Town & Country articles from January 2003

Town & Country archives from January 2003

Staying Power. (Editor's Letter).(Editorial)
January 1, 2003... One of the best examples of staying power is the magazine you are holding in your hands. Town & Country began life in 1846 and still thrives 157 years later, which makes it the oldest continuously published general-interest magazine in America....

New resolutions.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... During the past three years that I have been buying your magazine, people have started to comment on my great taste and style and how I always look great and seem years younger than I actually am. I am now working with a life coach and am...

Meditating on miracles. .(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... It was with great interest that I read the article "My Prayer," by Diane Guernsey ["Health" September 2002]. It reminded me of a small book entitled The Voyage to Lourdes, by Dr. Alexis Carrel, who, along with Charles A. Lindbergh, invented the...

Sonoma suggestion. .(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... Love the "In the Country" section! Having recently relocated to Sonoma, I appreciated the review of Dry Creek Kitchen, by Joohee L. Muromcew, in September. Not to be missed on any trip to Sonoma is the new restaurant Zazu. Duskie Estes and John...

Resort retort.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... I was surprised by the tone of the article on the Esperanza Resort in Mexico's Baja California [by Melissa Biggs Bradley, "Traveler's Notebook," September 2002]. I have no problem with an honest review or someone's personal opinion based on...

Words of wisdom. .(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2003... Imagine my delight when I found that Peggy Noonan was your "Social Graces" essayist for September. I enjoy her writing and turn of phrase whenever I find her name at the top of a column in The Wall Street Journal. The C. S. Lewis quote...

T&C's horoscopes 2003.
January 1, 2003... Capricorn December 22-JANUARY 20 Your Year Ahead: Capricorns are intensely aware of the passage of time and hate to squander even one precious moment. During the last few years, though, planetary influences have forced you to shift...

Lyric night. (Parties).(fundraiser for the Lyric Opera of Chicago)
January 1, 2003... THE SETTING The opening of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's 48th season, followed by the inimitable Opera Ball. THE IMPRESARIOS Members of the Women's Board planned the festivities, which drew 3,550 guests for the performance and 780...

A family affair. (On The Town).(family-run restaurants)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... As franchise overtake our cities, neighborhood haunts die out. Perhaps that's why Town & Country has such soft spot for family-run restaurants, particularly those that have been handed down through multiple generations. How have many of them...

New York. (On The Town).(La Grenouille )(Restaurant Review)
January 1, 2003... The evergreen La Grenouille is certainly as famous for its glamorous (and frequently changed) flower arrangements as it is for its impeccably turned out classic French cuisine. But the guiding spirit here has always been the Masson family, who...

Rome. (On The Town).(Nino)(Restaurant Review)
January 1, 2003... In 1939, five years after moving from Tuscany to Rome, Nino Guarnacci opened Nino, on Via Borgognona. Just a stone's throw from the Spanish Steps, it has been the trustworthy pick for excellent Tuscan-inspired cuisine ever since. "We have never...

Atlanta. (On The Town).(Pano's and Paul's)(Restaurant Review)
January 1, 2003... The belief that "the family that works together stays together" is never far from the mind of Pano Karatassos. The powerful owner of Atlanta's Pano's &, Paul's got his first exposure to the prepared-food business from his father, who owned two...

Everything's relative. (On The Town).(American historic restaurants)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... 1849 THE TADICH GRILL, originally called the Coffee Stand, is founded in San Francisco by three Croatian immigrants and serves local miners. This Bay Area favorite has remained in Croatian-American hands--now in the third generation of the...

Houston. (On The Town).(Tony's)(Restaurant Review)
January 1, 2003... When Tony's opened, in 1965, you still couldn't legally get a vodka tonic or a martini at a Houston restaurant. Yet, its owner, Tony Vallone, did not need to serve cocktails to set the style for grand-luxe dining in Texas. For thirty-eight...

Paris. (On The Town).(Le Voltaire )(Restaurant Review)
January 1, 2003... "The atmosphere here is tres en famille," Antoine Picot assures me. His grandparents Raymond and Therese opened Le Voltaire in 1939. "It is almost like a club; everyone feels at home." During World War II, that "club" included members of the...

New Orleans. (On The Town).(Galatoire's)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Many New Orleanians would tell you that Galatoire's, opened in 1905 by Jean Galatoire, an immigrant from France, is the epitome of French Creole dining in the Vieux Carre. Fittingly, little has changed over the years at this revered haunt,...

Dome sweet dome. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Monticello )
January 1, 2003... There are historic houses, and then there is Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop estate in Charlottesville, Virginia. "It's the only home in America on the World Heritage list of architecturally significant sites," says Daniel P. Jordan,...

Sunshine estates. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Ca d'Zan, Vizcaya and Whitehall in Florida)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Ask most people about palatial Florida architecture and only Cinderella's Castle at Disney World springs to mind. But the state deserves a nod for its many Gilded Age confections. Three standouts: Ca d'Zan (941-351-1660; ringling. org), a...

Hudson river valley homesteads. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... For centuries, New York's prominent families and tastemakers have quietly retreated to the rolling landscapes along America's most beautiful waterway. A sampling of their houses, all open to the public, includes (working your way up the Hudson...

Pop-up palaces. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Great American Houses and Gardens )(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... In the days before virtual tours and 3-D imaging, pop-up books were the next best thing to being there. These simple pleasures endure, thanks to Chuck Fischer's Great American Houses and Gardens (Universe; $39.95), which includes photos and...

Preserving the past. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Mount Vernon, Falling Water, Gamble House and the Breakers)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Ever since the pioneering ladies of America's first preservation society banded together in 1853 to save Mount Vernon, private individuals have paid for much of the maintenance and reconstruction of our landmark houses. The financial need--and...

A fair loan. (Houses with history: a range of remarkable American homes with eternal appeal).(Shelburne Museum comes to New York)
January 1, 2003... If you're unable to make it this winter to the wonderland of Vermont's Shelburne Museum, with its unique trove of historic buildings and extensive holdings of Americana, you can view some highlights at the 49th annual Winter Antiques Show in...

For all time: the brands we love, how they began and what has made them forever favorites. (Fashion & Style).
January 1, 2003... [1893] PETIT BATEAU In Troyes, France, Pierre Valton and his son Andre founded the hosiery business that became Petit Bateau, the source for children's underwear. Mothers fell for the cuddly tees, so adult sizes appeared in 1994....

Classic beauties. (Jewelry).
January 1, 2003... 1919 BUCCELLATI Imagine weaving fine lace from 18k gold and you'll capture the essence of the cuff bracelets designed by Italian jeweler Mario Buccellati (top, $67,500; bottom, $115,000). 800-223-7885. 1960s BULGARI ...

Top ten jazz recordings. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... What follows is a personal list, based on many years of listening to and writing about jazz. 1. LOUIS ARMSTRONG, The Best of the Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings (Sony). On cornet, Armstrong revolutionized the jazz solo, influencing nearly...

Top ten works of art. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... Nothing fascinates us more than other people's faces and poses, because we can see in them emotional and intellectual states. Leonardo's Mona Lisa is compelling precisely because the artist thwarts us, capturing the essential mystery--the...

Top ten classical compositions. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... What? No Four Seasons? No Pachelbel "Canon"? No Swan Lake? No Resurrection Symphony? No Wagner? No Puccini? Please! This list is the tip of the tip of an iceberg. Of the ten composers whose names appear below, nine have written dozens of...

Top ten buildings. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, truly important buildings are those that have inspired the greatest number of knockoffs. Here are ten of the most influential: 1. THE PARTHENON, Athens (447-432 B.C.). A referent for grand...

Top ten dance moments. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... Dance is gone the moment after it's happened. Photos can catch a pose, an aura, but a pose is the antithesis of movement. Movies reduce a three-dimensional experience to a flat one; all you can say for them is that they're better than nothing....

Top ten movies. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... Remarkably often, the movies with staying power, those ten or twenty that pass the test of time, are really the ones that coincide with our time. Prophetic or audience-unfriendly when made, they seem to have caught up with us--or we with...

Top ten living artists. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... Although the youngest, latest talents saturate so much of our culture, the art world continues to venerate experience. Particularly noteworthy are the achievements of the world-renowned artists listed below--all are sixty-five or older and...

Top ten voices. (Enduring Artistry).
January 1, 2003... Orpheus, whose singing had the power to tame savage beasts, gave music its most potent instrument--the human voice. Because each of us carries the memories of so many different singers in our heads, it seems; foolhardy to single out just ten...

Unforgettable: from natural wonders to special cities to splendid hotels, there are certain places around the world that never fade from memory. (Traveler's Notebook).
January 1, 2003... THE CARLYLE'S LOBBY Designed by Dorothy Draper in 1930, the elegant lobby of New York City's Carlyle Hotel received a subtle makeover last year from designer Thierry Despont. The black-and-white marble Art Deco floors were restored to...

Smudge-proof: the latest long-wearing cosmetics neither flake, cake, nor dry the skin. (Beauty Mark).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... In the early years of long-lasting makeup, the technology involved volatile oils that evaporated, leaving a film of pigment. The result was dry, flaky color--not exactly comfortable. Recent advances allow moisturizers such as glycerin to remain...

The originals: ground yourself with the classics. (Beauty Mark).
January 1, 2003... 1861: CASWELL-MASSEY SOAP. Legend has it that the first Caswell-Massey soap was sold in 1861, on the eve of the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, who was said to have been a descendant of the Caswells. Bars of the virgin-olive-oil castile soap...

Good old-fashioned miracles: technology is always improving, and new treatments abound, but some not-so-small, not-so-new wonders still do the trick. (Health).(aspirin, antibiotics and band-aids)
January 1, 2003... Today's "medical miracle" is often tomorrow's FDA recall. It's heartening to remember that some treatments are still saving lives after all these years. One a Day Aspirin is the grandsire of wonder drugs: Hippocrates himself praised this...

Perfect ten: cut crystal. Chintz. Anything blue-and-white. Everything Louis. Here are ten design categories that in our view have become unimpeachable classics. (Design).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... 1. Take a crystal vessel, add freshly cut flowers. Steuben's 1942 hand-formed vase ($600) is a pure winner. 800-424-4240. 2. Monogrammed linens make everyone feel like royalty. According to Leron, one of its clients tucks Queen Elizabeth II...

The wizard of Omaha: what has made Warren Buffett the world's greatest investor? Taking the long view. (Wealth).
January 1, 2003... It wasn't long ago that Warren Buffett's "value" investing style was decidedly unfashionable. As the NASDAQ soared through: the stratosphere, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sat out the dot-com boom, happy with his company's hodgepodge...

Minding Miss Manners: truths we hold to be self-evident. (Social Graces).(Judith Martin)(Interview)
January 1, 2003... Three times a week for the past twenty-five years, syndicated columnist. Judith Martin has nudged humankind to clean up its act. After creating the "Miss Manners" concept for The Washington Post in 1978, she quickly became America's undisputed...

Capri: Italy's Pleasure Island.
January 1, 2003... According to its rather sketchy history, the first humans arrived on the island of Capri some 400,000 years ago. They were probably tourists. And for good reasons: this gorgeous, seductive little island in the Bay of Naples has been serving up...

Forever in fashion: the little black dress.
January 1, 2003... WE OWE COCO CHANEL a huge expression of gratitude. If it was not for her creation of the so-called little black dress in 1926, we would still be fretting over what to wear to that long-planned cocktail party, impromptu evening with friends,...

The Peninsula: Hong Kong's long-shining star.
January 1, 2003... Ask the owner or the general manager of the Peninsula in Hong Kong how it feels to run what many consider the best hotel in the world, and he'll brush the accolade aside. When I suggest it to sixty-one-year-old Michael Kadoorie, whose family...

Sissy Spacek: mother, wife, actress--in that order. (Cover Story).(Biography)
January 1, 2003... In the course of her long acting career, Sissy Spacek has metamorphosed into everything from a teenage outlaw in 1973's Badlands, her breakout role, to a desperate wife searching for her journalist husband in Missing (1982), to a stuttering,...

French '40s: classically chic furniture.
January 1, 2003... Like the Victoria's Secret model who boohoos about the days in high School when she couldn't get a date, French '40s furniture--now everybody's darling--has had an awkward, protracted passage to celebrity. Asked why it took such a conspicuously...

The blue blazer: a gentleman's best friend.
January 1, 2003... The first serious article of clothing I acquired was a glue blazer. I was twelve, and I can't remember the occasion for my father's taking me to Bunce Brothers, the best men's store in Shaker Heights, Ohio. It may have been the fact that I had...

Matisse & Picasso: 20th-century titans.
January 1, 2003... Predicting which artists of the moment or even which artists of the recent past will have staying power is usually a doomed enterprise. A century ago, people would have talked about Giovanni Boldini and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. That said, it's a...

The Rockefellers: philanthropy's first family.
January 1, 2003... We all think we know the story of John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937), but most of us have it backward. We suppose that he was a brilliant--and perhaps wicked--oil man who amassed a stupendous fortune and then tried to give it away We, too,...

Glamorous gems: art deco.
January 1, 2003... I wore my first emerald necklace when I was eight years old. It was a circlet of irregular grass-green cabochon globs the size of jawbreakers, designed by my grandfather, Seaman Schepps, I tried it on during one of my frequent visits to his...

G. Heywood Hill: a booklover's paradise.
January 1, 2003... On any given day, identical parcels wrapped in brown paper as thick as parchment, the folds crisp as hospital corners, may be delivered to Gore Vidal on Italy's Amalfi coast; the duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, one of England's grandest...

The four seasons: still a singular sensation.
January 1, 2003... Hard as it is to believe, one of the longest-lasting, most successful and certainly most influential restaurants in the annals of American gastronomy never made a dime during its first fifteen years in business. In fact, The Four Seasons,...

Weddings.(Calendar)
January 1, 2003... Dr. Gia Maria Crecelius married James Robert Maddox, Jr., on June 15, 2002, in an evening ceremony at L'Auberge Del Mar in Del Mar, California. The bride, wearing a strapless duchesse-silk dress by Ulla-Maija, is a physician in the Los Angeles...

Horoscopes: January.
January 1, 2003... Capricorn December 22-January 20 With the New Moon of the 2nd in your birth sign, you'll be stepping into the limelight and seizing control of your destiny. As capable and conscientious as you are, though, a new plan will be subject to...