Havisham-esque

Imagine a party in full swing, with everyone roaring drunk and falling over. My no-work-while-the-sun-shines ethos has meant that the garden is rather grandly Havisham-esque.

When she told me she hadn't seen it [the film Grey Gardens (1975)], I launched into an enthusiastic gush about this legendary seventies Maysles brothers documentary about a mother and daughter who lived in Havisham-esque decay in East Hampton.

What did Dad think, I wondered, after showing and selling all those painstakingly cleaned, repainted, and remodeled houses every day, when he came home to ours? Was he blind to the Havisham-esque decay? Or did he find the evidence of time’s passage comforting, a reminder that there would be an end to the sadness he endured just as there would be an end to the house, to all the sad things people lived in and lived through?

From five floors above, our home seemed to be watching us. I imagined the rooms slipping into a Havisham-esque decay as we failed them, the idea of us that I cherished receding.

Detailed, white washed wood with a distressed element and plenty of rococo detailing creates a Havisham-esque feel.

With the Havisham[-]esque, eerie interpretation of Mankowitz’s well known photograph of Marianne Faithfull (right) and an indulgent, Borgias royalty type interpretation of Mankowitz’s Hendrix prints (above), these two visionaries have made history, a joint art force to be reckoned with.