Downsizing, they rely on their Placewares philosophy
At home with Maynard Hale and Lu Wendel Lyndon
WELLESLEY -- It's no picnic to move out of the spectacular Victorian carriage house you've been living in for 30 years and downsize to a small-ish rental property.
The Lyndons certainly didn't relish the prospect as they prepared to relocate from Newton Centre to Wellesley last summer, and sift through three decades' worth of suburban detritus.
But they did have an advantage over the average empty nesters: They really know how to get organized.
Lu Wendel Lyndon and Maynard Hale Lyndon, both in their early 60s, are the founders and owners of Placewares, the 25-year-old Massachusetts company specializing in places to put things, with stores in Newton, Belmont, Wellesley, and Concord.
So even though it was "painful" to leave, said Lu, they had a few things going for them: the organizational skills to facilitate the move, the design skills to take all their old furniture and make it work in a new and smaller space, and loads of storage containers.
Just two months post-move, the Lyndon household is up and running again. Food items are neatly stored in the kitchen pantry inside a full inventory of Modulon plastic stacking storage bins and clear Danish Rosti modular food storage containers -- available (where else?) at Placewares, just like the maple "Flying Nun" shelf in the kitchen that Maynard designed in 1983. Clothes are stored in the bedroom in a massive Elfa wire basket storage system, one of Placewares' signature items.
The couple's vast collection of baby rattles, amassed over 35 years and spanning three centuries ("It's a passion, just like Placewares is," said Maynard), is neatly arranged in a series of stacking trays, in cabinet drawers. A fold-down ironing board (purchased, counterintuitively, from Hold Everything) is mounted on a wall of the upstairs sunroom.
The Placewares influence is everywhere: in the acid-free records boxes, the modular storage cubes, the nesting mixing bowls, the closet drawer systems organized so meticulously that there is one drawer, near the kitchen, set aside for "things waiting to be ironed but are not clothes," such as table napkins, said Lu. "Our whole philosophy of living matches the philosophy of our stores," says Maynard, an architect by training who, with Lu, also owns and operates LyndonDesign, their sister company that develops home and office products.
Their philosophy is this: Products for the home should be multifunctional: witness the brand new Placewares product displayed on their kitchen counter: a ceramic breadbox designed by British food writer Nigella Lawson, with a wood lid that doubles as a cutting board. Products for the home should be easy to retrieve: Check out the dishes stacked or nested on open shelving inside the kitchen island. Products for the home should last a long time: See their Cuisinart food processor from the mid-1970s.
"We stick with things that work," said Maynard. "It's a workhorse."
One thing that wasn't working for them anymore was their old house. True, the refurbished 1886 carriage house was a beauty. Metropolitan Home magazine devoted nine pages to it in 1986, praising it as "a thoughtful balance between innovation and renovation." But the time had come to move out, and on. Their two daughters were grown, and the incursion of McMansions into the neighborhood "pushed us over the edge," Maynard said.
They couldn't find a house they liked enough to buy, so they looked for a rental and fell in love with this one. It's a charming 1920s two-bedroom, three-level caretaker's cottage on a private estate that sits at the end of a private road on Sabrina Lake. ("It's very small and nobody has ever heard of it," Maynard said of the lake.) Ducks congregate at the shoreline, just beyond their door. A hiking path crosses the property, leading to a network of trails and a nature sanctuary.
They snapped it up, even though aspects of the design were imperfect and renting meant renovations would be limited. Still, the house has their unique imprint, including their love of clean Scandinavian lines and bold colors, especially Marimekko designs, which show up on the tablecloths, rugs, and even Maynard's shirt.
The house pays homage to other icons of modern design. There is a tea cart designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, an Eames chair, a lamp shaped like a pear by Milton Glaser.
"And then there is the Lyndon coffee table," Maynard does not hesitate to point out, referring to a handsome ash table he designed with a square of glass in the middle, now out of production.
"We have had the ownership bug all these years, and this is a new challenge for us, and an interesting one," he said. "The challenge is to create a living pattern within an existing shell without making alterations. We're even accepting the all-white interior." "It's a huge, huge change," said Lu, "but one of the nicest things about this house is we don't have to spend all our time taking care of things. There is more time to do things we like to do."
