southern California home to come and settle in Bucks County. It wasn’t all that difficult a transition—my husband and I were born and raised on the east coast, and we frequently brought the kids back east to visit. Actually, I think we naturalized quite quickly to the changes in climate and culture.
In our time here, I started a small business and subsequently developed my own brand. joeyfivecents, a vintage-imagery-based line of handmade jewelry and accessories, came about a few years after the move through a leap of faith and a nod to my former career as a film editor.
It seemed appropriate, when I began to think recently about expanding, that I should take a cue from my surroundings. After a concentrated workshop in the Pacific Northwest last spring and an intensive summer of trial and error, I unveiled the anniehall collection. Extoling seasonal palettes, botanical patterns and textures, influence is gleaned from what I see in the garden, like moss between the stones, and the landscape I’m surrounded by every day—algae-covered ponds, working farms.
anniehall also represents a bit of a departure in methodology. In place of vintage paper and resin, I’m using epoxy clay and colored pigments to evoke an organic vibe that celebrates nature’s imperfect beauty—and the place that helped me and my family to feel so at home so quickly.
Susan Forker is the owner and designer of the Doylestown-based joeyfivecents, a line of one-of-a-kind jewelry and accessories.
It’s no small concession that my burr grinder and French press reside on the kitchen counter. My wife takes the rather hard line that the counter and the island are for food prep, not storage. She relented only because she realized the longer I go without coffee, the worse the morning goes for both of us. The summer’s another exception. Any day now, our garden (her garden, really) is going to start spewing cucumbers and jalapenos faster than we can pickle them. And the onslaught’s going to remain pretty steady through the last tomato and ear of corn in September. All the while, the fridge and counters are overflowing. The best we could ever hope for was to keep the piles separate. Until this summer. Turns out, we can store our fruits and veg and show them off, too. The handcrafted “garden-to-tableware” collection by Heirloom Home and Studio, in Glenside, is modeled after those familiar paper farmers market containers. Only these are made out of porcelain, so they’re sturdy as hell. And a significant upgrade from the mismatched plates, bowls and Tupperware we’ve been using—and trying to hide. Now we’ll be basking in our bounty, even if it’s still in the way. —Scott Edwards
Heirloom Home and Studio, 2227 Mt. Carmel Avenue, Glenside.
A photo exhibit explores the streets of the Caribbean’s new it spot.
Max Hansen Carversville Grocery, in Carversville, is hosting “Cuba From a Different Angle,” a photography exhibit by Jonathan M. Hansen, the younger brother of Max Hansen, the chef and owner of the gourmet grocery shop. The exhibit features images captured by Jonathan M. Hansen during his trips to Cuba over the last decade. A senior lecturer and faculty associate at Harvard, Hansen is writing a biography on the young Fidel Castro, his third book. He’s a self-taught photographer. Last spring, he exhibited at the Belmont Gallery of Art, in Belmont, Massachusetts, his first solo show. “What I do have, some people say, is a good eye,” Hansen says. “In Havana, I also have a lot of time, as Cuban archives typically close at 4 p.m. That gives me several hours with nothing to do before the evenings but explore and walk many different neighborhoods, old and new, restored and crumbling, commercial and residential.” The exhibit will run through the end of the month. An artist’s reception will be held January 15 at 6:30 p.m. Max Hansen will be preparing Cuban-inspired snacks and drinks. He also plans on serving a variety of Cuban cuisine at the grocery throughout the month.
In the home that Karen Vandeven and Steve Williams built from scratch, every feature was considered and reconsidered until it became a bespoke fit for their deftly curated lifestyle.
By Scott Edwards • Photography by William Heuberger
The living room houses most of Williams’ antique bike collection, along with a few more signs.
Karen Vandeven and Steve Williams’ three-bedroom home sits on a subdivided 120-acre farm in a densely wooded corner of Tinicum, about a 20-minute drive north of New Hope.
“We like it out here,” Williams says. “Although, when we first drove up here, we thought we were a little bit out [there]. We thought we were in Canada, we drove up so far.”
“Our friends, too. They would never come and visit,”Vandeven says.“And now, things have come so close. Doylestown is at our backdoor.”
They bought their five-acre plot in 1998. Back then, a band of vultures hanging out around the corner didn’t even flinch at the sight of them, probably because they knew they had the numbers. Even now, this nook looks relatively unfazed by time. The property’s original stone farmhouse sits just up the hill, within sight of the couple’s home. The corrugated metal cladding that wraps around the second floor of their home is meant to mimic the exterior of the farm’s two-story chicken coop and, in turn, convey a sense of belonging.
But Vandeven and Williams’ home shares little else in common with the remnants of the farm, or, really, any of their neighbors’ homes. As Williams tells it, an older woman in a Mercedes pulled into the driveway mid-construction, compelled to inform the contractor, Richard B. Reshetar (who’s based in the next town over, Point Pleasant), that the area wasn’t zoned for a factory. It’s a home, Reshetar told her. The woman, dumbfounded, said, “Who would want to live in something like that?”
Williams’ home office.
Williams, a graphic designer, had been sketching their dream home for years. Architect John Hayden caught his first glimpse of his drawings when he wandered into Williams’ former office in The Stocking Works, in Newtown, a retrofitted office complex that Hayden himself designed. When they finally found this land, after a year of looking, Williams called Hayden and asked him to design their house. A narrow ledge about midway down a 50-foot slope meant that the layout would have to be rectangular, not square, as Williams wanted. But that was the only major blow to his modern vision.
View from the top of the three-story “tower.”
The 3,000 square foot-home was built over 11 months and completed in June 2001, nearly every detail custom-designed. (A 1,200 square foot, three-story addition that the couple refers to as “the tower” for its obvious resemblance was constructed in 2008.) So much of the design, both inside and out, was influenced by their first home together, an apartment that wasn’t really an apartment in The Laceworks building, a retrofitted 18th century-mill in Lambertville, New Jersey. It was a wide-open, industrial-type space—1,500 square feet, no walls, a 15 foot-ceiling—that Williams talked the owner into letting him renovate.
“It got really hot up there in the summertime, really cold in the wintertime. The walls were just brick,” he says.
Williams installed a kitchen and a bathroom and painstakingly restored the hardwood floors. He lived there for eight years, the last three with Vandeven.
The loft-like master bedroom.
From the overall aesthetic to the practical features, this home is a reimagining of that time—improved upon with maturity. Where there were tall windows, there’s now a pair of one-story glass walls. The core of the home, its literal center, is a commanding steel stairwell. The floors throughout are a grainy No. 3 maple, the same as the floor that Williams spent six weekends scraping and sanding. The walls are few and the ceilings require a 90-degree head-tilt to appreciate. And those ceilings are wood, just like the one at The Laceworks loft. Both were done that way as a matter of function, foremost. Vandeven and Williams are cultivating an extensive vintage trade sign collection, most of which are rather huge and needed to be hanged from the ceiling. A 16-foot, wooden ferguson’s fast side market sign, the first Williams bought (he was 17, and it cost him $5), spans nearly the entire far wall of the kitchen. And that’s not even the largest one in the room.
The second-floor study in the “tower”
Nor are the signs the extent of their collections. Williams has also amassed a museum-quality stockpile of antique bikes. The living room is lined with several, including an ordinary (giant front wheel, tiny rear wheel), the oldest of which date back to the late 19th century. His favorite, a blue and silver 1937 Monarch Silver King, sits around the corner at the base of the stairwell.
Perfume and lotion bottles from several eras ago, the objects of Vandeven’s obsession, and rare, 100-year-old-plus lithographed tins are neatly organized on what look like glass shelves in the mold of a tool chest. There’s also Williams’ library, which is housed on the second floor of the tower. (Typography is the underlying bond of most of his various compilations.)
Both were scavengers before they met, but they function better as a couple. Williams can be impulsive, but he’s learned to abide by Vandeven’s code of conduct, which is, namely, don’t sprint across a flea market after the Next Great Find. Which he still sometimes does anyway.
In any other home, if the main entrance opens to the kitchen, it’s considered a design flaw. Here, it’s completely intentional. The kitchen is where you begin to understand the full effect of all that spaciousness. It’s not just carving out ample room for the signs. When people have room to breathe, they’re more inclined to get comfortable. This space could feel effortlessly intimate with five people hanging out in it or 50. Dinner parties here, it’s easy to imagine, would feel something like eating at a small BYO with an open kitchen.
The chef Max Hansen prepares dinner in Williams and Vendeven’s kitchen.
Vandeven and Williams are avid cooks, and the kitchen follows their ambitious needs as much as their aesthetic. The chef Max Hansen, who lives and operates his eponymous gourmet grocery in nearby Carversville, is a close friend. According to Williams, he considers their kitchen one of his favorites to cook in. The Viking Professional Series range can’t hurt.
The home’s main entrance and sun deck sit atop the garage.
Williams designed the sculptural aluminum pot rack which hangs over the center of an island that spans almost the full length of the large room. Beneath its counter hides the kitchen’s most impressive feature. A stainless steel dining table extends from one end of the island. At full-length, it seats 16. It’s the brainchild of a couple who spent many hours walking through the rooms of their dream house long before a blueprint ever materialized.
