I just described how I found out about The Carondelet House in Westlake, Los Angeles and listed my top pros & cons for the space. My mom’s analysis upon seeing photos of the space was: “It looks factitious.” Indeed, that dovetails with what I meant by listing “exposed brick” as a con.
Tree trunks add to the artistic flair.
Per the venue’s own literature:
Constructed in 1928, this gorgeous property was built as an Italian Villa with an urban flair. With warm hardwood floors, expansive rooms, exposed brick walls, two exterior courtyards, high exposed beam ceilings and a beautiful fireplace, this is one of the freshest and most unique event venues available.
(Ignoring the above solecism of “most unique.” As devotees of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style well know, something is either “unique” or “not unique” and it’s not proper to throw in additional adverbs!)
Brick: exposed!
Moving on … “was built as an Italian villa”? In 1920s Los Angeles? I’m not making myself look any less like a dismissive snob here, but something about the gritty location + over-the-top Pinterest-bait rococo furnishings and Italianate architecture didn’t jibe for me. Perhaps because I have an anthropological affection for — if a healthy respect for the danger of — L.A.’s grimier, grittier and more immigrant-populated micro-neighborhoods.
The lighting and oil paintings create a cohesive feel. But is it geographically supported?
The other day, I was perusing Carondelet’s social media presence (another one for the pro column — they’re definitely hashtag-savvy). In the list of recently married couples, I recognized a name.
No, not this couple.
Remember me/Adam Levine/Robin Williams and our meat hooks and 1-hour photo labs? I like to scrutinize details and research people I meet in passing and such. I recognized this distinctive bride’s name immediately because I used to get her mail. In the Orange Drive apartment I lived in in Hollywood — from which this blog draws its name, of course — she had immediately preceded me. That’s not a huge deal, that we lived in the same bedroom and shared the same underground parking spot (next to that stupid bad feng shui drainpipe!) in different eras. But I felt a certain kinship with her. I imagined the similar sort of circumstances that probably led her to move into the Orange (cheap rent because our roommate had lived in the unit so long that they’d never redone the carpets, prime location, a well-timed compliment from the ever-present home liberated community).
This was in the bathroom. Bloomin’ head!
But at the same time, too random! I watched her online wedding video from the comforts of my own darkroom/abattoir. I found it sweet and earnest. Even before, but especially now that I am engaged, I find only happiness and hope in wedding videos, gushing social media posts and New York Times Vows columns — save only a few extreme examples filled so noxiously of sanctimony and incompatibility that a sour taste is unavoidable.
These make for lovely courtyard photos, I’m sure!
At the same time, nothing about the wedding aesthetic was my taste at all, nor was I moved by the personalized vows, in which an extended riff on the term “hangry” was featured. (My mother’s nuptial bête noire — along with “beachy waves” for bride’s hairdo — is the use of self-written vows. Sure, nobody says an offspring must parrot everything her parents rant against, and indeed sometimes the opposite impulse develops. But this unspoken prohibition has been so specific and so longstanding that for my own wedding, I may find myself not physically able to stray from these two forbiddances.) (Also, “hangry” could be considered one of my bêtes noires. I don’t think it’s cute; I feel portmanteaus are ludicrously overused as a humor device, especially when the words being put together — here, “hungry” and “angry” — don’t fit together well to begin with. I also find the concept offensive: How can an American in 2014 become so famished between, say, kundalini yoga sessions, that she enters a blind rage? Then what about the children of Malawi or the adults of North Korea?!)
And so we will continue to look. (Perhaps we should change out of our bathing suits?)
Decided I wanted to add a wedding veil to myself in a photo, so found this pic of my sisters and me. Then, no sooner had I added my own veil did I realize that my older sister (far right) is also engaged now — in fact, she already has a wedding planned for next year! So then I had to give her a veil too. Then, not wanting my little sister (middle) to be left out, I wanted to give her a headpiece too. Chose this Cleopatra headdress, which I hope looks only slightly like an inverted pewter lobster.
So indeed: factitious. Or at the very least, not for me. But I think the venue photographs beautifully, and it definitely offers a distinctive feel and sense of place.
