Brad: Dear friends of ours have a house near High Falls, and I came to visit them in the summer, several years ago. I really fell in love with the area - the quality of nature, the people here. Andrew grew up on the South Coast of England, so he's always liked being near nature. And I grew up riding horses and in a town just outside of Portland, Oregon, so being in the Catskills, near the mountains and the trees, feels a lot like home.
And then, of course, we fell in love with this particular home itself. It was a such a remarkable and unusual property, but perfectly fitting for our sense of design. It's by an incredibly delightful and talented architect named Marica McKeel. Her firm is Studio MM in NYC. Our home was the first of its kind, but she's currently developing three new properties in a similar style.
Andrew: No, not really. Both environments have natural and organic foundations, with modern elements mixed in. We've both moved several times, and have lived in different cities across the globe - like London, Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco - so our home is largely made up of objects and art that we've collected from these different places.
Brad: And Andrew has spent his career in design and fashion so the curation comes naturally. But we both tend to love the same things, so that makes designing pretty easy. On the other hand, that also makes it easier to justify why we absolutely need that next...fill in the blank with a coffee table book, art piece, random design object of desire.
Andrew: I run my own agency, so my schedule is a little more flexible than Brad's. I'll usually drive up on Thursday or early Friday morning, and Brad comes up on Friday, at the end of the work day with Birchbox. I'll pick up some fresh flowers up for the house, along with Pixie (our beautiful and spoiled Staffordshire Terrier) from the sitter. Friday night, once Brad arrives, we light the fire and simply relax.
Brad: On Saturday, we wake up to the view of the trees - always sublime and a fond reminder of what really matters. We'll squeeze juice or press coffee in the morning, before taking Pixie out for a run on the rail trail. We like to do Yoga at Iris Yoga Studio, which has sweeping views of Ulster County mountains and endless trees. Then we'll stop by the High Falls Food Co-Op to pick up a few things for dinner. We cook a lot at the house. Other than that, we may go for a hike or just chill by the fire and read.
Andrew: We try to balance our weekends with sacred time for just the two of us, and having fun with our closest friends. On Friday nights, we'll often grab supper with our dearest friends Kate and Trace, who live about four minutes away, and are really like family to us.
If we ever have a larger group of friends over, Brad is the mixologist in the family, and he's always cooking up some new cocktail concoction. He also handles the music, while I set the rest of the house. The evenings are usually pretty relaxed. We keep Cards Against Humanity and Scrabble on hand, but conversations about life and finding our way in the world are usually how the nights evolve, haha.
One part fresh squeezed grapefruit
One part Del Maguey's Pechuga tequila
A splash of club soda
A sprig of thyme
"This cocktail really comes down to the tequila. It's a variety we came across while traveling and it has a smokey taste, almost like a scotch. Just squeeze, shake, pour and drink up!"
- Brad Lande
