44°
NORTH SALEM, N.Y. -- Food and design lovers got a chance to see five kitchens on Friday at Eye on North Salems annual self-conducted kitchen tour.
At Page Dickeys home, she and her husband were eating lunch when The Daily North Salem arrived. This is a real cooking kitchen, said Dickey, right before offering a piece of pecan shortbread. I love to bake: cakes, pies, cookies. Dickeys husband, Bosco, is in charge of making the jams and jellies.
At the Holtzer home, built circa 1790 with 2006 renovations, visitors got to see a kitchen designed around two pieces of furniture: an antique linen press, circa 1850, and a long natural wood baking table, passed on through the generations by the homeowners English family.
Anita Conway, tour guide, explained that, the upper cabinets were custom-made. The lowers were Dills Best.
For the Lev residence, tour-goers saw a variation on a theme. When the owner was asked to include her kitchen in the tour, she said she was startled. My kitchen is so small! she said. But architect Mies van der Rohes theory was God is in the details.
The stainless steel stove is a masters workbench. The refrigerator, purchased in the Bowerys commercial kitchen district, is a glass-door fixture. The counters and back-splashes are finished off in smooth concrete.
The Lev residence itself was originally part of a large estate, a portion of which is now the Bloomberg property. The Lev house was purchased from the estate and moved to adjacent private property.
From the road, the Caporale-Greene residence looks like a well-maintained old barn, but there is much more to it upon entering the property.
In 1991, the kitchen was relocated to a southwest corner of the building to take advantage of afternoon light. And it was enlarged to accommodate a huge commercial stove and granite-topped center island. The floor is terracotta tile.
The new kitchen design was influenced by Ms. Caporales collection of French pottery, displayed in a 19th-century vasselier, a type of French hutch. Cabinets were custom made of cherry wood to compliment the vasselier.
Visitor Anita Worth, a former North Salem resident, commented, Its great that these people have opened their homes because there is a privacy factor.
Her co-visitor, Laurel Mathews, added, You pass these homes for years and suddenly you get a chance to see the beauty inside.
Click here to follow Daily Voice North Salem and receive free news updates.
