From the Listing: "This home was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family, the Christian Louboutin of their time. Laird & Schober Shoes was founded in Philadelphia in 1870 and became internationally renowned for crafting luxurious women’s and children’s footwear, winning the grand prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The updated home blends preserved period craftsmanship with modern amenities. From the moment you enter, the defining architectural details reveal themselves: original hardwood floors, exceptional millwork and moldings, stile-and-rail paneled walls, soaring ceilings, handcrafted staircases and banisters, carved woodwork, crystal doorknobs, original light fixtures, and beautiful stonework. Nearly every room enjoys views of the surrounding gardens and mature landscaping. At the exterior, travertine, bluestone, and EP Henry patios and walkways create a series of outdoor living spaces. The finished lower level has its own fireplace and TV. The pool, spa, and outdoor areas are perfect for entertaining. The home offers abundant natural light and storage, tremendous indoor and outdoor living space, timeless character, and an unmistakable sense of warmth."
This Tudor-style home in Abington, Pennsylvania, was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family.
The two-level masonry residence sits on a rock escarpment looking out over a gorge.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
Project Details:
Location: Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia
From the Architect: "EA house is a family home built onto a sensitive rock cliff face escarpment in the southern highlands. An experimental house, while simple in form, it solves many overlapping constraints and challenges that exist because of the site, a leftover parcel of land from a suburb that was planned before realizing there was a giant cliff and gorge. Since being deemed unbuildable, the site had been empty.
"The home touches its site purposefully but carefully so as to have no impact on any existing flora and fauna, utilizing the natural typography to its advantage. It has a small footprint that emerges from the rock. A bridge provides both equitable access along with being the conduit for all services to and from the building resulting in minimal impact on the rock escarpment and existing trees.
"Planning is paired back. Public and private areas are opposite, with the living spaces at the lower levels having a closer connection to its site. All spaces are connected by a single loaded corridor that slowly reveals the spatial play of the plan and reveals the site to inhabitants. Stripped of excess, yet rich in sensory and spatial experience. Private and transitional spaces are monastic in concept similar to La Tourette, humbly sized with controlled light and view creating intimate and reflective living. This is contrasted by the lower levels open plan living, dining, and kitchen with larger curated views. Each element is conceived as a piece of furniture arranged in and breaking up the space. A singular materiality cocoons you and connects to this wider site which feels both dramatic and nourishing at the same time. The varied openings offer many different perspectives of the shared outlook."
"The house manages many overlapping technical constraints: Its flame-zone bushfire rating, ecological constraints, energy requirements, geotechnical constraints, and access does so effortlessly. We didn’t have the grace of an unseen elevation—even the roof is visible. The house’s ancillaries and services became a integral part of the design and sculptural proposition. Its materiality is fire-resistant and maintenance-free and recedes into the context. Combined with the significant levels of additional insulation and FZ glazing, the house performs at a very high level passively. This house experiments with a new way of living in the landscape canopy. Its simple element gesture conceals the technical challenges of this project offering a model for housing in a challenging environment."
For such a utilitarian object, the pine-shaped, scented cutout holds a surprisingly singular spot in pop culture. The brand has made sure of it.
Not everyone appreciates the bracing perfume wafting from a cardboard tree air freshener named Black Ice, Vanillaroma, or New Car Scent—I know I don’t. But while I would strongly prefer to avoid breathing in a heavily scented object hanging from a car’s rear view mirror, I can’t help but love the instantly recognizable look of a Little Trees cutout.
To this day, Little Trees remains the leader of the pack among car freshener brands, and their unique shape has become a cultural phenomenon. It’s a piece of Americana, a collector’s item, and a visual shorthand for smell. But if you’re a brand and think, maybe we could riff on that a little—say, put a tree on a T-shirt or key ring—think again: Little Trees is known for suing those who infringe on its trademark, and the brand usually wins. We’re free to feel our feelings about Little Trees, but the shape, that’s on lock.
Little Trees is the property of Car-Freshner Corporation, a third-generation family firm headquartered in Watertown, New York. The whiff stretches back to 1952 when a milk truck driver complained about the stench of spilled milk to Julius Sämann, a German-Jewish chemist who’d fled Europe during the Nazi occupation. Two years later, Sämann filed a patent for cardboard with "odor-destroying, air-perfuming substances"—the initial version was a pinup lady before he settled on the now-famous pine tree. It was mostly for practical reasons, as a conifer makes it easier to peel back the wrapper slowly, branch by branch, to prolong the smell for up to seven weeks.
Royal Pine was the first fragrance, followed quickly by Spice and Bouquet. As drivers across the country took to this practical solution to an unpleasant tang, the company wasted no time expanding the range. Many have been fruity and spicy, like Cinnamon Apple, Moroccan Mint Tea, and Lavender, while others more ambiguous like Pure Steel, Heat, and Supernova. Today, Little Trees are sold all over the world, in parts of Europe known as Wunder-Baum or Arbre Magique, making the dangling tree an internationally recognized fix for terrible odors everywhere.
There are more than 30 classic Little Trees scents, each with different imagery on the same trademark shape.
Photo by Jammer Gene via Adobe Stock
But it’s the shape we love. "I have one that smells like surfboard wax. It hasn’t had a smell coming from it in months, but I still like seeing it flopping from the rear view when I have the windows down," says Jason Kress, cofounder and creative director of Washington, D.C., design agency Clever, and self-described "car guy." Kress thinks Little Trees are a mainstay in car culture: "It’s almost like a badge of honor that you wear, down to the type of Little Tree you hang from your mirror." Kress says the "masculine, cologne-smelling" Black Ice is especially popular among Honda drivers, a group he used to belong to before he moved on to VWs and Audis, whose drivers he says are more into Piña Colada, which is "more of a fashion statement."
There are currently 33 classic Little Trees to choose from, with thriving forums of collectors on TikTok and Reddit who hunt for rare special releases and discontinued scents. Kress says he’s seen up to "fifty or so stacked [in cars], as a tongue-in-cheek flex." While he points out there are a lot more elegant (and frankly, better-smelling) car fresheners on the market, Kress thinks Little Trees appeals with its cheerful simplicity and low price: "That amount of joy for a dollar, that’s a pretty good deal! There’s so much variety, so you can make a statement with that dollar."
The ubiquitousness of Little Trees might fool us into thinking we’re at liberty to make our own uses for it. But if you’re a brand tempted to tap in on its symbolism you will soon feel the wrath of Big Tree. When fashion house Balenciaga made a Little Trees–shaped keychain in 2018, it charged $275 for a leather trinket with a nod to retro Americana—and Little Trees sued for trademark infringement. The year after, the company served European budget airline RyanAir for using its image to advertise the airline’s car rental service. Dog toy maker Chewy was informed in 2021 that the pine is not for sharing, and two years ago, Meta was put on notice for failing to take down infringing posts from third parties selling stickers and T-shirts carrying the Little Trees trademark.
Angela Langlotz, a trademark lawyer operating out of Dallas, Texas, remembers the green tree hanging from the dashboard knob of her aunt’s Ford Mustang when she was a child—this is the kind of "intangible goodwill" that Little Trees has built over decades and is keen to control. "I think Little Trees have been appropriately aggressive," says Langlotz, suggesting that they’re just protecting what’s theirs. A trademark is meant to be an exclusive identifier, she explains, so if you let things slide to the point where people no longer associate your brand with your company, you could actually end up losing your trademark rights.
That means when Old Navy puts your trademark on a T-shirt emblazoned with "Keeping it Fresh," it may be best to nip things in the bud—at least that seems to be Little Trees’ attitude. "Then, pretty soon, you get a reputation for being a formidable enforcer of your trademark rights, and people just leave you alone," says Langlotz. This may explain why Little Trees doesn’t just go after large corporations; in 2016, the company sued a nonprofit called Sun Cedar, which helps at-risk individuals get back on their feet, for making a tree-shaped cedar ornament, and two years later, it informed the Bob Ross merchandising company that regardless of how Ross telling viewers to paint "happy little trees" to cover their mistakes, there would be only one diminutive arboreal in town.
Little Trees’ journey from smell peddler to cultural icon has benefited from some memorable pop culture endorsements. "You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see."—that’s the famous line from the 1984 cult sci-fi black comedy Repo Man, which was ultimately a teardown of ’80s consumerism but did a lot to tighten the brand’s associations with American car culture by placing its products in various scenes. "That film is a big part of why some car people are obsessed with Little Trees, sometimes in an ironic hipster way," says Phil Greden, an automotive journalist whose pen name is Murilee Martin. Greden has taken over 10,000 photographs of Little Trees in junked cars over the past 18 years, across the U.S. and overseas. "In junkyards in the U.S., probably ninety-five percent of air fresheners are going to be Little Trees," says Greden, explaining that it’s often the Black Ice and New Car scents. "In the Deep South people like the fruitier ones, like Coconut, Watermelon, and Strawberry.... I think because it’s so humid and they need a more powerful scent to mask the mildew." Greden also finds more clusters in hotter areas—he fondly recalls what he calls the "Charlotte Stack," named for the thick decks of Little Trees air fresheners he saw hanging from the rear view mirrors of many cars in a North Carolina wrecking yard—whereas in dry areas, like his hometown of Denver, Colorado, cars usually have just the one.
The vapors can get overwhelming pretty fast. Little Trees actually provided unscented props to save the noses of the Repo Man film crew, and overly perfumed rideshares are such a common complaint that Lyft has started offering fragrance-free rides as a premium option. When Greden was an official at 24 Hours of Lemons, an endurance race for cars bought for $500 or less, one of the penalties for misbehaving drivers included hanging 50 Little Trees air fresheners inside their cars. "You could smell it as they drove by at a hundred miles an hour," he says. "It was awful." Greden likes to hang his own Little Trees outside for six months to get the odor out, and then enjoy them more as decor.
Despite the brand’s eagerness to defend its trademark, the company behind Little Trees doesn’t seem too concerned about what people say about it. My request for an interview with a representative was politely rebuffed by Nikki in consumer relations, who only remarked that the company "recognize[s] the unique role that LITTLE TREES has played both within the air freshener category and in popular culture over the years." They hardly ever seem to talk to the press—the rare exceptions being when Jody LaLone, the former longtime president of Car-Freshner Corporation, told the New York Times in 2012 that they’d sold billions of units, "Probably right up there with the number of hamburgers McDonald’s sells," and in 2014, when U.K. car dealer Arnold Clark interviewed the brand’s European sales and marketing director who compared the secrecy around Little Trees’s scent recipes to that of Coca-Cola.
Meanwhile, Little Trees occupies our cultural imagination as the car freshener of record, the shape widely celebrated as a classic design. So maybe saying nothing is the smartest move? "Little Trees have been around for so long, I don’t think they need the conversation," says Kress. "They’re doing just fine—their products sell themselves."
Top photo by Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Chaim Romano, who built his brand Dolphin & Flamingo on the "colorful, tropical" aesthetic, tells us how to find the best pieces from the state’s still-popular style.
Welcome to Good Vintage, a series that goes behind the scenes with furniture resellers and dealers to find out how they got their start, where they get their stuff, and what inspires them to keep it up. Know of someone we should talk to? Reach out.
"Our rule of thumb is that it needs to be quintessentially Florida," says Chaim Romano, owner of the Delray Beach-based vintage furniture resell company Dolphin & Flamingo, of how he sources his wide-ranging styles. "There’s the side you see in movies and pop culture: the ’80s pink waterfall stuff, the cocaine-era decor, all that. But before that era, there was a massive amount of midcentury modern, French Provincial, Rococo, and other traditional Italian and French styles. Then there’s the tropical side of Florida, from South Florida all the way up to Jacksonville, which is a lot of rattan, bamboo, wicker, and all the Southeast Asian coastal-inspired stuff."
Romano, a South Florida native, stumbled into the resell industry to satisfy his love of the hunt and to learn more about his home state’s history through the lens of its furniture. ("I’ve never been a hoarder, but I hold onto things that remind me of childhood or something I like," he says.) After finding some success selling furniture on Facebook, realtors began calling him to quickly clean out retirement homes with the incentive that he could keep everything. Romano says the work was intimate, often sad, horrible for his asthma, and that "half of the stuff was garbage, but I was learning that these elder people had refined taste in furniture and decor. Their homes would be loaded with premier stuff from 1992."
When Romano launched his business in 2019, customers knew him as the dealer for "postmodern Art Deco Revival, laminated furniture, the pink waterfalls, and the vibrant pastels, which were abundant," he says, because skilled laborers, many of whom were Cuban immigrants in the Miami-Broward area, helped mass produce these styles while offering customization. "You could walk into a showroom, pick a color, pick some shapes, provide measurements, and they loaded up your whole house affordably. That’s what we kept getting truckloads of. A pink bedroom set wouldn’t last to the weekend, although that style has slowed down quite a bit."
Dolphin & Flamingo proprietor Chaim Romano
Courtesy Chaim Romano
These days, Romano says roughly 90 percent of his inventory comprises the "colorful, tropical stuff" found in retirement communities in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Coral Springs, and the Broward County area—all within 30 minutes from his Delray Beach warehouse. He also stocks a decent amount of antique-looking Asian furniture like lacquered tables accented with Mother of Pearl inlays and illustrated room dividers originating from places like China or Korea. "It’s surprising how much Asian furniture is totally quintessential to South Florida. Antiquity always uplifts a place and it’s beautiful to have in a room," says Romano.
So who’s buying most of this old Floridian furniture? Some of it stays local, but the bulk of Romano’s sales are in the Northeast, Texas, Southern California, and the Midwest. "L.A. is probably our number three market. New York is number one," he says. If you’re a shopper based in a faraway city, it helps to know what you’re getting yourself into when buying online. So here, Romano shares his advice for how customers can get the best value for their buck.
Buy direct for the best prices
Laminate dressers and end tables make up a sizable portion of Romano’s inventory, as do colorful prints and paintings and distinctive lamps.
Courtesy Chaim Romano
Romano lists pieces on resell platforms like Chairish, 1stDibs, and Etsy for discoverability, but if customers are able to take that extra step, Romano recommends they seek out the same piece on the official Dolphin & Flamingo site and buy direct for the best rates. "We’re at the whims of the platforms and have no control over [their fees and shipping structures], but when you go on our website and add something to your cart and put in your zip code, you’re going to get a unique shipping price upfront," he says. "Customers should ask dealers for a shipping price based on location," rather than paying a fixed fee provided by resell platforms.
The cones are quietly integrated into sleek millwork units, from living room shelving to a headboard.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect: "A 818-square-foot flat in a loft conversion dating from the 1990s has been completely reimagined. Where rooms, woodchip wallpaper, and laminate flooring once dominated, a spacious, light-filled living area now unfolds. The floor plan opens up seamlessly toward the long glazed frontage, uniting the kitchen, dining, and living areas into a single, cohesive zone.
"The dark mahogany-veneered ceiling sets the tone, a material reminiscent of the 1960s that runs like a common thread through all areas. Together with a sand-colored cast floor, this creates a calm, warm color palette reminiscent of Japanese interiors. The kitchen unit, crafted from matte-finish stainless steel, provides a cool contrast and deliberately keeps the wall surface behind it simple.
"In the sleeping area, the restful zone and wet area merge: the bath rests half-recessed on a low platform, with the shower and washbasin concealed behind it. A separate guest bathroom with glossy, reddish-brown tiles in a retro style provides a distinctive accent. A sound system, invisibly integrated into the wooden panelling, rounds out the design."
Surrounded by pine trees and terraces, the low-lying home is firmly rooted in the Provençal landscape.
Location: La Cadière-d’Azur, France
Price: €1,150,000 (approximately $1,343,188 USD)
Architect: Jean Parente
Year: 1983
Footprint: 2,153 square feet (4 beds, 1.5 baths)
Lot Size: 0.5 acres
From the Listing: "Designed by Jean Parente in 1983, this villa with its fragmented silhouette represents a remarkable dialogue between vernacular heritage and the modernist architecture of the French Riviera. At the heart of a landscaped, terraced plot, the house unfolds over a single level. It is organized into three successive volumes, each housing different functions. The central volume features generous living spaces: a double-height living room with a fireplace and a dining area adjacent to a fitted kitchen, accessible via a sliding door. A mezzanine provides additional living space that can serve as an office, library, TV lounge, or reading area. Two shaded terraces complete this through-space. The living room leads to the night area, divided into two wings. The first wing includes three bedrooms with private terraces, a shower room, a dressing room, and ample storage. The second wing features a large primary bedroom with a bathroom and dressing room, as well as a private terrace. The property is completed by a swimming pool and several parking spaces. This listing is located in the hinterland of Bandol, outside the village of La Cadière-d’Azur in the Var department, in the heart of an exceptional landscaped environment of terraces and pine trees."
As he was designing this residence, architect Jean Parente drew inspiration from projects like the Cité Frugès by Le Corbusier and Sea Ranch.
Photo by Marion Sacco - Architecture de Collection
Photo by Marion Sacco - Architecture de Collection
The home’s exterior features ochre-tinted concrete, large swathes of glass, and Provençal tile.
Photo by Marion Sacco - Architecture de Collection
I thought it’d be quaint to care for my own buzzing hives, but I learned there’s a lot to prepare for, from heavy lifting to warding off honey-hungry wildlife.
Some people pine for puppies—big, hungry eyes and wildly wagging tails. Others long for a feline companion, whose affection they have to earn. Others are into koi fish, or chickens, cockatoos, or turtles. But some of us yearn for something else: for tens of thousands of stinging insects, buzzing in a box. That is to say, for bees.
Count me among their ranks. Two years ago, when my husband and I ditched our frenzied New York City lives for bohemian countryside living—i.e. moved to the Hudson Valley—I knew I needed something to better connect me with my new, wilder environs. I am not an outdoors girl, and even less a gardener. But bees! That sounded quaint and relatively low-maintenance. I enrolled in an Introduction to Beekeeping class that January at Hudson Valley Bee Supply, my local bee store, and decided to raise the stakes by preordering a package of bees, too.
I soon discovered that keeping bees is actually nothing like keeping a cat or a cockatoo. It is, in fact, animal husbandry—not unlike keeping cows, goats, rabbits, or ducks. Jorik Phillips, my teacher and the founder of Hudson Valley Bee Supply, defines beekeeping simply: "‘Beekeeping’ is short for ‘keeping them alive through the winter,’" he says. "Otherwise, you’re ‘bee-having.’"
That seemingly straightforward mission can spin into a remarkably complex undertaking, as I was already learning before my first season had even started. Now that I’m on year two, I’ve come to appreciate that for most beekeepers (or "beeks," as we sometimes call ourselves), gaining proficiency with the essentials of the practice can take a few years—but mastery can take a lifetime.
Bees buzz on the top of the hive’s removable frames.
Courtesy of Lila Allen
Getting Started
By the time my bees arrived that May, I’d studied the photocopied mite-treatment guidelines provided by my supplier, and read through Kim Flottum’s The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden. I believe strongly in learning by doing, and figured I’d sort out the rest of it as I went. I assembled the hive (incorrectly, until I was nudged in the right direction by a friend) and picked up a three-pound package of bees—that’s around 10,000 of them—from a "bee drive-thru," which is exactly what it sounds like. I tore down Highway 209 in the pouring rain in my Subaru, a few loose bees buzzing around my head as I drove. I guess this is happening, I thought.
A brave friend helped me install the package, which involved shaking those 10,000 bees directly into the hive and hoping for the best. I got stung immediately. The protocol after rehoming the bees is to let them stay put for three days as they sniff out their new domicile—but 36 hours in, I woke up to a crime scene out of Hanna-Barbera: A bear had found my hive and ripped it apart during a rainstorm, scattering pockets of bees around the grass. I broke down crying, and scooped up wet bees by the handful on all fours in the yard. I had no idea if the queen had survived; I never found her.
But a week later, I trudged down to the hive—now surrounded by the saddest fence you’ve ever seen—and saw a few bees flying in and out. Another week later, there was brood (that is, baby bees). Every day, I’d go out and see if they were still alive, and somehow, they were. My fear around them waned, and turned into something else: affection.
Once a week, as is recommended, I’d conduct an inspection, which requires suiting up and prying open the hive to check for food stores, brood (in the form of eggs, pupae, and larvae), and signs of disease or swarming. Critically, it also involves testing regularly for varroa mites—"the number one killer of bees," says Phillips—and treating them.
Just a day and a half after installing the bees, a bear ripped the hive apart during a rainstorm.
Courtesy of Lila Allen
What You’ll Need
In my beeyard I use what is known as a Langstroth hive, a simple wooden box with a bottom board, lid, and an interior ledge that holds eight or 10 removable frames. Langstroth hive boxes can be stacked as a colony grows, and its modularity is one of the reasons it is the most popular format here in the U.S.
Acquiring the bees to go in that hive is the easy part. Stores like Phillips’s, where I got mine, offer bees in two forms: packages (similar to the one I bought) and "nucs," short for nucleus colonies—basically, a "starter" beehive containing a few frames with worker bees, a laying queen, brood, and food stores. Hives thrive best in sunny locations and, as I learned 36 hours in, you’re going to want a fence, especially in rural areas. Though it might be tempting to keep the bees in a far-off section of your yard, Phillips would beg you to reconsider. "You’re going to want to enjoy not just taking them apart and fiddling with them, but sitting on a chair and watching the crazy stuff they do," he says.
There’s also a bit of gear required: gloves and a bee jacket, suit, or veil; a hive tool (a small crowbar-like implement for wedging frames); a hive stand (to keep out skunks and other vermin), and a smoker (to keep the bees off of you while you work). All together, expect to spend at least $500 in your first year on equipment. I don’t live in any kind of sanctioned neighborhood, so I didn’t need to check my homeowners’ association bylaws—but you might. And in some states, including my own, you’ll need to register your hive. Since your bees will likely pay a visit to your neighbors’ yards, it’s wise to let them know about your new hobby, too. (Mine were gracious and curious, but some, I have heard, are not so lucky.) "It might take some charisma or kindness," says Frank Schellace, a beekeeper, researcher, and artist. "Teach them, rather than arguing with them," he suggests. A little bribery might not hurt, either: Honey can be a very effective peacemaker.
Beyond those basics, as a new beekeeper, you’ll also need companionship. "The first one to three years for most people are going to be tough," says Schellace. He and Phillips both recommend finding a mentor that can advise you on your journey. Because best practices will depend on your local weather, climate, and flora, it’s best to find one close to you who knows the unique conditions of your area.
In its second year, the bee yard has been expanded alongside the garden.
