Letter from the Editor

Like many people these days, I’ve been juggling a number of roles the past decade. But lately my career as interior designer has overwhelmed my job as editor and publisher of yoursource. Mini-projects I first took on as concepts for the magazine expanded in scope, such as the Mobitat mobile home you see profiled and pictured in this issue.

And then there have been a series of U.S. projects. First up, I’m doing a kitchen in the Pacific Palisades home of Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis. It’s an outmoded hacienda-style house, and when I finish bringing it up to 21st century specs, she will shoot segments there for the next season of her show Everyday Italian. I’ve also got another project cooking with chef Art Smith (we featured
our previous condo reno in last summer’s issue of yoursource).

The largest project on the go is for fashion designer and entrepreneur Marc Ecko. It’s a vast rebuilding and refurbishment of his 30,000-square-foot estate called Stronghold.

Ecko’s 165-year-old Post-built castle in the foothills of Somerset County, New Jersey, has been completely gutted to make way for an intricate room-by-room (45 of them!) restoration and modernisation. I am due to spend two years reinventing the layout of the six-storey mansion and grounds, which will include four kitchens, 15 bathrooms, a night club, a full-sized gym and basketball court,
a conservatory, and a lot more. This is a project of a lifetime.

The idea for Mobitat sprang from the necessity of where to live while working on the Ecko estate. I redesigned the interior of a 1978 Airstream Land Yacht for maximum comfort, and have loaded it with the latest smart technology and creature comforts. It’s also completely green.

Turns out this is not just my fantasy. Many individuals and corporations have been interested in this aluminium capsule that you can take anywhere, anytime. You get your sneak preview in this issue.

And finally, a note to my loyal subscribers – I’m a little (okay more than a little) late with this issue, but subscriptions have been extended and you’ll be seeing the magazine in your mailbox more regularly. As anyone who’s gone through a reno knows, these projects are full of delays, crises, and the ultimate – contractors just
not showing up at all. This has had a trickle-down effect on all my projects, and I’m thinking of devoting a theme issue to the topic in a future issue (email me your stories!).

The theme of this issue is “smart” – smart homes, smart people, smart technology, and smart ideas. The features include a geothermal contemporary home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, style guru Marc Ecko, an art collector’s glass house, new recipes from Giada De Laurentiis’s top selling cookbook Everyday Pasta, smart hotels, Canada’s best cup of Java, plus so much more.