Er | The Autobiography of Things
So: 30 up, 20 to go. Cloudbotherers. In 2017 the price of new apartments in Frankfurt rose 25 percent. Hence the haste. It’s upwards and upwards. The Goldman Sachs rush. High cost high rise high flying high living it is then on the west bank of the River Main.
This, and other flotsam and jetsam, is what LVB* are discussing in Villa Kennedy’s JFK Restaurant. Over Cape Cod Dream mocktails: yoghurt | passion fruit | passion fruit juice | vanilla | lemon (€13).
And 50 Shades of Green herbivorous superfood: quinoa patty | avocado | Tahiti dressing | pumpkin seed pesto | courgette | young spinach salad (€26).
Chocolate thins to counterbalance all that healthiness. The best since last week’s petit fours served at Ballymore’s marketing suite – over a chinwag with Sir Oliver Letwin.
LVB are putting the gnomic into gastronomic.
There really is something swashbuckingly Rhode Island mansion about Villa Kennedy. It’s one of many turn-of-last-century landscrapers on the east bank of the River Main. Château façade; half timbered staircase hall; palazzo loggia: eclecticism on steroids.
Hansel and Gretel meets Norman Shaw was seemingly the whole rage back in the day. “Architecture is more than practicalities,” Dr Tim Brittain-Catlin reminded the audience at the final European Commission talk celebrating the European Year of Cultural Heritage.
Closer to the River Main is the 1896 Liebieghaus. A “prestigious villa” no less, announces a sign on the gatepost. Baron Heinrich von Liebieg’s former home is now an a museum. Said sign sums it up, “Manor house built in a mixture of styles: Southern German; Late Gothic; and Alpine Renaissance.” And for good measure a 1908 “Art Nouveau gallery wing with Baroque influences.”
Named after the Presidential visit of 1963, the very restored Villa Kennedy has been given the full blown Rocco Forte treatment with a little art deco help from designer Martin Brudnizki.
Hey ho. Jackie Kennedy was instrumental in launching the Irish Georgian Society. Ho hum. Now LVB have been appointed the social diarist for the London Chapter. JFK | JBK | IGS | LVB. Acronyms are so very FRA.
*A design based celebration of the good things in life
