A front porch is more than an architectural detail. It is the threshold between public life and private life. Twenty-five years after building our first front entry addition, weather, time, and the evolution of the house itself pushed us into a second renovation — one inspired by craftsman architecture, deeper overhangs, and a stronger sense of arrival.

A Thursday evening drive down a narrow gravel road led to a wooded hillside in Ionia, New York, where the Astronomy Section of the Rochester Academy of Science was holding its monthly meeting. Small observatory buildings dotted the grounds, a vanilla sheet cake marked the club's 145th anniversary, and members in planet-covered shirts discussed telescopes, software, and the night sky. After a presentation on cosmology, everyone drifted outside to point telescopes toward Jupiter while daylight faded over the fields and woods surrounding the observatory.

A Thursday evening adventure to the Geneva Music Festival. A sold-out hall, chamber music from immigrant composers, wine and brownies in the lobby, and a crowd that seemed to know one another. An intimate concert on the beautiful Hobart and William Smith campus overlooking Seneca Lake.

Every spring, our land emerges from winter, the gardens demanding weeks of labor, restoration, and attention. What began years ago as a creative passion project has evolved into an ongoing cycle of maintenance — one that now takes one to two months each season to complete. Beauty, exhaustion, aging infrastructure, unreliable help, and lessons that come with stewarding a large garden through many years. Part garden tour, part meditation on ambition and maintenance, this is the story of the annual spring reckoning.

For years we called it the Barbie room - the room where my sisters and friends gathered before parties, surrounded by makeup, dresses, and chaos. But when our main guest room became a nursery for my new grandchild, the Barbie room had to retire. What followed was a series of reinventions of the space — from cluttered dressing room, to dark English-country experiment, to a quiet and calm guest retreat.

Amazing circus acrobatic show at Gulfstream Casino in Hallendale.

Building our Urban Tropical Base

Creative Journey - A wildly creative, electrifying night with DakhaBrakha at the historic Smith Opera House — music that felt like art, ritual, and storytelling all at once.

Decking the House for the Holidays - Nov 2024

Building a New England Connected Farmhouse Addition

(Spring–Fall 2024)

A two-story barn-style addition, a race against a wedding deadline, and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for multigenerational living — this was the year I built our New England connected farmhouse addition

The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) at Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center (CMAC) on August 11, 2023.

Building the Peace Cabin Garden — A Sanctuary of Stone, Soil, and Stillness

Benjamin and his team created a meditative garden around our Peace Cabin, complete with flagstone paths, sculptural elements, and plantings that transform the space into a living sanctuary.