Stewart House Stories

Poetic Discourse

Years ago, when we were in college, Ellen told me about her afternoon working in the daycare center for faculty children. She leaned over to open a...

Tariffs

News about tariffs has been all over the papers and internet but it’s hard to know how they’re manifesting in the American economy unless you’re in...

Living for Art

I’ve been thinking a lot about the experience of art lately. Seeing The Brutalist jogged something in my mind and had me ruminating over that meas...

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...