The bathrooms have spa showers by the Italian company Samo and handmade marble sinks and other features from Carrara, Italy.
She was the driving force behind Auroville and the Ashram's many fabulous craft industries, such as silk marbling, handmade paper and incense, quality products that should be on any shopper's list.
"I conducted interviews in open kitchens, often outfitted with white Carrara marble or handmade tiles".
In one wing are the common areas, including a kitchen with handmade wood cabinets, pink marble countertops and a pantry and an Aga stove, a popular British oven made of iron and enamel.
Accommodations at the nearby Mansfield House are luxurious, with fireplaces and Jacuzzis in the bedrooms, handmade furniture and quilts, marble baths, CD and DVD players and, in several rooms, computers with high-speed Internet access; from $225.
Over on West Broadway, the folks at Ad Hoc Softwares imagined the accouterments for a high-tech, hard-edge urban loft, but Zona was firmly anti-machine, blending Santa Fe style (Soleri bells and teak furniture) with Smith & Hawken tools and handmade objects like fat marble peaches from Italy and rustic wood dough bowls.
It is almost impossible to imagine a government agency, in the foreseeable future, sanctioning the brass, leather, oak and handmade brick, the Purbeck marble countertops and the careful craftsmanship that went, barely two decades ago, into the British Library, but there is still just about enough respect for the values that the building represents to have it protected.
The renovations on the house were true to the original 1921 design, including handmade windows, a tumbled marble bath and travertine flooring in the pool house; added custom hardwood floors to match the originals; a laundry chute and laundry room with a hand-painted mural; and custom-built 1920s-style cabinets.
"I want people to come in here and envisage these things in their own home; I am selling a dream," he says, then turns his attention to the workers laying a zigzag pattern of white and gray marble flooring and hanging some handmade, embroidered wallpaper inspired by Chinese scrolls.
Moroccan accents are provided by three marble mosaic fountains made of zelijes, handmade and painted tiles, and designed by Bill Willis, an American architect.
