Firey Savoir Faire

I love fireplaces, having grown up with them for most of my life, I find them incredibly welcoming and dare I say it ‘cosy’. Traditional fireplaces are wonderful especially if they have the original mantles, and accessorised with a wonderful pair of classic andirons.

Now, it is also no secret that I love hotels as well, and a fireplace in a hotel lobby or room, is a nice reminder that you are somewhere warm and inviting and not necessarily in a hotel. Whether being traditional or ultra modern I love the examples below.

The Crosby Street Hotel in New York has created an almost David Hicks like interior with the deep purple walls and the stark white fireplace in traditional style. Other classical elements in the room such as the chandelier have been updated to a more modern look.

The 101 hotel in Reykjavik is super modern and this has been offset with traditional and natural forms of furniture such as the chairs and the woodblock coffee table.

Who can go past the wonderful free flowing Art Nouveau fireplace in the Galleria Park Hotel in San Francisco? It is all about the shape and the accessories here and it does not need much else.

I am also taking the liberty of actually adding to some of the ultra modern examples below with andirons. I do like the stark simplicity of these however the decorator in me just wants to add something else, not too much mind you.

I would love to team this fabulous white and green marble faced fireplace at the St Paul in Montreal with these wonderful art deco glass and brass horse shaped andirons.

When it comes to this example in a bathroom I think these classical gladiator andirons would just push it over the edge of fabulosity.

The fireplace at the Distrito Capital Hotel although sheer brilliance in its simplicity, could be even better with the brass andirons below.

The nickel plate andirons below would look great against this stainless steel wall.

This fireplace in a hotel in Luxembourg would definitely stand out with this Asian motif inspired andirons.

And just because it is fabulous, the outdoor fireplace around the pool at the Island Hotel in Newport is somewhere where I want to be!

Do you agree with my pairings?

Stunning Savoir Faire

It is no secret that I like Art Deco, Architecture and good cuisine. I have always been impressed by the grand dining salons that graced the great ocean liners of the period between World Wars I & II, not only by the their stunning design, but also for the reputations they had for being some of the best restaurants of the world. It was said that more seagulls followed the French Liners than any other ships, just for the scraps that were thrown overboard.

I have always longed to dine in such spaces that take us back to another era. In Montreal we have Eaton’s 9th floor restaurant, which is sadly off limits to the public, just waiting for someone with the imagination and funds to turn it into something truly spectacular. See http://david-toms.blogspot.com/search/label/Eatons

While visiting Australia in March this year, the opportunity to dine in such a space escaped me as I just ran out of time. Neil Perry of Rockpool fame opened his new Rockpool Bar and Grill in the City Mutual Building in Hunter Street Sydney.


The City Mutual Building is an incredibly fine example of Art Deco Architecture in Sydney, considered one of the finest in the country, and the transformation of the interior into the Rockpool is nothing short of fabulous.

The space is pure elegance and Art Deco fabulosity, framed under two-story marble columns with stained glass windows, all trimmed in dark wood panelling. This space recalls the almost shrine like atmosphere that reigned in the dining salons of the Normandie and Ile de France. The space is also a thrilling mix of art-deco savoir faire with sleek understated modernism, enhanced by the sculptural display of thousands of Reidel glasses.

One of the highlights definitely has to be the ceiling in the main space and the bas relief which copies the sculpture from the entrance of the building of a couple sheltering themselves from the ashes of Pompeii. (Rather apt as City Mutual was in the Insurance business).

I know next time I am home in Australia I am making a bee line to this temple of cuisine, to savour my surroundings over a good glass of wine.

Putting on Some Savoir Faire in Toronto

As most of you know I have just returned from a weekend of savoir faire in Montreal. A while a go I did a post on the 9th Floor restaurant atop of Eaton’s Department store in Montreal, that shrine of art deco which has been mothballed for the last decade or so. I kept on walking past the building, looking up to see if there was some way I could get to see it. Alas, it is out of bounds so I just had to walk on by.

However, despair not! Toronto has it’s own equivalent which luckily to say has been restored and is a fully working function space. The Carlu is a historic event space in Toronto. Known for many years as the "Eaton's Seventh Floor", the Carlu is one of Toronto's best examples of Art Moderne architecture. Again Lady Eaton, the family’s matriarch had her way and she retained the noted French architect Jacques Carlu to design the seventh floor of the edifice, which was to contain the 1300-seat Eaton Auditorium, the Round Room restaurant, lounges and a private dining room. All of the facilities were to be connected by a long foyer, designed in the style of the ocean liners of the day. Walking through the space you do not have to imagine hard to think that you were on an ocean liner in the thirties. This is a wonderful space that just reeks of subdued elegance.

Itself an Art Moderne masterpiece, the Eaton's Seventh Floor was at the heart of Toronto's cultural life for many years. The Auditorium played host to the major performers of its day, including Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra.
The Round Room was, as the name suggests, is a circular room, with circular mouldings in the domed ceiling and recessed alcoves in the corners. At the centre of the room stood a Lalique fountain, lit from below. Carlu was responsible for all aspects of the dining room's design, from the lighting fixtures to the Royal Worcester china, the stemware, and the waitresses' black uniforms. Carlu's wife, Natasha, designed the murals on the walls, depicting various scenes of pastoral life as she had done in the Montreal equivalent. For years, the Round Room was one of the most elegant places to dine in Toronto.

As usual, with changing tastes and fashions the space fell into decline, until it was completely restored and reopened in 2003 to much acclaim as "The Carlu" event venue. Even the original Lalique fountain, which had long been believed to have been lost, was restored to its place at the centre of the Round Room. The venue's new name was chosen in order to honour the architect that had originally designed the space.

Each year in Toronto we have an annual Doors Open event and Carlu is usually open for the public to traipse through marveling at this Art Deco masterpiece! And a masterpiece it is!

Savoir Faire on the 9th Floor

A couple of weeks ago in one of the local newspapers here in Toronto was an article featuring Eaton’s Ninth Floor restaurant atop their department store in Montreal. I was intrigued as I remember department store restaurants back in Australia when I was just a young wee thing, however nothing as opulent and luxurious as this! This is an art deco masterpiece, which sadly is off limits to the public and sitting shrouded in decay, since the Eaton’s chain when bankrupt in the late 1990’s.

The restaurant drew its inspiration from the 1st class Salle a Manger on the French Line’s transatlantic liner the Ile De France (see pic below). The company’s matriarch Lady Flora Eaton travelled aboard the luxury liner in the 1920s, and was so impressed by what she found on the liner that the dining room was incorporated into the plan when Eaton's decided to expand its Rue St. Catherine store to nine floors from six in 1928.

The 650-seat dining room opened on Jan. 25, 1931, as Le François Premier, but the ladies who lunched there never called it that. It was always known as "The Ninth Floor."

The room is the work of interior designer Jacques Carlu, the French-born professor of advanced design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also responsible for the celebrated Trocadéro in Paris and the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Plaza. Carlu was also responsible for Toronto equivalent at the Toronto store, which I am happy to say, has been restored and functioning as an event space.

With opal glass, nickel steel railings, and pink marble columns with black Belgian marble accents, and monumental space the dining room remains one of the most staggeringly beautiful art deco rooms in Montreal, if not the world. This was a luxurious escape for lunch where with a bit of careful imagination we were on our way to Europe cocooned by the luxury around us.

Luckily it has been given heritage status by the Quebec government, however it is still mothballed. When and if its doors ever open again, the devotees of savoir faire will be lined up just to experience the cachet of dining in a space that harked back to days of style.