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Precious few people truly know their grapes like wine connoisseur Bob Roth. His show, Seller to Cellar, has been a staple on local cable channel WWCI 10 for a decade now. And what some of his devout fans may already know, the rest of us could stand to learn – especially if a candlelight dinner is part of our Valentine’s Day plans. By Deborah Borfitz |
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When Bonnie Spitzmiller was a student at the Knox School on Long Island in the late 1950s, she was a standout in the school’s equestrian program. As a 17-year-old she made her highest jump – at 5 feet 6 inches – on the sturdy back of a grey gelding named Snowman, owned by her instructor Harry deLeyer. By Mary Beth Vallar |
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Very few people have heard of Bayou West, and that’s one of the things that made it so appealing to Jim and Laurie Carney. A unique part of Vero Beach history dating back to the early 1970s, it’s a two-story apartment complex behind the Quail Valley River Club at the end of Riomar Drive. After 40 years, it was beginning to show its age, but when the Carneys decided to return to the seaside town where they had begun their married life they zeroed right in on it. By Ann Taylor
Architectural Photography by Gridley + Graves |
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It’s a good thing Leslie McGuirk refused to believe it when people kept telling her she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. Something inside told her that one day she would prove them wrong.
She did, and in a big way. By Ann Taylor
Photography by Denise Ritchie |
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Fourteen years ago Ed Fitzgerald was feeling on top of the world thanks to exercising regularly and watching what he ate. In his early 40’s, working in the brokerage business and living in New Jersey, he was the perfect picture of health. In fact he had just run into an old friend who said he had never seen him looking better. By Ann Taylor |
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Vero Beach is home to many talented residents, and never is it more evident than at this time of year when the results are announced for the Indian River Photo Club’s annual juried competition. |
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In a darkened studio, the photographer raises his camera. The model’s posture is erect. Dark eyes fix the camera with a practiced gaze. Click! Onlookers murmur their approval. An assistant approaches with one last touch: she carefully places a large dog biscuit across the wet, black nose of the model. By Amy Robinson |
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Valentine’s Day, the holiday that celebrates love with cards, flowers and chocolates, is best topped off with a romantic dinner. By Mary Beth Vallar
Photo by Denise Ritchie |
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A short stretch of ocean is all that physically separates privileged Florida from the beautiful if broken island-nation of Haiti. One of the most striking contrasts existed long before the January 2010 earthquake vanquished buildings and lives, and contributed measurably to the sense of vulnerability. An earthquake 500 times stronger in Chile the following month had a fraction of the death toll (795 versus 200,000 in Haiti) despite having roughly double the population (16 million versus 9 million). By Deborah Borfitz |
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Hundreds of thousands of college scholarship dollars have been awarded to promising young Indian River County musicians over the years, yet contributors rarely get a close-up look at the return on their investment. A search into the whereabouts of four past Vero Beach Choral Society (VBCS) scholarship recipients turned up an Ocoee middle school band director, a product developer for Paramount Pictures, a Florida State University doctoral student assisting with the collegiate drum line, and an up-and-coming Christian music artist happy to still call Vero Beach home. By Deborah Borfitz |
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Sometimes at an outdoor cocktail party when the pinks of early evening have turned to purple, the time that some Florida folks call “dark-thirty,” I suddenly feel it before I see it – a cloud of bats flying from a neighbor’s attic or the bat condominiums that our community maintains at its perimeters, swooping down above my head in a directionless flutter, their tiny faces like impish homunculi in a Bosch painting. The bats are small, not nearly as large as a fruit bat with its three-foot wing span. In fact, they’re more like three inches, similar to the bat described by James Joyce in Ulysses as “a little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands.” By Evelyn Wilde Mayerson |
