Architecture Wednesday: Queens Lane

It’s cold here in Smallville and we’re nearing those wintry holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I need snow … and wine … and this place, with the perfect name, Queens Lane—fir for a queen—fills the bill.

Located along the Snake River just north of Jackson, Wyoming, this massive home, and outbuildings, is surrounded by mature cottonwoods, a pond, and several streams. The architects were inspired by the early twentieth century National Parks lodge architecture so large timbers, logs and stones make up the exterior.

In addition to the main house, there are two outbuildings—a shop/office and a wine silo … more on that later—that have a more traditional western log structure.

I love the rustic lodge feel of the home, and the I-don’t-know-how-many fireplaces throughout; and the views to the snowy meadows beyond … and the quiet of snowfall. My one quibble is with the guest room and the animal head on the wall; luckily I won’t be sleeping there.

In fact, I’ll probably be passed out in the wine cellar silo. That’s right, silo.

Since the compound lies in the Snake River flood plain, a standard wine cellar would not do, and so the idea of a silo, filled not with grain, but The Grape, was used. The interior of the silo is inspired by a wine cask, with reclaimed fir woodwork and a spiral staircase that accesses hundreds … hundreds … of bottles of wine bottles. You climb the stairs and make your selection and then keep climbing to the third floor where you sit and sip and admire the view.

And perhaps, as I said, fall asleep, because after that much wine I ain’t walking down a three-story spiral staircase!

One Kind Design

Republican Christian Mississippi Baker Speaks Out On Hate Bill And It's Not What You Think

Mitchell Moore lives in Mississippi; he’s straight; he’s a Republican; he’s a Christian; and he owns a bakery. And he has a lot to say about the passage of that Hate Bill in his state that allows discrimination against the LGBT community because … Jesus.

He believes the state’s lawmakers are violating Christian principles with their new Hate Bill:

 “I am here to bake cakes and to sell those cakes. I’m not here to decide arbitrarily who deserves my cake and who doesn’t. That’s not what I do. That’s not my job. So leaving aside the stupidity of passing it because it decriminalizes discrimination – which, that really is kind of the biggest issue – but I can actually say I think the law of unintended consequences is going to come back to bite the people who signed this bill. If it is my sincerely held religious belief that I shouldn’t serve them, then I can do that. And I can hide behind that language. But that language is so vague it opens a Pandora’s Box. And you can’t shut it again [because] there is no sincerely held religious belief to think that I am better than other people – to think that my sin is different than other people. And so I am a deeply Christian man, and those go counter to my belief system.

“The assumption that [state legislators] think that they’re looking out for us – that’s not what they are doing. We rank number one – our state government is the most dependent on federal money. We are the third most obese state. We rank at the bottom in unemployment, in education. We’ve got crumbling infrastructure. None of them are being tackled. Instead, we are passing, hey-let’s-discriminate bills. You see the state government as taking no action on hundreds of other priorities and taking action instead on trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. It boggles my mind.”

It boggles most minds, except the mall ones.

Would that I lived in Mississippi and could frequent Mitchell Moore’s Campbell’s Bakery in Jackson every single day. Cakes baked without hate or judgment are dee-lish, y’all.

Thanks to Mitchell Moore for telling us the other side of faith; the side that doesn’t hate.

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Mississippi: It's 1963 All Over Again

I've had one of those nasty summer colds for the past few days and, for me, the only way to feel better is to get some sleep. So, to that end, I have been dosing myself with Nyquil--which tops the cough and the stuffiness--and sleeping like a baby. The only side effect for me is the odd dreams I have in a Nyquil-induced stupor.

Take last night's dream, for instance. I dreamt there was a Black president! Can you believe that? And it was 2012! That's some crazy shiz. Luckily, when I woke up, everything was back to normal and it was 1963 again, which makes this story seem, well, still bad, but not out of 'normal,' for the South....in the 60s

There was a couple in Jackson, Mississippi, who had planned a wedding; it was the biggest day of their lives and they wanted everything to be perfect. But, the church where they wanted to hold their ceremony turned them away because they're Black.

Well, duh. It's 1963, dontcha know. I mean, at least it must be in Mississippi.

Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson fell in love, he proposed, and they set a date. They found a church--the predominantly white First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs--bought a dress, rented a tux, sent out some invitations, and were all set to go, until the day before the wedding the pastor of the church, Dr. Stan Weatherford, told the couple he'd gotten some bad news from the congregation.

Charles Wilson: "The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church, and that if [Weatherford] went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church." 

How Christ-like. No black people can marry in the church, and if the pastor dares to break that rule he's out of a job. What is even nuttier is that Charles and Te'Andrea often attend services at this church, though they are not members.

Dr. Weatherford was stunned by the announcement from, what he calls, a small minority against the black marriage at the church: "This had never been done before here, so it was setting a new precedent, and there are those who reacted to that because of that."

He went on to perform the wedding at a nearby church.

For their part, Charles and Te'Andrea don't understand why the church suddenly turned them down and wonder about the “Christianity” of the congregation: "I blame the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, I blame those members who knew and call themselves Christians and didn't stand up," said Charles Wilson.

Church officials are now saying they welcome any race into their congregation and will hold internal meetings on how to move forward, should this situation occur again.

Here's how that goes down: you believe in God, God isn't racist, perform the damned wedding.

Don't make me think this is 1963 again.

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