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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities

Category / Desirable Digs

Let’s Window Shop for French Fairytale Homes

Chateaux hunting is a veritable mood right now – the idea of quitting urban life, recruiting your best friends to go all in on the adventure and living out the rest of your days fixing up your French fortress with an endless supply of wine & cheese. There is certainly no shortage of chateaux in…

In Defence of Clutter: The American Castle of a Renaissance Hoarder

Forget the great and gaudy Hearst Castle – why don’t they talk about Fonthill Castle? Now that’s a house worth seeing. Some might call him America’s first hoarder, but for any aspiring collector or lover of eclectic arts, Pennsylvania’s most underrated treasure is an astonishing visual treat at every turn, telling the story of a…

For Sale: The Victorian Butcher Shop You Never Knew You Needed

So generously preserved of its original features, you can almost imagine a portly butcher emerging from his back room to ask whether you want the Sirloin cut or Tenderloin. And yet this “rare survival” in North London has managed to find new life as a wonderful two-bedroom home with a kitchen and front room to…

Complete with Art Deco Nightclub, Hearst’s Hollywood Love Nest is (still) For Sale

You’ll see it in the The Godfather, in Francis Ford Coppola’s infamous horse head scene. It was the enviable house of Whitney Houston’s character Rachel Marron in The Bodyguard. Even Jackie and John F. Kennedy stayed there during their honeymoon, and later used it as his West Coast presidential election HQ. The Beverley House has…

Our Zoom Date with the Guy Who Bought a Ghost Town & is Now Quarantined There (Alone)

In 2018, Brent Underwood and his pal, Jon Bier, spent their life savings on the purchase of a California ghost town, “Cerro Gordo” – and life has never been the same since. Underwood’s virtual tour of the town and its stories – equal parts Clint Eastwood Western, Twin Peaks, and The Shining – brought its…

The Story Behind that 80s Look We Love to Hate

Millennials grew up with it on after-school shows like Saved by the Bell and Pee-wee’s Playhouse. “A shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price,” critics called it. The bizarre and brazen postmodernist movement was definitive of the 1980s and their jagged, candy-coloured designs were as divisive as a bag of liquorice allsorts. You might think you haven’t heard of the “Memphis…

Housetrucks: A Traveller’s Answer to Freedom in this Strange New World?

Stay at home. Don’t travel. Social distance. These are the rules we need to abide by in order to get through this surreal pandemic bringing the world to a standstill. But what if your home was on wheels? What if you could safely stay at home while driving through national parks, desert canyons and coastal…

We Could all Use a Good Conversation Pit Right About Now

It’s 1976. You kick off your platform clogs, pour a brandy, and snuggle up with your moustached companion in the cutting edge of groovy hangouts: the conversation pit. Arguably one of the most divisive home design features of our time, the conversation pit holds a very special place in our kitsch little hearts. If you’re…

Life Inside a Genie’s Lamp, in Brooklyn

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who furnish, and those who decorate. “My apartment is something that has evolved over time,” says New York City interior decorator Sean McNanney, “Ultimately my main inspiration is an Upper East Side classic six transported to Wes Anderson’s take on Old Constantinople – if that…

Mother & Daughter Buy an Abandoned Chateau, Invite You to Stay as they Restore It

Back in 2013, we broke a story about a couple that bought an abandoned chateau and started a blog to share their journey. Widespread interest, longing and general FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) ensued on the internet. Several years later, we’ve found a similar fairytale: an architect from Austria, Elisabeth Herring, and her daughter Valerie, adopt a neglected 16th…

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