Welcome to TGP Tidbits where we round up the happenings and our musings of the design industry each week. This week we take a look at Zoffany x Michael S. Smith, a Dreamy 18th Century Scottish Estate for Sale, and Schumacher’s new store opening. Written by Natalie Aldridge.
A Dreamy Scottish Estate for Sale
We have found our latest real estate daydream! One of Dumfriesshire’s oldest sporting estates has just come to market through Savills, and it comes with nearly everything one could possibly want from a life in the Scottish countryside. Set across 1,242 acres in the beautiful Nith Valley, Blackwood Estate encompasses a historic country house, cottages, gardens, farmland, woodland, and two miles of frontage along the River Nith.
At its heart is Blackwood House, a historic listed country house , surrounded by stunning gardens overlooking one of Scotland’s most celebrated salmon rivers. The wider estate includes six cottages, traditional outbuildings, 662 acres of farmland, and more than 500 acres of woodland. In other words, this is a proper Scottish estate in every sense. We just adore how even with grand home, this estate feels welcoming and well loved.
Blackwood’s sporting traditions run deep, with double-bank fishing across 12 named pools on the River Nith, 14 established pheasant and partridge drives, roe deer stalking, duck flighting, and rough shooting. We especially love that the house, gardens, cottages, river, farmland, and woods have all remained together, something increasingly rare.
All that is missing, as far as we can tell, is a wardrobe full of tweed, a few muddy dogs, and an invitation for all of us to come for the weekend.
Zoffany x Michael S. Smith
Cecil Beaton’s Winter Garden, archival chintzes, and a very darling pug. There are simply too many things we love happening at once in Zoffany’s latest collaboration with Michael S. Smith.
For Zoffany’s debut indoor-outdoor fabric collection, the celebrated American designer delved into the house’s archives, drawing inspiration from historic French chintzes, Japanese silks, stripes, florals, and plains. Rather wonderfully, the little imperfections found in the original documents, from print marks to ink bleeds, have been preserved in the new designs, giving these performance fabrics the character and charm of something far older.
The collection comes to life in Cecil Beaton’s famed Winter Garden, where Michael Smith and Hamish Bowles pose among great swathes of fabric alongside Stella the pug. The scene pays homage to a wonderful 1960s photograph of Beaton in the very same glasshouse with his own beloved pug, Simba. Naturally, we are obsessed.
The collection is colorful, layered, wonderfully eccentric, and steeped in design history without feeling the least bit precious. It is the perfect departure from stereotypical outdoor fabrics. We have long believed beautiful fabrics belong everywhere, and apparently that now includes outdoors, too. The full line can be viewed here!
Schumacher Is Having a Florida Moment
As if Florida’s design scene needed any more temptation. This September, Schumacher is opening two new showrooms and design shops in Jacksonville and West Palm Beach, bringing along thousands of its beloved fabrics, wallpapers, and trims, plus antiques, accessories, and plenty of Patterson Flynn rugs.
In Jacksonville, local designer Stephanie Jarvis has given the 3,000-square-foot space a dose of classic American style, Southern charm, and “beloved Florida moments.” Down in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach native Celerie Kemble is behind the glamorous 6,000-square-foot outpost, complete with Visual Comfort lighting, lacquered Dunes & Duchess tables, Waterworks fittings, Sabine Hill tile, and, perhaps most dangerously, an entire room devoted to Patterson Flynn’s abaca rugs.
David Frazier masterminded the interior architecture of both, which will also play host to trunk shows, book signings, workshops, and more, making them gathering places for Florida’s ever-growing design community. Schumacher’s continued Florida expansion feels only natural.
Read our favorite articles of the week!
12 Old-Fashioned Etiquette Rules Experts Wish Would Make a Comeback written by Arricca Elin SanSone for Veranda.
Martin Engelbrecht’s Absurdist 18th-Century Costume Design written by Stephen Patience for The World of Interiors
Shop this week’s inspired finds!
x Natalie
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Follow Natalie on Instagram: @natalieealdridge
