Here is what happens. My daughter, Adriana, and I will be strolling along a street in some city.  We have no particular destination in mind. I’m thinking of Venice last year. Or was it the year before? Or, perhaps it was another city altogether.  But let’s say it was Venice and we were walking alongside one of the canals. We were in one of those earthly heavens where it doesn’t matter where you are, where any nuance is sufficient, where the most subtle light on a wall, or the architecture in the waiter’s brow is enough. Or whatever it is. Eventually, we come to the oldest part of the city, near Punta Della Dogana and the Peggy Gugenhaim Museum. For some reason I’m driven to check out what is behind a particular Venetian façade, away from the crowded streets. We end up in Antiooo’s Lounge and Restaurant (www.sinahotels.com).  Totally unexpected. The dining room is all white, and for that, serene, yet at the same time, busy with embossed walls, light fixtures and small but beautiful flower arrangments. In this place every bite of food is enjoyable. Whether it is or it isn’t. Everything is perfect, whether it is or it isn’t. And then we go into The Red lounge, equally surprising, with a fireplace wrapped in a mirror frame and the hearth filled with wood. Very dramatic. And then my daughter will look at me with her fabulous smile.

The other day a friend and I were sitting in the kitchen talking about this and that and the conversation lead to a place where my home is in Slovenia. I mentioned a village and I told him that is not big. “Well, but there must be a street,” he said. “There is no street,” I replied. “It is just nine houses and a church”.

And so I came to the name for a blog: Nine Houses. Each has some association, which I’ll share with you in time.

But the essence of this place is a paradox. On the one hand, the look of these houses and their gardens conveys serenity and restraint, the sensation of being at the far end of the world, completely removed from speed of any kind. Secure.

On the other hand, underneath: chaos, asymmetry, passions run amok. History. Here, you are equidistant between Venice and Alps. Between calm and calamity, between great refinement and the coarseness of it.

It’s the contradiction that’s interesting, and finally inspiring.