Showing posts with label Florence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florence. Show all posts

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Celebrity Home: Sting's Backyard


Typical Tuscan architecture. The 16th-century villa was built as a hunting lodge for the dukes of San Clemente.


Chinese wisteria covers the 118-foot-long oak pergola.


An antique marble fountain rises out of the boxwood parterre.


Clipped boxwood frames beds of lavender, santolina, and white oleander.


An ancient cedar of Lebanon overlooks the parterre, formally known as Il Giardino dei Limoni, or garden of the lemon trees.


Sting came up with the idea for the oversize chessboard.




Lunch on a gravel terrace in the shade of an oak tree.


The pool, installed by a previous owner, overlooks the Valdarno Superiore valley.

Photography by Giancarlo Gardin
Portrait by Jaime Travezan
All images and information from Architectural Digest.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Habitually Chic Hotel: JK Place

I have travel on the brain this week. I think it's because I wish I was going somewhere exotic for Labor Day weekend instead of Pennsylvania, which is where I am actually going. I was also originally going to tell you about another hotel in Florence but it's small and actually very reasonably priced and I don't want it too be all booked up before I make a reservation so I'll tell you about that one some other time. Right now, I am going to sing the interior design praises of the JK Place Hotel in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, in the heart of Florence that is a quiet refuge in the middle of a tourist storm. Isn't it beautiful? But then again, what's not beautiful in Florence.

I love their website where they describe themselves as "Exquisitely masculine, British hints, rarefied décor, an understated display, calm and luxurious. There are only 20 rooms. It is immediately clear that this place could never be ordinary, as the sounds of the city fade away and a slower, more thoughtful rhythm prevails."

Ahhh...Firenze...don't you just wish you were there right now? Sigh.