My Crystal Ball

This article was written for publication in The Homesteader (visit at www.thehomesteader.com)






The boxes sat in a corner of the music room for six months. It was not lack of interest, nor the problem of construction dust miring the installation. We hesitated to put together and hang our crystal chandelier after moving into our new home because of the many things it represents.

The chandelier was a gift from an old friend, who at the time the boxes were sent was proving medical science wrong by surviving pancreatic cancer. By the time the construction was complete and we had the all clear to install this sparkling experiment in rococo meets contemporary living, Franklin was gone. And so the boxes languished.

Franklin was a spirit unto himself, like no other. A good ole boy from North Carolina, Franklin partied his way through four wives, three children, avoidance of the Vietnam War, gunning running and other nefarious operations. We had met years before on a vacation to St. Croix when our daughters discovered each other in the pool. His daughter Annadel is now a mother, and mine a college student, so time has certainly seen changes between us. We continued to vacation together every few years, and my husband and son most recently visited Eden (Eden, NC where Franklin was born, raised and ran the family’s chandelier company) last spring during their road trip down to Red Sox spring training.

During my last conversation with Franklin, this past August, I asked him “Where will your spirit go? It’s too grand to leave us.”

Yesterday, on the first day of the New Year, we saw his spirit rise again. Though it was a blustery, rainy, gray day in the Northeast, the sparkle of lights from the crystals glimmering on our chandelier rose piece by piece throughout the afternoon, and Franklin is with us once again.





Granted we needed several hours of uninterrupted time for my husband and I, with occasional help from our son, to construct and wire this over-the-top lighting extravaganza, and that too had delayed its foray into our life. It came in pieces. About fifty or so in all. Each was carefully wrapped in tissue, foam pellets and newspaper and had been shipped from Eden in two large boxes. The King Chandelier Company, http://www.chandelier.com/show.asp, was founded in 1935 by Franklin’s grandfather and became the first nationally advertised, mail order chandelier company in the country in the 1950’s when its first catalog was published. Though Franklin had urged us for years to acquire one of his creations, it wasn’t until we were building our new house last year, that he finally decided to take the situation into his own hands and sent us one.





(Here is the catalog description of our 24” Rosalie Chandelier - NEW! Another addition to our line of King’s Reserve reproductions. The scrolls give the Rosalie chandelier an antique European look, and its simplicity makes upkeep a cinch. A good choice for parlors, salons, and bedrooms with 10’ ceilings, but equally beautiful in any room. Will fit nicely in a dining room with 8’ or more ceilings. The sprinkling of pendants are Swarovski Strass 21⁄2” almonds, and there is a 40mm ball on the finial. The crystal frame features blown, rope-twisted arms and scrolls, thumbprint and crosscut bobeches, scalloped candle cups, and 41⁄2” candles. Note the inverted bobeches and crystal rings on the scrolls.)

Honestly, I had looked in his catalog many, many times, but could not see myself with this kind of overly fanciful sparkling creation. It didn’t fit our lifestyle, or our vision of ourselves. The chandeliers reminded me of some grand entry in a Manhattan townhouse, or a ballroom in Russia. They were even too lavish for our former 1850’s Victorian home. So how would something like this fit in with our European-styled kitchen cabinets, our sustainable bamboo floors, our modernist glass walls and gleaming stainless steel appliances?

By the time the gift was made, how could we say no? It was a dying wish of a dear friend. I would work it into the interior design. And that is how our music room came to be.

Our Steinway grand piano also needed a home somewhere in the house. This turn-of-the-century gem was inherited from my husband’s grandmother almost twenty years ago and has lived in two of our past homes (as well as spending various periods in climate-controlled storage when a place at home was not possible). My husband is an avid pianist so accommodations would certainly be made in the new house plan.





When our friend and architect, Lawrence Cheng, took a look at the various spaces the existing house offered, he saw that there were really too many large, open, unassigned rooms on the main floor and elected to spilt one of these into a music room on one end, a powder room and stereo closet in the middle, and a media room on the far end. With the formality of the piano and the expected Swarovski crystal chandelier in mind, I designed a series of floor to ceiling bookcases to line the walls and create an intimate and sumptuous setting for these elaborate and decorative icons. I would need to go “over the top” to make these pieces seem at home, if that was at all possible.

Though the walls and shelves are peppered with our eclectic collection of masks and cultural paraphernalia from around the world, the room presents a formal, yet playful center to our main living area. Visible upon entry to our home, the piano and now chandelier beckon visitors into a spatially ample, yet decoratively diverse room that promises gaiety and culture. From the bug-slapped German license plate that adorned our car during our trip through Europe five years ago, to the Plexiglas-encased Chinese jacket, another house gift from a friend, whose case cost more than the flea-market acquired garment, the music room sings with life and now sparkles with color. Two large windows just behind the piano bench bring in bright sunshine throughout the afternoon hours, heating the room and bouncing off the crystals in a rainbow of hues. At night, the dimmable fixture creates such an elegant setting I may require my husband to wear his tuxedo jacket when playing piano. I myself may need to wear gloves.




The feng shui of the house has certainly been altered. Though the new energy patterns have yet to settle, I can sense a new beginning in the realignment of the life forces that will flow through and around these crystals. A neighbor has promised to help me ground the space, because it really is charged by this new addition, and to usher us into a new year of hope and well being. We’ll cherish this new addition and the spirit it creates in the room and in our home. There is much to be said about the objects you live with. My crystal ball is a beacon of light that even with its crazy scrolls and bobeches has spoken to us with wisdom and direction.