Stewart House Stories

The Natural World

We tend to think of our homes as wholly different from the natural world. And in some obvious respects, they are: houses are a human construction,...

In Support of Bribery

I am an unapologetic fan of bribery. Not the transactional type - a fistful of cash in exchange for some insidious deed - but the act of rewarding...

Verdancy

I’ve always loved the word verdant which generally refers to grass and other growing foliage - but which suggests a sort of lushness that feels ap...

Women in History

Establishing Women’s History Month is a somewhat curious idea. We’ve given birth to every person who has ever existed on the planet so our history...

Travel

The shop will go dark for a week as we travel to Paris for Maison & Object, an international design show that happens twice a year. We’re, of ...

The Holidays

I almost never tamper with a Thanksgiving dinner: this year, dishes remained largely as they were when we were kids. In fact, I wake up early, just...

Small Spaces

Twenty-five years ago, as I meandered through the maze of Portobello Road, I bought a small, vintage painting of a woman and young girl walking in...

Autumn

I believe two-thirds of the people who choose to live in New England do so because of autumn. There’s not a place in the world that offers more in ...

On Beauty

The Greek philosophers used “beautiful” in a very different way than we do now. To experience beauty then was to commune with the divine, to experi...

Simplifying Art

Watch a preschool classroom in action and you’ll know that art is a primary form of communication. From that young age, we are in pursuit of a way ...

Throwing Clay

The Nichibei studio is an Eden all its own – high up in the hills of Sebastopol and surrounded by lush plants, it’s an oasis of intense creativity....

The Dinner Table

I wake up thinking about dinner. If I haven’t already planned it days (or in the case of holidays, weeks) in advance, early morning is reserved for...