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A Housesitter’s Fascination with Stairs
Some of our housesitters are addicted to travel. In this blog we share one Housesitter’s fascination with stairs and a small selection of her remarkable collection of stairs she has enjoyed from around the world. Tiera really loves travel and recording what she sees., and as we know she finds housesitting a great way to manage budgets while on the road. Read on to learn more from her blog about her fascination with stairs and their design.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Why Call it a Housesitter’s Fascination with Stairs?
Have you ever travelled to a foreign land simply to take a photo?
In a sense I’ve been doing this for the past 20 years. It’s basically the same amount of time I’ve been housesitting and pet sitting – which is what allows me to travel and take photos whilst I care for home and wonderful animals. And while I have travelled a great deal in the UK and Europe when I recently looked back on all my photos I realise that my photos feature a lot of beautiful art. I also take photos of the beautiful homes I have stayed in, but I can’t show you those.
Basically, if I am somewhere and not taking loads of photos, the place doesn’t really interest me. And when I look back I realise that as a housesitter I have taken a lot of photos of stairs domestic and public. And the nature of use in each building intrigues me. So I think I have a Housesitter’s fascination with stairs.
Why Stairs in Particular?
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Well I photograph many beautiful objects, but one of the things in particular I love to photograph is stairs. All kinds of stairs and especially spiral staircases that I can photograph from above looking down and from below looking up.
The design is simply wonderful and intensely practical in some locations. Some people say that moving up and down stairs is like mathematics in motion. As a perpetual housesitter I walk on a daily basis for hours on end, whether I am walking dogs or simply to discover a new location. I especially love walking up hill in particular. So moving up and down a beautiful stairwell for me is like moving physically through a beautiful and practical piece of art, a welcoming and living statue if you like. Now do you see why I have a Housesitter’s fascination with stairs?
Favourite Stairs from my Travels in the UK and Europe
I really think that stairs are under appreciated. They can be status symbols, they can be intensely practical and they can make a social statement. Here are some of my favourites –
One of my very favs is the spiral staircase in the Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
I often stop in Paris when travelling by Eurostar from London. I may stay a few days or a few hours.
On one such trip I had a few hours in Paris before another train that would take me to Zurich for a pet sit with 5 cats.
I decided to walk around, see where I found myself. Well, predictably, it started pouring rain! Drenching rain! I had no umbrella or hat and found myself huddling beneath the awning of a store…but this was not how I wanted to spend my little time in Paris! So I got brave and ran across a street and up a little hill and found this museum. I had no idea what was up that little hill other than maybe another awning to stop under for shelter. It was quite the surprise.
The Gustave Moreau Museum is fantastic, I recognised some of the paintings, though didn’t yet know of the artist. The staircase is showcased in one of the rooms and you can walk up it to view more paintings. And one of the most fun things for me is I had seen it so many times on Facebook as a photo with no idea where it was from!
A Housesitter with a Flaneur’s Sense of Wander
In my travels, and wherever I travel as a housesitter, I basically walk around and see what I see. I let my body wander and see where she takes me. So many of my favourites are in unexpected places, and I try to record my journey with photos. For example I tripped across like Heal’s Department Store in London on Tottenham Court Road.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Travelling and Finding New Exciting Stairwells
When coming to write this blog I really had hard time deciding which stairs were my actual favourites. As a regular traveller I am always tripping across new places and falling in love with their design. One thing that feels a particularly interesting parallel in my life is that as a housesitter I am sometimes downstairs with the pets, and often upstairs as an honoured guest. The stairs connect both parts of my life. No wonder I have a Housesitter’s fascination with stairs.
On my various walks, wherever I happen to be I discover all kinds of stairs. Civic stairs offering greater public access and public statements, commercial stairwells in hotels or department stores, that set the mood and often a note of luxury to help you acclimatise into their commercial environment so you feel good where you are and ready to spend in an aspirational way.
Then there are the private spaces of homes of people who can afford to create spaces that suit their personality and style, according to their own budgets and how they want to see the world. I love to visit these homes of notable people often now converted to museums with public access. See below for a small selection of the ones I particularly like.
Stairwells for Civic Spaces
Some of my all time favourites in public civic spaces include the following:
The Spanish Steps in Rome are incredibly well designed for public civic access while providing stunning views for an optimal aesthetic
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Commercial Stairwells with a Luxurious Feel
Photo by Tiera St Claire
The K + K Hotel in Prague offers a charming stairwell built in the Art-Nouveau style, turning around a beautiful lift shaft with metallic ornaments and decorations.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
The stairwell at the Santo Mauro Hotel is an elegant, regally designed stone staircase, befitting its origins as a ducal palace. It is a central feature of the original building, reflecting its turn-of-the-century French architectural style and aristocratic past.
I find Madrid to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And quite often the doors are open for a peek inside.
Luxury Hotels can be a wealth of photo ops. When wandering about in beautiful cities, I always dress well so I can feel at home going into the most luxurious hotels, both to take a look around and use the loo when needed.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
If you have never walked around the Galleries Lafayette in Paris, stop what you are doing and book a ticket right now. It is such an incredibly beautiful store, and in particular the stairs are sumptuous and spectacular all at once. The Galleries Lafayette are all over France. In Paris the stairwell is amazing, and simply going in the store to view the ceiling is worth the trip! Every visit feeds my Housesitter’s fascination with stairs.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
The architecture of this fabulous Art Nouveau stairwell offers dramatic curves and wrought iron details throughout. The ornate spiral staircase runs through the very centre of the hotel, and is well preserved so looks as it would have when first constructed in 1917, when it was opened as a luxury department store.
Stairs in Private Homes and Museums
Often the ambiance of museums is as delicious as the art. There are so many examples of this it is really hard to decide which to show in this article. However, if you push me hard then here are my top three, but obviously in no particular order!
Leighton House
Photo by Tiera St Claire
The style of this Victoria stairwell is visually striking and intensely practical. Stone steps below leading to greater luxury on the first floor and above, it also divides the public views of the house from the private intimate quarters of the house. Leighton House was designed specifically for noted Victorian artist Sir Frederick Leighton, and features interiors crafted to impress his high-society guests. The staircase hall is renowned for its flamboyant decoration, including turquoise blue tiles, a white and bronze mosaic floor and an inlaid Syrian chest topped with a stuffed peacock echoing the artist’s own fascination with the Middle East and its crafts.
Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Photo by Tiera St Claire
Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan 27 July 1822 – 6 April 1879) was an Italian count who gathered art from Italian Renaissance. Italy’s first private museum which bears his name is the Museo Poldi Pezzoli. He chose a Baroque staircase style as part of a deliberate embrace of 19th-century eclecticism and historicism, which involved reviving and reinterpreting artistic styles of the past to create a romanticized and aesthetic home environment.
Experiences that Drive my Housesitter’s Fascination with Stairs
Random Buildings with gorgeous architecture appear before me wherever I walk. You know that if I don’t need to take a train or plane I walk wherever I go. So that means I trip across the most extraordinary places and experiences often by chance. I love to wander about and find gems that my eye is drawn to – lines and colour and shape.
Photo by Tiera St Claire
What a beautiful experience this staircase, look at the metal work and the angle of the stairs. The grand staircase in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, is in the extension built during the 1930s. It features curving white balustrades, symmetrical design, and a classical statue at its base, emphasizing Art Deco elegance and unique architectural features.
The design is symmetrical yet there are asymmetrical features, it is decorated yet with some restraint, it is made of stone and metal yet it is fluid in design, and I couldn’t stop looking at it.
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
Are you ready to venture forth and find your own gems?
My Housesitter’s Fascination with Stairs in Conclusion
My final thoughts on the beauty and practicality of stairs and why I have a Housesitter’s fascination with stairs, is that they are simply great. They serve a very practical purpose and over the centuries builders and sponsors have decorated them and created them in various ways they find appealing and impressive to both audiences within and new visitors. They’re great!
By Tiera St Claire
Fancy housesitting as a way to travel and see the world? Join as a Housesitter like Tiera and visit all kinds of new places while caring for a homeowners pets and home. You’ll be a amazed at what the collaboration will offer you and what you could see while you are there.
Further reading on housesitting, housesit travel and housesitters
At Housesit Match we like to share useful blogs and practical advice about travel, housesitters, housesitting and pet sitting. We hope you find this small selection of our blogs on house sitters and house sitting in Europe useful.
Travelling and housesitting in Spain – Top Tips
Housesitting Ile de France – Discover living like a local
