Frank Gehry comes to the Feng-Zhu Tea House

Ok, so Frank Gehry didn't really come, but the benches that he designed did.  The are very much in the same spirit as the tea house: Calm and inviting.

 Feng-Zhu means "maple-bamboo", for those who have been asking.

May Feng-zhu teahouse event

The initial teahouse party/concert was held on May 15th. About 40 guests enjoyed music, food and drink on a perfect Saturday afternoon. You can see some of the audience reflected in the glass.

The architects and clients.

 

Just some of the food that was prepared for the event, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian and Spanish dishes.

 

Lazy Sunday in the Teahouse

We spent an afternoon with the NYT, books, tea and various snacks in the teahouse. A needed break.

 

 

And the damaged Japanese maple has made a full recovery!

 

Tea house garden in early spring

 Spring has finally arrived and the garden is just beginning to grow.

All of the maple trees were somehow saved by by tying up the cracked branches, and are just beginning to leaf out.

 

Japanese maple tree repair

We have tied up 3 of the Japanese maple trees on the advice of Mark Sampson. We'll see if the cracked branches can heal.

Storm damage to the garden

The big winter storms dumped about 4 feet of snow on the garden. The main casualty is the Japanese maple that we just moved to the front of the tea house last fall.  It's sad because we've had the tree for 10 years, and moved it 3 times trying to keep it out of the way of Henry's tractor during the tea house construction.  We'll look for a replacement in the spring. 

 

First Guests

The first "event" in the tea house was a vegetarian dim sum with Italian guests. It was a relatively warm day, but we ran the heating, so it was prety comfortable. You can find the menu from the January 23rd posting of poposriver.blogspot.com.