Daphne Phelps (1911–2005)
Auteur van Een huis op Sicilië
Over de Auteur
Fotografie: Daphne Phelps (1911-2005) Image from the family archive.
Werken van Daphne Phelps
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Phelps, Daphne
- Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
- Phelps, Daphne Margaret Jane
- Geboortedatum
- 1911-06-23
- Overlijdensdatum
- 2005-11-30
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- England, UK
- Plaats van overlijden
- Taormina, Sicily, Italy
- Woonplaatsen
- London, England, UK
New York, New York, USA
San Francisco, California, USA
Taormina, Sicily, Italy - Opleiding
- Oxford University (St Anne's College)
London School of Economics
St Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk, England, UK - Beroepen
- psychiatric social worker
translator
memoirist - Korte biografie
- Daphne Phelps was born to English parents. She attended St. Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk, studied at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, and became a psychiatric social worker. She went to New York City in 1939, but was blocked from returning to the UK by the outbreak of World War II. Back in London in 1941, she joined Sir Solly Zuckerman's team researching the effects of the Blitz. She worked at the London Hospital before joining the West Sussex child guidance service. At age 34, in 1948, she went to Sicily to restore Casa Cuseni, a fine house in Taormina near Mount Etna built by her uncle, the artist Robert H. Kitson, which she had inherited. Although weary from her work during the war, speaking barely any Italian, and with very little money, she plunged into the project in this fascinating new milieu. To help overcome her financial problems, for many years she ran Casa Cuseni as a modest pensione and played host to writers and intellectual such as Roald Dahl, Tennessee Williams, and Bertrand Russell. Her memoir, A House in Sicily, was published in 1999. Casa Cuseni was officially declared a site of "cultural and historic importance" by the Italians.
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Besprekingen
Charming, delightfully told memoir of a woman who inherits a house in Sicily and spends the next sixty years there taking in guests to make ends meet and getting to know the people and customs and pets and criminals of her adopted land. I was sorry to come to the end.
One of my favourite books that evokes a time and place. Daphne Phelps inherited the beautiful villa Casa Cuseni in Taormina near Mount Etna. With no money she had to take in paying guests. The eccentrities of these and the locals are charmingly recounted.
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THE HOUSE IS FOR SALE!
Details from the estate agents....
The English artist Robert Hawthorne Kitson arrived in Taormina in 1900 attracted by the Mediterranean weather and by the reputation and beauty of a resort that had long been on the Grand Tour of every aristocratic European. He bought a piece of land in a spectacular position overlooking the town and with views of the Bay of Naxos and Mount Etna. Casa Cuseni was completed six years later. Over the next century “the finest house in Taormina” was to welcome an incredible array of guests, from DH Lawrence to Bertrand Russell, Henry Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Roald Dahl and Alan Whicker.
Stepping through the gate and looking up past a steeply terraced garden, the bustle of Taormina is suddenly a distant memory. The design of the garden is influenced by Lutyens and Sicilian tradition. It contains a number of unusual plants and has attracted garden tours and visitors from around the world. Arrival at the main terrace, dominated by a façade that is both imposing and understated, is rewarded by the spectacle of a snow covered Etna towering over the Bay of Naxos. The design of both the house and the gardens is a mixture of Arts and Crafts and Italian classical styles. On the ground floor is a drawing room, a library and a dining room designed, furnished and painted in 1906 by Sir Frank Brangwyn, an apprentice of William Morris an art nouveau pioneer who worked in Paris, Munich and Vienna. The drawing room and library are richly furnished with antiques from Kitson’s collection and leave the impression that little has changed here since he died in 1947. The first floor features 4 bedrooms and a design for 4 bathrooms (currently 3) and the top floor features a bedroom, bathroom and living room and a very large terrace with spectacular views.
Following his death in 1947, the house passed to his niece Daphne Phelps, who has left a record of her experience of living here for over five decades in her book “A House in Sicily”. Daphne took the house into its second era by opening its rooms and gardens to paying guests, and the house found a niche amongst the elite of artistic and literary circles. A project for an extensive and sensitive restoration has been approved, including the rejuvenation of least five bedrooms, the installation of new bathrooms and the modernisation of the original pool (which was designed in such a way as to carry a reflection of Mount Etna, illumated by the full moon).
Daphne died in 2005, and her descendents have decided to engage Think Sicily and Knight Frank to identify a purchaser to take the house to its third era. Their website casacuseni.org gives an excellent insight into the fascinating history of the house.… (meer)
--------------------------------------------------
THE HOUSE IS FOR SALE!
Details from the estate agents....
The English artist Robert Hawthorne Kitson arrived in Taormina in 1900 attracted by the Mediterranean weather and by the reputation and beauty of a resort that had long been on the Grand Tour of every aristocratic European. He bought a piece of land in a spectacular position overlooking the town and with views of the Bay of Naxos and Mount Etna. Casa Cuseni was completed six years later. Over the next century “the finest house in Taormina” was to welcome an incredible array of guests, from DH Lawrence to Bertrand Russell, Henry Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Roald Dahl and Alan Whicker.
Stepping through the gate and looking up past a steeply terraced garden, the bustle of Taormina is suddenly a distant memory. The design of the garden is influenced by Lutyens and Sicilian tradition. It contains a number of unusual plants and has attracted garden tours and visitors from around the world. Arrival at the main terrace, dominated by a façade that is both imposing and understated, is rewarded by the spectacle of a snow covered Etna towering over the Bay of Naxos. The design of both the house and the gardens is a mixture of Arts and Crafts and Italian classical styles. On the ground floor is a drawing room, a library and a dining room designed, furnished and painted in 1906 by Sir Frank Brangwyn, an apprentice of William Morris an art nouveau pioneer who worked in Paris, Munich and Vienna. The drawing room and library are richly furnished with antiques from Kitson’s collection and leave the impression that little has changed here since he died in 1947. The first floor features 4 bedrooms and a design for 4 bathrooms (currently 3) and the top floor features a bedroom, bathroom and living room and a very large terrace with spectacular views.
Following his death in 1947, the house passed to his niece Daphne Phelps, who has left a record of her experience of living here for over five decades in her book “A House in Sicily”. Daphne took the house into its second era by opening its rooms and gardens to paying guests, and the house found a niche amongst the elite of artistic and literary circles. A project for an extensive and sensitive restoration has been approved, including the rejuvenation of least five bedrooms, the installation of new bathrooms and the modernisation of the original pool (which was designed in such a way as to carry a reflection of Mount Etna, illumated by the full moon).
Daphne died in 2005, and her descendents have decided to engage Think Sicily and Knight Frank to identify a purchaser to take the house to its third era. Their website casacuseni.org gives an excellent insight into the fascinating history of the house.… (meer)
Daphne Phelps' uncle died unexpectedlyand left her a too-big, too-expensivehouse in Sicily. Somehow, Phelpsmanaged to move there anyway andsurvive anyway. Phelps spenta lot of time in the company ofsemi-celebrities of her day andmuch of the book is spent detailinglittle stories about these people.My favorite stories were thosetold about the little people Phelps came to know in Sicily ina chapter called Siciliana.
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Statistieken
- Werken
- 1
- Leden
- 248
- Populariteit
- #92,014
- Waardering
- 3.5
- Besprekingen
- 8
- ISBNs
- 16
- Talen
- 2
Interesting and fast read. I would suggest giving it 50 pages to get into the story.