I’ve been stalking celebrity real estate again – it’s my guilty pleasure, so I thought I’d share. Let’s kick it off with Matthew Broderick and SJP’s $25 million dollar Greenwich Village townhouse. This is the library:

spotted on Zillow, who found it via Sotheby’s.

Speaking of Carrie Bradshaw, the real Carrie Bradshaw, author of Sex and the City Candace Bushnell, is also selling her Greenwich Village home. Hers is a 2-bedroom apartment and it’s listed for $2.8 million. I remember this one from Elle Decor, in fact, isn’t it on the cover of the last Elle Decor book, So Chic? Yes, I believe it is. Photographs are so crucial to real estate listings. While most people can’t even remember to make their bed or put down the toilet seat, then celebs have spreads photographed by the likes of William Waldron.

photo by William Waldron, scoop via New York Daily News

I guess the cover of Elle Decor is a great way to market a house you’re about to dump. Reese Witherspoon is unloading her Ojai retreat. Elle Decor wasn’t the only place printing photos of the property; Witherspoon recently let RPat hide out from the paps and mend his broken heart here. The cozy revival ranch is on the market for a cool $10 million.

I really enjoyed this celeb house tour; it seemed like such a relaxing, family-friendly place that was actually attainable (the decor, not the house). It also respected the style and history of the home, preserving and honoring the best details.

photos by William Waldron; scoop via realtor.com

It’s not currently for sale, but Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ wedding had me looking up Boone Plantation. Scenes from The Notebook were filmed there, and the place has a driveway that’s as Lowcountry as can be – lined in beautiful live oaks dripping in Spanish Moss:

Today we’re getting to know Donna Piacenza and Jody Work of Studio 1AM a little better. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Please tell me a bit about your background and how it led you to start Studio 1AM.

Jody: In undergrad I studied both Graphic Design and Metalsmithing, so I took a job working with industrial designers in order to fulfill my need for being involved in the 3-D world. We met at that company and it was immediate bliss!

Donna: I’ve always been a tinker-er so my studies led to a degree in Industrial Design. Working together allows us to explore across a broader design spectrum, making the most of our unique perspectives.

Studio 1AM Cork Cuff

Where do you go to find inspiration?

We find inspiration in travel and people. Life experiences fuel design.  We’re also fascinated with processes – How can we take advantage of a process by changing the system, encouraging mistakes, etc.

Please tell us about your process, getting from 2-D to 3-D, and what that means.

Our most successful projects happen when the process informs the end product. We love having a hand in making things ourselves as well as the end user making the final touches. Then there’s our love for manufacturing processes and getting to know them as craftsmen.

We’re focused on creating meaningful messages. Whether these messages take the form of typographic signage, objects, or print materials, we believe our reciprocal process (going back and forth between 2-D and 3-D) strengthens the message.

Studio 1AM Measure Me Stick

Why did you name your company Studio 1AM?

It’s quite literal, actually!

We worked together at a product design consultancy for years but desired a more creative outlet. We’d get together with other designer friends at night to work on our projects to keep each other inspired and motivated. Those late night projects eventually turned into a business.

What’s next? Where do you see the company headed in the next few years? What else are you chomping at the bit to explore?

We’re always inclined to use what we have available to us. We work locally as much as possible and find challenges in seemingly simple projects. We’ve been asked by Chicago’s Goose Island Brewery to help make use of some beautiful oak bourbon barrel staves and are excited to explore the potential there!

We welcome anything new and different. Design is changing rapidly. It’s much more recognized and integral to daily life in the digital age, therefore we cannot solely be stylists anymore. It’s heavily intertwined with media and there are many untapped avenues in this area which make it both really exciting to be in design and challenging because we are forced to change methods and ways of thinking at all times. Design is a dialogue. We think collaboration and crossing of disciplines is important and strive to create meaningful, message-driven work.

Studio 1AM Dreamgate Wallband

Thanks so much for Donna and Jody for taking the time to share their story with us!

Shop all Studio 1AM

When I received my Design Public newsletter titled “Get the Look: Industrial Chic” this a.m., it got me thinking about one my very favorite chairs. If you know me at all, you know I have a major chair fetish, so giving a certain chair my attention is a major compliment. Anyway, the chair of which I speak is the Emeco 1006  Chair (a.k.a. Navy Chair). Here’s a little more information on its rise to popularity.I am cribbing this verbatim from emeco.com:

In 1944, Wilton Carlyle Dinges founded the Electrical Machine and Equipment Company (Emeco) in Hanover Pennsylvania utilizing the skills of local craftsman. During WWII the U.S government gave him a big assignment, make chairs that could withstand water, salt air and sailors. Make chairs lightweight and make them strong, build them for a lifetime. Aluminum was the obvious choice, engineered for practical purposes, designed by real people. Emeco named the chair with a number: 1006, some people call it the Navy chair. We still call it the Ten-o-six. Forming, welding, grinding, heat-treating, finishing, anodizing- just a few of the 77 step it takes to build an Emeco chair. No one else makes chairs this way. No one can. It takes a human eye to know when the process is done right, and it takes human hands to get it that way. Our goal. Make recycling obsolete and keep making things that last.

They have this super cool set of drawings for the original chair posted on their site too:

What I didn’t realize was that until Ian Schrager hired Philippe Starck to re-design the Paramount Hotel in 1990, you could only find the chair at police stations, hospitals, prisons and other government sties. Because the chairs last for several lifetimes, sales were in a real slump; no one ever needed a replacement chair! However, while Schrager was making hotels cool, Starck was making the 1006 Chair cool:

When the CEO of Emeco and Starck met in the hub-bub of ICFF, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship; Starck designed the Hudson Chair for Emeco:

as well as the Kong Chair:

Emeco has added using recycled material to their list of sustainable moves, the original move being that you never have to throw the 1006 Navy chair away, as its function and form never falter. Be on the lookout for the latest chair, the Broom Chair, designed by Starck, which is made of waste plastic and comes in an array of bodacious colors:

I will be adding the Broom Chair to my Wish List!

Hey All! Where have you been whiling away your break time on the web this week? I can’t stop with the Street Art Utopia. Each one delights more than the last. However this week, this leaning tower of a concrete post made me smile the most:

I love it when a public works building gets turned into some sort of kick-butt residence, and water towers always seem to be the coolest ones; maybe because of their big old curves, uncommon in most residential architecture. This tour over at FreshHome takes us through a Belgian water tower converted by BAHM Design Studio.

I enjoyed seeing the kitchens that Dwell magazine dubbed their coolest ones from their archives. I love some of the ones like you see below, I imagined Unhappy Hipster captions for others. Either way, it’s a fun slideshow!

This guy, Andrew, the latest addition through the revolving door that is Jeff Lewis’s team  on Flipping Out, cracked  me up. Apparently he has a trust fund that only kicks in when he has a full time job, so he is a nervous wreck he’ll lose the most ridiculous job on earth. Jeff always sheds an employee or three each season, so the poor guy should be nervous.

Finally, I swear, Passive-Aggressive Notes is still one of the most genius sites I’ve read. What better passive-aggressive way is there to get back at a crazy note-leaver than to submit it to the site? This one about the deck blew my mind; it brings up the very serious issue of deck envy. If I received it, I think I’d have to move knowing I lived close to such a nut job.

A great new book hit the shelves this week – Kyle Schuneman’s The First Apartment: Cool Design For Small Spaces. Kyle has crossed the country helping folks who have spread their wings and flown the coop feather their first nests, or some such mixed bunch of metaphors that mean making their first apartments livable AND cool. This guy is full of clever tricks for all sorts of spaces and personality types, and he’s really good at explaining D.I.Y. projects – he’s included  projects that range from super-easy to more advanced, so there’s something for everyone.

In the somewhat more advanced D.I.Y. arena, he created an argyle wall for his chapter for the preppy. I suggest mastering a horizontal or vertical striped wall first, which is also covered in the book.