Not far from here is this place – the Fonthill Museum, former home of Henry Chapman Mercer. The entire place is constructed of concrete. Don't let that fool you – it's not the cold gray variety. It's much more – a very organic interior floor plan that would take weeks to learn to navigate with the meandering arrangement of rooms and random stairways throughout. Every surface is embellished with embedded tiles – from his Moravian Pottery and Tile Works factory as well as tiles collected from places around the world. You have to see it….astonishing!
And anyone claiming to be a HIM fan should know this is the site of a video shoot, and must be visited.
Let's take a minute and watch it HERE….and then click over and see "the making of" HERE, ff to 5 minutes.
So we behaved and didn't get our photo-op shot….earlier we traveled into the woods to see this:
When the lighting is better tomorrow I'll show you the tiles I got – the factory still makes stuff! They didn't let us use our cameras inside….so you'll have to watch the HIM video afterall! Mr. Mercer was many things – an archeologist, architect, tile-maker, and collector – and his accumulation of books look stunning – piled high in the two library rooms we were shown (the tour only takes you through a portion of the home). It's worth the visit….and if you're one of my HIM fan friends, *winks* because I know you're jealous.
EDIT: here's the tiles we got…..I don't know the significance of the "AVALON" image to Mercer, but we saw it embedded in a fireplace, and it's significant to us as Avalon is Fallon's middle name (for the Roxy Music song and album!)….and IF you look closer…….AVALON……do you see what I see???? *giggles*
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