The “Creative” Elves are at it Again!

 Here in North Grafton, MA, our picturesque and historic New England village, I did a double take over a year ago when I drove by the stately Greek Revival mansion up the street from me and noticed that someone had moved in (it was empty for a long time) and painted the front door a striking turquoise. Somehow the jazzy door made my day.

I kept an eye on the mansion at 151 Worcester Street (Rte 140) as it was decorated for the Fourth of July this summer with red, white and blue banners hanging down the two-storey high columns. Then, in Halloween, when it was infested by spiders bigger than Volkswagens and mummies hanging from the windows, I had to find out who was behind this inspired decorating.  So I knocked at the turquoise door.

 Turns out the mansion has been acquired by a team of young design geniuses who call themselves Bergeron Creative Studios, led by Al Bergeron. They are “a nationally recognized, award-winning branding firm” according to their website ,  who have won all sorts of awards for making videos, creating logos, and doing high-tech stuff for their clients that I’m too low-tech to understand.

Nevertheless Dara King, the company’s Social Media Director, kindly gave me a tour of the offices, filled with antiques and ultra-modern furniture and fixtures they’ve designed themselves.   I noticed that the color turquoise has been strategically used on the front stairs and on details of the colonial moldings.

When I complimented Al and Dara on the Halloween décor, they said in unison “Wait till you see what we do for the holidays.”  So last Sunday I was there to watch the unveiling as their photographer, Dan Vaillancourt, recorded the scene.  They had personally built, painted and lighted all four Nutcrackers, each of them eight feet high. Rudolph was peering out the attic window and providentially, just as the photographer snapped the photo, Santa Claus and his reindeer were out on a practice run silhouetted by the moon.

  Al Bergeron setting up one of the nutcrackers

When the Worcester Telegram and Gazette published photos of the Halloween décor in October, Al was quoted as saying, “The Creative Mansion is an iconic and well-known landmark – our seasonal decorations are one way we can give back to the community.”

Another way is by collecting toys for needy kids and Dara wanted me to pass on the word that the Creative Mansion is a drop off for Toys for Tots during this holiday season.

 Taking a final look at their work

Having the Creative Mansion nearby has really enlivened the neighborhood, as every night passers-by are honking their car horns and waving to signal their approval. Not since MGM used Grafton’s village center as the set for the film “Ah Wilderness” in 1935 has there been so much excitement around here. 

"Warning:  contagious ideas beyond this point."

Personally, I can’t wait to see what the Creative Mansion gang will do for Valentine’s Day.

Highlife and Hotels in Athens!

(Click on the photos to make them larger)


Our family odyssey around Greece will take us from luxurious accommodations to budget boutique hotels (which Eleni is researching for a travel article) to roughing it in mountainous villages huts. Right now in Athens it’s luxury — the Grande Bretagne Hotel on Constitution Square -- a historic presence in the center of town since 1842. (During WWII someone tried to assassinate Winston Churchill — who had come to rally the Greeks against the Nazi occupiers-- by placing a bomb in the hotel basement, but it was discovered in time.) Now the basement is the site of a world-class spa – incense and steam-filled grottoes lined in semi-precious stones and an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

From the balconies of the GB, as the hotel is fondly called, you can watch the sunset behind the Acropolis and, in the other direction, the hourly changing of the Evzone guards in front of the Parliament building. A new pair of Evzones march up every hour and do a little dance with the retiring pair, in their pleated fustenella skirts and pompomed shoes. On Sunday at 11:a.m. they do a more elaborate changing of the guard with a full cast as tourists snap photos and feed the crowds of pigeons.

The GB was closed down for several years right before the Olympic games in 2004. When it re-opened, it had added a roof-top pool and a roof-top bar and restaurant and a lot of new amenities while keeping the best of the antiques and paintings from its Victorian past.

Yesterday, daughters Eleni and Marina and I walked from the hotel down Hermou (the pedestrian fashion street) and into Monasteraki (the flea market section), then over to the area of Omonia Square which houses the central markets.

We wanted Marina, who works in product design, so see a couple of the crazy new Classical Hotels, where Eleni and I have stayed. The Classical Baby Grand is, according to the brochure,, the “newest, hippest and most attractive spot in town.” “Fourteen international artists from the fields of urban art, graffiti design and illustration turned Baby Grand in the heart of Athens into Europe’s most exciting and creative city hotel.”

These artists have designed rooms—with wall murals and crazy furnishings—around cartoonish themes (there’s even a Spider Man room.) When we stayed last year we were in a jungle-themed room with a fake plush tiger-skin throw across the bed. Jungle noises could be heard in the halls, lamps in the bar were tiger-heads and ostrich tables projected from the walls. In the photos above you’ll see Eleni and Marina getting to know the gorillas in the foyer. The reception desks on the floor above are made from mini-Cooper cars.

The trendy restaurant “Meat Me” in the hotel was closed—preparing for an event, so we walked over to a sister hotel, the 2 Fashion House Hotel—equally modern and innovative in design and themed around fashion (You can see the blueish balconies lined with fashion shots in my photo.) There we had a cappuccino freddo and then headed into the teeming central Meat and Fish markets for a photo shoot which I will show you tomorrow (Viewer discretion advised.)