Posts

I’ve always found solace in oddities. Thunderstorms, cemeteries, rambling mansions, ghosts towns and dusty library shelves bring me more happiness than any day at the beach ever could.
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There is not much I can write about Grey Gardens – the 14-room estate located feet from the sea at 3 West End Road in East Hampton, Long Island – or its infamous residents that has not already been documented... Read more >>

The Life of a House

October 27, 2016

xoJane Will Always Be Sassy

Lisa Marie Presley: Graveyards and Graceland Revisited

It’s no secret that I’m house-obsessed. Any book on architecture and history can easily put me on a two-day binger curled up in front of the fireplace with a bottomless pot of tea. But if you add an heiress, a mystery and a tale of a fellow introvert who managed to hide away...

Motor City Limits

March 15, 2017

I was a fresh-faced 16-year-old hibernating in my parent’s basement in suburban Detroit reading Sassy magazine and dreaming of the day I would break out and do something other than get knocked up by a factory worker from Ford Motor Company, when Detroit’s GENRE Man and World’s Biggest Celebrity Magnet came into my life... Read more >>

November 18, 2017

Beaches and Forests

Motor City Limits

It occurred to me the other day that I never let anything go. From childhood treasures to my favorite books to every card and note ever written to me, I hold on.

I’m the same way with friendships. I don’t put much effort into fostering new ones because my... Read more >>

December 19, 2017

January 30, 2018

June 30, 2017

Birthday Baby

From Riches to Rags to Riches: The Renovation – and Redemption – of Brookwood Hall

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February 14, 2017

January 6, 2017

Just a mention of High Hopes – the house at 112 Ocean Avenue with the jack-o-lantern windows in Amityville, New York – can cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up... Read more >>

When It’s Over, It’s Over

January 6, 2017

Grey Gardens: The Staunchest Character of All

Lounging at a friend’s Fire Island beach house a few days ago, I started to reflect upon just how much my life is shaped by my past. Summering by the sea is a luxury I never could have imagined growing up in suburban Detroit.

February 9, 2017

January 15, 2023

January 13, 2017

March 3, 2017

I'm plagued by a fever for houses with histories and a longing for the past. But when I learned Lisa Marie Presley had died, I was heartbroken for Graceland in way I couldn't shake.

July 21, 2022

May 26, 2017

Like a fading love affair, our days together are numbered. 2017 has been mysterious and my infatuation with her is wearing thin.
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As the days grow longer and the air cooler, I’m finally ready to trade in my seaside summer nights for starry skies, cricket symphonies, turtlenecks and sips of bourbon. That said, this was one of the most perfect summers on record.

Birthdays are the happiest of occasions. Everyone says it so it must be true. Friends, family members and loved ones fall over themselves sending congratulatory notes and well-wishes commemorating the day you were born – not a single note of condolence in the mix...

September 8, 2017

It’s like when someone disgusts you so much you begin to find them attractive or, conversely, you’re so enamored you think you’re basking in sunshine until you shift your eyes from the brightness to see that the light is actually revealing true darkness.

High Hopes and Broken Dreams: Amityville Horror

Just a mention of High Hopes – the house at 112 Ocean Avenue with the jack-o-lantern windows in Amityville, New York – can cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up... Read more >>

Touring estates and graveyards is an act of intimacy that connects the past with the present, which is part of the lure that draws crowds to one of the most visited mansions and cemeteries in the United States – Graceland.
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Traditional Guilt

Moments and Milestones

In the early 1980s when I was a kid, Halloween was a big deal. There were no school parties. Children didn’t trick-or-treat in malls. Trunk-or-treat events were still unheard of and no one dared go out before dinner – we waited until dark.

Guilt is a funny thing. It wears you down much like water torture by dripping tiny drops on your conscience over and over and over until you can’t take another second and finally cave in.

I was a fresh-faced 16-year-old hibernating in my parent’s basement in suburban Detroit reading Sassy magazine and dreaming of the day I would break out and do something other than get knocked up by a factory worker from Ford Motor Company, when Detroit’s GENRE Man and World’s Biggest Celebrity Magnet came into my life... Read more >>

June 8, 2017

Way back before the internet existed; before blogs and all forms of social media; before we could Google an experience and find solidarity in thousands of similar stories, there was Jane Pratt’s Sassy magazine and its It Happened to Me (IHTM) column... Read more >>

I dislike a lot of things. So when I find something that brings me a glimmer of joy I overindulge, cramming in every morsel of information and slurping up every fact until I’m so full I never want to revisit it – much like the time in college I drank three bottles of strawberry wine. Read More >>

January 13, 2017

Perspective

Birthday Baby

February 14, 2017

March 15, 2017

Disney is the new Scientology and I’m fairly certain I’m being brainwashed.

February 9, 2017

Birthday Baby

Raindrops and Laptops

The Ghost of Halloweens Past

Disney is the New Scientology

High Hopes and Broken Dreams: Amityville Horror

December 1, 2016

April 13, 2017

Disney is the new Scientology and I’m fairly certain I’m being brainwashed. Of all the things I could have imagined myself to be, the last would be a Disney Cruise Gold Member having taken five tropical voyages aboard the fleet of Disney cruise ships... Read more >>

October 24, 2016

Cracks and Light

I love old houses. I’m drawn to them. I dream about them. I become obsessed with them. On any given weekend you can find me and my family barreling down Old Montauk Highway on our way to the seaside for a peek at a house behind the hedgerow -- especially if there’s a story behind it. Intrigue? Mystery? Murder? We’re there! Wrought iron gates opening to allees of trees, and gravel driveways winding to falling-down-manors can send me into such extreme euphoria that I may actually crack a smile.

March 15, 2017

Time is the Anchor

Birthdays are the happiest of occasions. Everyone says it so it must be true. Friends, family members and loved ones fall over themselves sending congratulatory notes and well-wishes commemorating the day you were born – not a single note of condolence in the mix... Read more >>

August 9, 2017

by Cynthia Gunnells

The Summer of Discontent

Disney is the New Scientology

March 3, 2017

Birthdays are the happiest of occasions. Everyone says it so it must be true. Friends, family members and loved ones fall over themselves sending congratulatory notes and well-wishes commemorating the day you were born – not a single note of condolence in the mix... Read more >>

Grey Gardens: The Staunchest Character of All

From Great Gatsby to Grey Gardens: The Mystery of Huguette Clark

The smell of the Long Island South Shore estate hit me the moment I stepped out of the car. I thought perhaps it was a hint of the damp ivy twisting around the hundred-year-old trees standing like soldiers guarding the front entrance.

The wild uncertainty and untamed frenzy of my mind is beginning to sprout up through cracks in my otherwise perfect façade.

July 25, 2017

Time is infinite and stretches on forever, yet it loops to connect the past and present so seamlessly that it’s often hard to remember if an event happened a second or a century ago.

January 4, 2017

There is not much I can write about Grey Gardens – the 14-room estate located feet from the sea at 3 West End Road in East Hampton, Long Island – or its infamous residents that has not already been documented...

Graveyards and Graceland

Obsession Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

xoJane Will Always Be Sassy

Way back before the internet existed; before blogs and all forms of social media; before we could Google an experience and find solidarity in thousands of similar stories, there was Jane Pratt’s Sassy magazine and its It Happened to Me (IHTM) column...