Stainless Steel Railing
50th anniversary of Finelli Architectural Iron & Stairs
Finelli Iron & Stairs marks 50th anniversary at Solon headquarters
Finelli Architectural Iron & Stairs, a family-owned manufacturer of custom-made wrought iron products and curved wood staircases, celebrated its 50th anniversary in business last week.
Since 1961 Finelli has evolved from a start-up business in a Bedford garage to a multi-million dollar company operating out of a state-of-the-art facility in Solon.
After originally immigrating to America in 1947 from Roseto Valfortore, Italy, Michael Finelli, Sr. eventually started Finelli Ornamental Iron as a way to provide for his family. Michael’s desire and strong work ethic laid the foundation for what has become an industry-leading company.
“What started out in 1961 as a business in my father’s garage has steadily grown and grown over the years and we are now very excited to be celebrating our 50th year in business,” said Frank Finelli, president of Finelli Architectural Iron & Stairs.
After initially offering custom-made wrought iron products, in recent years Finelli has expanded to include a 5,000 square foot wood shop where expert carpenters craft curved grand staircases and trim products.
Over the years, Finelli has won numerous awards for its expertise and craftsmanship, including the National Ornamental and Miscellaneous Metals Association’s prestigious Ernest Wiemann Top Job honor on several occasions.
“Finelli Architectural Iron & Stairs will continue to serve the people of Northeast Ohio and beyond from its headquarters on Solon Road,” Frank Finelli said.
from cleveland.com
Historic buldings destroyed by fire
‘Demolition by neglect’
Fire renews debate on historic buldings
In 1917, the wrought iron railings on its balconies were handsome and strong. The four-story apartment building at 906 N. Mesa, built for about $15,000, was a new, modern place to live. Residents probably rode the trolley to work or school, or sometimes walked a few blocks to San Jacinto Plaza to sit under the shade trees.
Ninety-four years later, the once-graceful railings are twisted scrap metal buried under a mountain of bricks and debris, what’s left of the building owned by a group named DDDG Investments.
Officially, a fire of unknown origin brought its demolition, but for those fighting to save El Paso’s historic Downtown, it is another case of “demolition by neglect.”
An El Paso architect calls it a travesty that owners are allowed to own landmark buildings without maintaining them. And the city’s new historic preservation officer, in town just six months, says taxes here are too lenient, and it’s time to think about using the tax code to encourage property owners to restore their buildings.
It’s a debate that’s sure to heat up over El Paso’s long, hot summer.
from elpasoinc.com
Cincinnati medieval magic for “historic” house
A house full of medieval magic and mystery
Pleasant Ridge tour features intriguing lore, architectural gems of 1928 Tudor Revival
Riley Humler and Anne Bauer’s Pleasant Ridge home off of Grand Vista Ave., will be featured in the Cincinnati Preservation Association’s “Upstairs, Downstairs” Historic House Tour. The home was designed by John Henri Deekin at one point belonged to the Mashburn family, who owned Cincinnati’s Coca Cola franchise.
Riley Humler and Anne Bauer have one of those fairy-tale homes made for make-believe, with a wrought-iron staircase spiraling up a medieval-style tower, a basement room accessed via a moving bookcase, a cascading Hansel-and-Gretel-style roof with roughened blue and gray slate tiles and a verifiable – and landscaped – Indian mound to the side of the house.
And those are just the tangible features.
The Pleasant Ridge home – one of five on the “Upstairs, Downstairs” Historic House Tour next Saturday – has enough personality and lore for an entire neighborhood, and the substantiated stories are as intriguing as those up for debate.
“It’s a bit over the top,” Humler said. “Nothing really matches.”
Built in 1928 as the model home of the new upscale Grand Vista neighborhood, the original family lived in the home for only a year before losing it during the Great Depression.
Designed by John Henri Deekin, the home’s Norman Revival and classic Tudor Revival-style architecture sets a storybook English castle mood, with medieval touches such as wrought-iron light fixtures, a massive front door with iron strapping, vault-inspired wood beams bracing the ceiling in the living room and rough-finished interior plaster walls shaped to resemble heavy stone voussoirs around doorways and corners and accented with crest-style lions above the bedroom doorways.
Perhaps the most interesting features of the home are the unexpected ones, such as the golden sandstone exterior which is shaped into blocks to imitate bricks, and the plaster shapes of animals – ducks, porpoises, pigs – that repeat on the crown molding in the dining room and randomly appear on walls and ceilings throughout the house.
For Humler and Bauer, uncovering the home’s eccentricities – such as tiny medieval scenes on pieces of stained-glass windows in the basement – and separating fact from fable has been entertaining since they moved in three years ago.
They haven’t been able to substantiate that the original owner was a bootlegger, but they believe a hidden entrance to a supposed speakeasy in the basement – via a moving bookshelf – was just a way to keep servants out of sight of guests playing billiards or cards in the adjoining rooms.
One fact that Humler – an auction manager and renowned Rookwood Pottery expert – has tried to resolve is the source of the elaborate tile work in the bathrooms. Although marketed as Rookwood tile when the home was for sale, Humler has a catalog that shows the credit – and the exact flamingo mosaic in one of the bathrooms – belongs to another local company, Wheatley.
“I said, ‘That’s neat tile, but it’s not Rookwood,’ ” Humler recalls of their first visit to the home.
Despite the home’s brick-and-mortar romance, it’s hard to imagine how the home would feel without Bauer and Humler’s ornately carved wood table in the dining room, for example, or their collection of beautifully haunting artwork, such as “Clown in Armor,” by Robert Vickrey, which helps establish a perfect medieval stage in the lower level.
from news.cincinnati.com
Railroad baron’s grand old house in Argentina for Jennifer Webster and Zsolt Juhasz Buday
In Buenos Aires, Light and Luster
In the entry hall, the wrought-iron banisters, the ornate moldings and the parquetry were all restored.
By PAOLA SINGER
THE story of how Jennifer Webster, an American film producer, and Zsolt Juhasz Buday, a Hungarian architect and set designer, came to live in a railroad baron’s grand old house in Argentina is one of serendipity and hard work.
Eight years ago, the couple were living in Budapest, but a trip to Buenos Aires caused them to rethink their lives.
“We fell in love with the city,” said Ms. Webster, 42. “Every place was interesting and fresh.”
The city was booming, filled with creative types from around the world who came for its affordability and cosmopolitan feeling. Ms. Webster realized it was an ideal place for a branch of Pioneer Productions, a company she had started in Hungary in the mid-1990s to serve the growing advertising industry in Eastern Europe.
By June 2003, Pioneer had its first overseas office, and the couple began splitting their time between Budapest, where they own an apartment, and Buenos Aires, where they bought a small house in Palermo Soho, a lively area of the city.
But three years later, when Ms. Webster became pregnant, they decided to spend most of the year here and began looking for a home in a quieter neighborhood. An online listing for a Beaux-Arts house in Belgrano, an upscale area with tree-lined streets, caught Ms. Webster’s eye. They drove by and were amazed to find a Hungarian church next door.
“We’re not really religious,” she said, but “we thought it was such a great coincidence and a good sign.”
That spring, they bought the 8,000-square-foot house, built in the early 1900s by an English railroad executive, for about $300,000. “For the size and the price, it was amazing,” Ms. Webster said.
Not surprisingly, it needed a complete makeover. The house had been uninhabited for a decade, and at some point in its history had been converted into an elementary school, so it was a warren of ugly partitions with lots of tiny bathrooms.
The new owners were experienced renovators; even so, they were intimidated by the magnitude of the project.
“We had a low budget,” said Mr. Buday, 45. And given the size of the house, “we had to be very careful.”
Time was scarce, too, as their first child was due in the fall.
They began tearing down walls, demolishing an entire building at the back of the property to make room for a garden and a pool. “It was a very intense renovation,” Ms. Webster said, particularly since they oversaw every aspect of the project themselves.
Six months and $200,000 later, the old structure was almost unrecognizable, at least on the inside. Gone were the narrow corridors and the small rooms; in their place were ample spaces filled with light.
On the second floor are the children’s two bedrooms (although Sophie, 4, and Felix, 3, still share a room), a guest bedroom and the master suite. Downstairs, a 540-square-foot kitchen looks out onto the garden through a wall of windows. On the other side of the house, a sliding door made of sheet metal opens into an office, where an old ceiling with rusted beams was uncovered during rebuilding. The couple chose to leave it that way, Mr. Buday said, because “something too modern can be too cold.”
Another remnant of the early 20th century is the entry hall, where the staircase with its wrought-iron banisters has been restored, along with the moldings and an original skylight. The pilastered front facade has also been returned to its former luster.
The huge basement is mostly empty, except for a housekeeper’s room, a storage space and a studio where Mr. Buday is designing interiors for a project in Hungary.
Living and working in two hemispheres has its challenges, he said, but it’s worth it.
“This is the first time I’ve lived in another country,” said Mr. Buday, who grew up under a Communist regime that imposed travel restrictions. “I never imagined it.”
from nytimes.com
Roland Mouret’s new store, in the Mayfair section of London
‘Maison’ Mouret, Now in Mayfair
By SUZY MENKES
“It’s the idea of a house, with elements of the heritage of a family,” said the designer Roland Mouret, showing the wrought iron and glass table, the majestic throne chairs, the low silver sofa, the pile of antique parakeet green order books and the thoroughly modern 1970s ceiling lights that illuminate the swishing silk curtains around the changing room.
For the designer, he is coming “home,” having recently recovered the rights to use his name, and moved lock, stock and signature Galaxy dress into a town house on Carlos Place, overlooking London’s Mount Street and the Mayfair area’s ever-expanding group of luxury brands.
The upper floors include showroom and work studios, bringing everything under one roof for the designer, who, like Victoria Beckham, is backed by the entertainment entrepreneur Simon Fuller.
“Everybody is here — it’s such a new venture, and it is pushing me to focus on the future and on the concept of fresh product and new categories,” said Mr. Mouret, who has brought his native French idea of a “maison” to this exceptional Edwardian Arts and Crafts building.
The leaded windows, original wood paneling and extensive stucco ceiling decoration create a lofty home for the newly introduced “best of” collection, named after the store’s Carlos Place address. It includes those curvaceous evening dresses, made famous by Hollywood stars and selling at £1,150, or $1,870. The (female) staff members get to wear them, too.
The men’s area, with its 1940s masculine style, has suits from around £1,000 and a marble fireplace to suggest a baronial glamour, while casual jersey and knit pieces for women are in one of the intersecting rooms.
Upstairs, the main women’s selling space is light and airy, and by one of those serendipitous chances has a mimosa tree outside that has just opened into spring flower. Although the designer is known for dresses (which start around £700), he is able to offer a fuller range, including sportier pieces and stylish Italian-made sunglasses. Scheduled to come in June are leather goods and whatever other categories Mr. Mouret delivers to complete his dream home.
from nytimes.it
