Living Upriver | Barbara de Vries
Intro: Welcome to the one and only interior design book podcast, Decorating by the Book, hosted by Suzy Chase from her dining room table in New York City. Join Suzy for conversations about the latest and greatest interior design books with the authors who wrote them.
Barbara de Vries: I’m Barbara de Vries and my latest book is Living Upriver: Artful Homes Idyllic Lives, which I wrote in Milford, Pennsylvania during the pandemic.
Suzy Chase: You are a creative director, designer, and bookmaker. After studying at the Royal College of Art, you had your own critically acclaimed fashion label in London before moving to New York in the late 80s. In 1991, you created and launched the CK collections at Calvin Klein and then launched your own fashion company. Then in ‘97, you won the Women's Wear Daily Face award. In 2008, you founded Gordon de Vries studio and have since produced design and written books on design, architecture, fashion and lifestyle. Also, you've been a passionate, anti-plastic pollution activist since 2005. So how did you transition from fashion into writing?
Barbara de Vries: It was kind of a forced situation in a way, because my husband and the girls, too, wanted to move to Miami for high school years, and my husband got a job at FIU in Miami. So when we moved there, I really didn't feel that there was a fashion business in Miami. I looked a little bit that I wanted to be part of, and I did a few fashion projects while I was there. But at that point, there was this architecture firm who asked my husband and I to make a book about their work. My husband is an architectural critic, so it made sense. And I've done layouts and design and definitely production a lot. So it made sense that we made that book together, and that's kind of where it started. And that's been, what, about 1314 years ago? So in that time, we've managed to make quite a lot of books. And then most recently, I have started making books myself that I write and produce and photograph. So that the whole package is kind of my expression, because, like with anything, if you do it for someone else, it's never quite what you would like it to be. So being a bit of a control freak, I just do books from head to toe myself.
Suzy Chase: Yeah, I did notice that Living Upriver on the cover it says, text and photography by you. And I know in your last book, coming home, modern, rustic, creative living in Dutch interiors, your photographer bowed out at the last minute. So you rented a good set of cameras and decided to do the shoot yourself. Now, was that easy for you to make that pivot?
Barbara de Vries: No, not really. I mean, it was fun because it was a challenge and it was something I'd never done before, so I liked that challenge. I'd been working with this particular photographer on books, architecture books for a while, so I was used to setting up a room and making sure that everything's in the right place, and there's not, like, an old pair of socks sticking out of a fruit bowl or something like that. So that I was used to doing. And he told me which cameras to buy. So I think the first few houses were really quite difficult to get the light right and not to even have somebody with you to go, is that okay? Is that not okay? But then I really ended up really enjoying working that way, just being by myself and really kind of immersing myself in a house, in a room with nobody to relate to. So it kind of really becomes your thing much more easily that way, and you're less distracted. So I very much ended up enjoying doing it, and that's why I did the next one myself as well. And I think I learned a lot from the first one that I could then apply to the second one.
Suzy Chase: So your daughter is a graphic designer. Did she create the living upriver font?
Barbara de Vries: Yes, she did.
Suzy Chase: Would you describe it? It's really cute.
Barbara de Vries: Yeah. I asked her to do a stick font, and I had something in mind, and it wasn't like that at mean. Kiki is always bigger and bolder and more challenging than you can even imagine yourself. So when I asked her that, I thought she was going to just get some little sticks, but meanwhile, she went into the forest and got all these huge sticks and wrote it really large, which gives it a lot more texture with all these sticks. And then there's one very large stick through the middle that serves with both as the. The “I”. The “I” throughout, right on both sides. It's come up really great. And I keep urging her to do a whole alphabet, and then we'll put it on one of the font websites, but she still hasn't done that. I try to make it commercial, but she won't do that.
Suzy Chase: So talk just a little bit about what Living Upriver means to you.
Barbara de Vries: You kind of make a book, and then you come up with a title that encompasses everything that's in the book. And there have been so many country life, country lifestyle, the slim pickings for titles, for lifestyle books. And this just made sense because I picked people all the way up and down the Hudson river, as well as the Delaware river, and that was kind of the parameter, those two rivers and everything. In between the banks and everything in between. That kind of became my kind of two and a half, three-hour perimeter where I looked for houses and ended up with a selection of houses. What that means is, really, is what I made it mean by the kind of houses that I ended up putting in the book. So now, living Upriver might mean a certain aesthetic, which is very much. I think every house in the book is a fixer up was a fixer upper, and people did very much their own thing with it. So, in my perception, living a forever now means just living creatively and being very thoughtful about how you want to live and making that life for yourself.
Suzy Chase: I think it's so cool that you kind of coined that term, and now it's very evocative. When I think of Living Upriver, I think of a certain aesthetic and a certain lifestyle. So cool.
Barbara de Vries: Yeah. I think the country life thing is born a bit thin, right? Because you kind of imagine farmhouses and livestock, whereas living Upriver has a river running through it. And I think rivers are very evocative, and they're about movement and very much about creativity. And they're never the same. Each day they're different. I'm living on a river here in the Netherlands as well. The border is always a different color. Rivers are special.
Suzy Chase: You bought your 1790s farmhouse in Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1988 to escape your hectic life as a fashion designer on 7th Avenue in Manhattan. The thought of being in nature, in overalls and rubber boots, was completely opposite of the New York City fashion lifestyle. Did you feel like going back to nature was somehow going back to your childhood roots?
Barbara de Vries: No, not really, because I grew up in Amsterdam, so I didn't really grow up in the country. We did have a windmill, of all things. My father bought my mother a very fixer upper windmill after the war. They were being practically given away. So that was his wedding gift to my mum. So we spent a lot of summer time there, and that was Dutch countryside. I think what I loved about America was that really not that far outside the city, you had real wilderness. And the house that I bought in Pennsylvania was in the Delaware Watergap National park. And so it's really borders on thousands of acres of wilderness. So you get every kind of wild animal in the backyard that you can imagine for that area, which you definitely don't get in the Netherlands. So, for me, it was more like a step up into nature and real nature, because in the Netherlands, all nature is manipulated and kind of. It was. It was exciting to be in a place like Milford and Pennsylvania because it was so far removed from the kind of nature I was used to. It was little dangerous, and I kind of like that about it. Still do.
Suzy Chase: And exciting news. You've just bought an old 1900 garage building in Hawley, Pennsylvania. So how did this book inspire you to purchase this new place?
Barbara de Vries: Obviously, the book is meant to inspire, and it's meant to inspire a certain lifestyle that is very community driven, that is very much engages or creates place for not just oneself, but also for a local community or creating gathering points for a creative community. So almost everybody in the book has that kind of lifestyle. And I wanted to do something myself as a result of the book. That wasn't just making books, because I like making books, but as a fashion designer or clothing designer, you're kind of very used to working, making things with your hands and seeing something tactile as a result, which, with a book, takes two years. It's just different. So I wanted to get a space where I could create the things I'm used to creating. I like to create. And at the same time, that's going to become a communal space, a photography studio, a pop up space, any of those kinds of things. So it will kind of combine a space for myself and my work or my family's work, as well as the local community. Whenever somebody needs a space to make something or have an exhibition or have a special event or a photo shoot, it'll be great light for photo shoots. That's why I decided to take this place.
Suzy Chase: So let's chat about Julie Hendrick and Peter Wetzler. Can you share a bit of their story and how they discovered Kingston, New York?
Barbara de Vries: So the book starts with their place, and that's really because they were very, in my mind, very much some of the first people that went out to the country and created the lifestyle that the whole book was about. But they're an earlier generation, so they. In, I think it was 1986, Julie had an exhibition, she's a painter in Canada. They rented a van, drove up to Canada, and had to turn right back around because it was a cheap fee and ran out of gas near Kingston. So kind of hobbled into Kingston and got gas and then decided to walk around a little bit and just totally fell in love with the town. And this is in ‘86, so that's quite a long time ago. And they knew somebody who lived there, and they called her up while they're there, and they say, okay, this is wonderful. Where do you live. Tell us more. And she said, oh, friend of mine is selling this church. Maybe you guys would like to buy it. She's an artist, too. And so they went and looked at the church. I think it's all on the same day. I mean, it was so serendipitous, and it was literally one huge, very large church and a chapel behind it. And they bought, like, three weeks later, they bought the whole place. And the big church became very much a meeting place for community events. Peter is a composer, so he had a lot of concerts there. Julie would organize exhibitions there. And their whole theory about community is that you just have to reach out to people and invite them to your home and create a meal together. So on their first Canadian Thanksgiving, they invited the entire neighborhood. Everybody brought a dish. They put long tables out in this amazing yard they have. And within a few months, they knew the neighborhood, and they become this kind of central meeting point for everyone, and kind of then started attracting their friends who also bought places there. So they even, in the end, got an award by the city of Kingston for their contributions to the community. And somebody else called them the Doulas of Kingston because they keep birthing new residents.
Suzy Chase: So included in the book are thoughtful tips and ideas on reclaiming old spaces, upcycling, used furniture, which I love, foraging and gardening sustainably, table arranging and more. This is all from the homeowners who bought their spaces to life. And you just kind of mentioned it. And the tip that I love is that Julie talked about in the book is sharing her home. And the fastest way to make friends in a new place is to invite people over for a meal.
Barbara de Vries: And she's been amazing. I mean, she's been doing it for such a long time now, but she still does it. I mean, she invited me over for dinner. I've probably been back to her house more than any of the other houses in the book. And she gave a party for my book and then invited all her friends. She's got built a very strong community, but I think a lot of people, other people in the book did the same thing. And I think a lot of people, like Sally and Doug, who started Audrey's farmhouse during COVID they had so many people, friends and friends come up and stay, and then they all went and bought their own places. So it's really being embracing of people around you by sharing your home and your table. And if you grow your own food, that, too. And that's kind of become a very idyllic lifestyle of that area.
Suzy Chase: I was so excited to see, Ron Sharkey was included in this book. Everything he does is fantastic. So Ron is an interior designer who was looking for a farmhouse, but landed on a stunning Greek Revival in Stone Ridge, New York. Two barns came with the home, and that's where he has his antique businesses. Can you chat a little bit about his home?
Barbara de Vries: Yes. His home is extraordinary, especially since he lives there by himself. And he told me that when he started doing it, he loved this idea of kind of an upstairs downstairs feeling like, I don't know, that may not resonate with listeners here, but upstairs downstairs in the United Kingdom means the posh people live upstairs, Downton Abbey, and then the servants are down below. And those are two very different aesthetics. But we tend to really like both aesthetics. Right. I mean, the downstairs aesthetic is the kind of endlessly scrubbed, very large old kitchen table, wooden table, and the floors are just slate and raw wood. So that's how he did the lower level, and he redid it completely. I mean, it looks like it's always been that way, but he redid it to look like it's always been that way. And it's got the open fireplaces with stone around it. And then you go upstairs, and the house literally feels like it's a gentleman's manor. It has two very beautiful, very formal living rooms with mirrors that are ornate and a fireplace that's ornate, and it has shutters on the windows. And then he's furnished that, as you know. I mean, he's got immaculate for each room. So it's almost a little bit like a museum. It's so perfect and so beautiful. And then you go upstairs and there are more bedrooms, which are just bedrooms for guests and stuff like that. But what I really liked about it was the upstairs downstairs philosophy, and I really photographed mainly downstairs because that was more in keeping with the aesthetic of my book, was that kind of more handmade, tactile, not quite as pretentious as upstairs is, which they're equally beautiful, but it just worked better in the book to just do downstairs completely different from Ron.
Suzy Chase: On page 131, we meet Todd Carr and Carter Harrington. In the book, Todd said, creating vignettes and incorporating live plant material with dried elements, other fibers, or Carter's concrete vessels, which I love. And then weaving it all together brings me the ultimate joy. I'd love to hear about their home that reflects their botanical design studio in upstate New York.
Barbara de Vries: What I shot in the book looks like a home because that's how they create that botanical studio gallery. The gallery feels very homey, and they spent an awful lot of time there. And now they've fixed up the big Victorian home that's right next to it, which is very beautiful, but when I shot it, that wasn't quite ready yet. So the feeling that they evoke very effectively is just bring nature inside. Go outside with your clippers and selectively bring beautiful things inside. And they can be branches, they can be blossoms in the spring. Obviously, there's plenty to pick from in the summers, in the fall, just the colors of the changing leaves. It doesn't always have to be a bouquet of flowers that you put in a vase. You can really decorate a home very well with anything you bring in from nature, as long as you just do it very thoughtfully and selectively and leave enough. Because a lot of the things we like are kind of seed pods and things like that, and flowers even. And we need those seeds for those plants and flowers to come back again next year. So it's important that you just don't go out there and take everything. But they are very inspiring at. Just look around you. Go outside look around you. Even if it's just an acorn, you place that nicely on a mantelpiece or in a beautiful bowl, then you can bring nature inside without having to go to somebody special to do that for you. And they're very inspiring that way. I love their work. Initially, I was a little confused as to what exactly in the gallery was for sale, because you go, oh, I'll have that bouquet, which isn't quite a bouquet. And they go, oh, no, that's not for sale. So you're never quite sure there what's for sale, and I love that. I mean, they really kind of make it an experience more than anything else, which is also very inspiring.
Suzy Chase: Right. So, yeah, it took me a minute to figure out that the gallery wasn't their home in the book.
Barbara de Vries: Exactly. And I'm fooling everyone with the book. I really had to sit there and think about it.
Suzy Chase: But I love how Todd and Carter work together because Todd's the florist, so to speak, and then Carter makes these concrete vessels that are the most beautiful things, and they kind of get inspiration from each other.
Barbara de Vries: Totally. And that's really lovely, because when you're talking to them, they kind of talk about each other. Right. They talk about themselves a little bit, but then they start talking about each other. So you then see how the collaboration is just, like, kind of a perfect circle and exchange of creativity and inspiration.
Suzy Chase: I think a thread that runs through your work is the idea of reusing and recycling materials from the homes in your book coming home to living upriver, to your activism and artistry with beach plastic. Could you chat just a little bit about that?
Barbara de Vries: The reuse and recycling, obviously, has become a thing very recently. And for me, it came very much out of my experience with finding so much plastic on the beaches of the Bahamas initially, and know everywhere I traveled. So I think, for me, that brought home the overconsumption idea of, we don't really need anything new if we can help it, and we should really be using. There's enough of everything out there, and we should be reusing. But that then can, in itself, become a creative process. So you don't have to reuse something exactly as you find it. You can use it to create something else or to add it to something in your house. So I think it's very important. And it's also, if you can inspire that in people, I think you inspire not only a different aesthetic within someone's house, but it kind of also can inspire a whole different way of living and learning how to reuse as much as we possibly can, whether it's the vessels in which our detergent comes or whether it's an old table or it doesn't have to all be new, because all new adds to a planet that already has too much stuff on it. So, yeah, my work seems to be an awful lot about that. But I think the other thing my work is really also about a lot is finding people that inspire me and that can inspire others and finding a place for them to do so. So my Dutch book was all these Dutch designers and architects and artists and how they live in the Netherlands, and it's kind of much smaller and much more very sustainable. They ride bicycles. They have sun panels on their roof. I mean, they're already very together as far as reducing their footprint and reusing a lot of stuff. And then I found similar people in America, and I found that if I could give them a platform, that that inspiration that they gave me would then reach a larger platform. And the book I'm working on right now just pulls all the artists together that have been pivotal in creating the plastic pollution movement, the anti-plastic pollution movement, and the awareness that we all have nowadays of the amount of plastic that we're putting out and the problems with that. But that wasn't the case 20 years ago. So I like putting all those people in one place, my next book, and giving them their due and the credit, and hopefully, again, inspire more people to do the same thing and have the same impact.
Suzy Chase: Do you have a tip for just us people who haven't really put much thought into plastic? Do you have one tip that we could do today, like in our kitchen in terms of maybe recycling or something else we haven't even thought of?
Barbara de Vries: Yeah, recycling is a problem, right? Because recycling is the dream they sold us to keep us consuming as much plastic as we do by helping us think that once we threw it away and then consciously threw it away in a recycling bin, that they, them, someone would take care of it and make it go away. Well, it doesn't go away. And where it's being taken is like a form of kind of trash colonialism, because it goes to third world countries who also don't have the space for it and don't really want to live with it, but they get paid for it. So recycling really doesn't work. So we more and more need to look at how to use less containers and the containers we use to reuse those and to not just throw them out, but really think about how little it becomes. Kind of a nice game, like how little you can reduce your trash to and how little you can reduce your recyclable trash to. I mean, paper, metal, glass are all okay, but plastic is not okay because there's not much you can do with it. I think only something like 6% or 9% gets of what gets recycled, of what you put in your bin gets recycled into another product. But the life cycle of those new products is also very short. So it's never fully circular. Plastic, this. I could go on about this forever, but that's, I don't think the intention of the show.
Suzy Chase: Moving on to my segment called HOME, where I ask you to describe one memory from your childhood home, and please start by telling us where it was.
Barbara de Vries: So my father bought an old dilapidated windmill for my mother as her wedding gift, their wedding gift, sometime in the early 50s, mid fifty s. And they fixed it up. And that became our weekend summer home, where we went whenever the weather was nice. It was near the beach. Being inside a windmill gives you a very different experience from being in a traditional home. I mean, we lived in one space. It's round. First of all, it's round. It's very high. It had very large, very old, like four or 500 year old wooden beams, so big, painted dark brown with against white stucco. And then it had a second floor very high up in the space. So when you looked up, it was round. That ceiling was bright blue. And then our rooms were above that, which was a model of even more beams. Endless beams that you would hit your head on. So I think I developed a real love for these old homes with beams through being in the windmolen, because it was windmolen is Dutch word for windmill. So being inside that windmill really gave me a love for these very rustic spaces and high ceilings above me, great light, and I guess also being in the countryside, because we would. And there were Dutch doors on either end of the molar, so you could just literally run in one end to run out the other end because the water had run through it. So it wasn't a traditional space. Ever since then, I have never really, on my own, lived in a really traditional space. It's always been slightly like an old factory or an old warehouse or a very old farmhouse that needed fixing up with the beams. So, yeah, I think that's my childhood memory that's kind of then carried over into my life, my own life.
Suzy Chase: Well, you can't get more Dutch than a windmill.
Barbara de Vries: You don't. It's hard to believe, isn't it?
Suzy Chase: I love that story. Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Barbara de Vries: There's my Instagram, which @LivingUpriver. Barbara de Vries is my Facebook. And then I have a website, which is kind of my portfolio website, but you can see all my work there. And that is Barbaradevries.net.
Suzy Chase: Well, wonderful. Thank you, Barbara, for coming on. Decorating by the Book podcast.
Barbara de Vries: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
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