Home of the Week: A rainbow of mementos

Her ebullient one bedroom apartment at Ginger Cove in Annapolis, a top-ranked retirement community near Gingerville Creek, reflects her active, art-suffused lifestyle. Walls are painted bright, cheerful colors reflective of her upbeat personality, and, everywhere one turns, unique artworks she has collected or created are on display.

"Everything here reminds me of a person I know or a place I've been," she said.

The fourth-generation Californian arrived in Annapolis 35 years ago, with her late husband, Kentucky native Robert Long Thomas, and their three daughters. The family's first stop was a home on Lake Ogleton, in the Anchorage community near Bay Ridge. "Robert had been in health association work as head of the California Medical Association in San Francisco. In Washington, he was head of the National Association of Private Psychiatric Hospitals," said Aileen. "We came to Annapolis because we had sailed together on the San Francisco Bay. We wanted to have a boat and live near the water."

The Thomas couple sailed often and dove deep into the Annapolis scene. The two supported the new, nearby Quiet Waters Park in myriad ways. Robert was president of Friends of Quiet Waters Park for four years; Aileen inaugurated the group's Fine Arts Committee. Aileen has also been involved with the Maryland Federation of the Arts for many years. At her instigation, Friends of Maryland Federation of the Arts was founded. Three years ago, to reflect its expanded mission, the organization's name changed to Friends of the Arts. Aileen is its membership chair and organizes trips to art events and venues in the region. "I had ideas and have a great group of friends who helped me implement them," she said modestly.

DNA doesn't fall far from the tree: the Thomases' daughters, Laura T. Deane of Annapolis; Robin Papadopoulos of both Annapolis and Glyfada, Greece; and Kim M. Vance of Davidsonville are all talented artists.

Robert Thomas, an Army veteran who was part of the World War II D-Day landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy, met his future bride on a blind date at a Phi Delta Theta party at the University of California at Berkeley. His major was business administration, hers was fine arts. After 61 years of marriage, he passed away in December 2008, eight months after the couple had moved to Ginger Cove.

Bright and happy

"I had a lot of help putting my home together," said Aileen. "I met a home stager, Sharon Hanley Disher, who was among the first class of women to graduate from the Naval Academy." Sharon, USNA '80, is the owner of Annapolis Redesigns. "I really want my home bright," Aileen informed her.

"I love bright colors. They make me happy and I wanted to create a happy environment," said Aileen, gazing on walls painted in eye-popping, smile-inducing shades of yellow, orange, salmon, pink and turquoise. "Sharon helped with colors and suggested where things should go. I made a couple of collages to hang on the walls and I wanted to keep things simple. Most of my things are 'early marriage' or things I found at the Goodwill store."

In the spring and summer, the home is refreshed regularly with vases filled with zinnias and other flowers, thanks to Aileen's green thumb. "I do a lot of gardening and have two plots in the community garden. I raise flowers and place them throughout the house."

Visitors to Aileen's apartment are buzzed in through the secure front door of her building after identifying themselves. A few steps down the hallway provide the first glimpse of Aileen's handiwork: a large, cream Navajo-inspired tapestry hangs on the wall opposite her door. The artwork expertly incorporates a number of different stitching styles, giving it texture and dimension. A hint of what lies beyond is on her door. Instead of a traditional wreath, Aileen has hung up a copper wire and glass stone sculpture of a wide-eyed fish that dangles a small copper pipe wind chime. On the floor is a tall tubular rainbow-colored basket sprouting a sheaf of dried grass fronds. It was an Eastern Shore find.

Openings midway on the hallway lead to the kitchen and the guest bathroom. At the hall's terminus, a visitor can egress into the living room or the bedroom suite. Above a small wooden chest hangs a colorful painting of four women seated at a cafe, painted by her Aunt Helen - Helen Graves (1899-1990) a noted Washington State and California artist. Beneath it, lemons and tangerines rest on a stand. "I bought it in Bali," Aileen said. "It's used to carry offerings to the temple."

Another wall holds memories of her sojourns at the Bali Taksu Hotel. Taksu means "spirit." After Aileen admired the hotel's logo, daughter Robin took a sample to a Balinese woodcarver, who carved it into a thick teak tablet.

A turn down the smaller hallway reveals a room that is a riot of giddy, happy color with a Caribbean vibe. The walls are turquoise, in bold contrast to the white ceiling, cream carpeting and snowy white quilt on her bed. She originally made the rainbow-colored bed pillows for the family's boat, and the quilt is her design, too. Aileen also decorated her TV stand with mosaics, inspired by a cathedral window by Matisse. A set of framed Turkish tiles, purchased in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, feature the same shade of blue as the walls. The painting over her bed is from Ubud, Bali. "I just had to have it!" she exclaimed.

More memories

The main area of the apartment is open and airy. There is a flow between the dining and living rooms, a sitting area framed by sliding glass doors, and an office-library. Outside, on a brick patio, a visitor can sit surrounded by Aileen's landscaped greenery and look out on the community's croquet lawn. Aileen designed and sewed her home's scalloped window valences, using a black-on-white spiral patterned fabric, which is echoed in the white-on-black patterned cushions of her dining room chairs. "I bought the chair fabrics online," she said.

Near the glass doors stands what appears to be an elaborate doll's house. Intricately detailed, it features a double peaked roof with thumbnail-sized shingles and is encircled by a deck with an elaborately carved railing. "It's a spirit house from Northern Thailand," Aileen explained. "Every shop there has one. This is the Thomas spirit house." She touched it gently.

Hanging on a narrow strip of wall above the spirit house is a fused glass panel by Riva glass artist Viki Keating. Built in shelves in the seating area display ceramic plates from a Grecian marketplace, stylized birds found during a trip to the island Skyros in the Aegean Sea, and ducks plucked from a shop in Venice, Italy. The artworks surround photos of the Thomases on a Mediterranean vacation. The room's easy chairs sport embroidered throw pillows from India, and one cream-colored chair is a foil for a bold, graphic quilt Aileen designed and sewed using batik fabrics she purchased in Bali.

Tucked into a corner of the living room is a small black electric fireplace. "It operates by remote," said Aileen, demonstrating how tiny, controlled flames leapt at her command. "I wanted a hearth and the stones below the fireplace are from Greece and Newfoundland."

A striking black and white dish rests atop the fireplace. "I got it at Value City," she said blithely. Another dramatic black and white dish, displayed on the opposite side of the room, is by Rhonda Kaplan, another local artisan. It rests alongside a glass vase that holds Aileen's collection of beach glass - broken bits of glass that have been tumbled in the surf and left behind when the tide recedes.

On the far wall of the dining room is a three-dimensional collage. Inside a series of small, conjoined boxes are bits of broken crockery. "I was influenced by Louise Nevelson," explained Aileen. Nevelson (1899-1988), a Russian-born American abstract expressionist sculptor, lived in Manhattan and was as famous, in her later years, for her long false eyelashes as she was for her "assemblages," artworks made of discarded materials. "I found all these pieces in the water flowing out of a Puget Sound dump," Aileen said.

A second collage hanging on another wall in the apartment is filled with pale, sun bleached and surf tumbled stones and clear frosted beach glass.

Possibly the object most valuable to Aileen is in her salmon-hued office area. It is a blow up of a photo taken on Induction Day at the Naval Academy in 2003, the first day for the incoming class of Plebes. It shows all eight grandchildren, then in their teen years. At the center, looking miserable but trying to smile in his new sailor suit, is a grandson who graduated in 2007. Clustered around him are kids who grew up to become an editor at McGraw-Hill in New York, a professional lacrosse player with his own LAX sporting goods business, a USNA "firstie" with the Class of 2011, a manager for YEXT Internet Sales, one who works for Booz Allen Hamilton, a military researcher and one employed by a hedge fund. Not just first cousins, they are all close friends.

Next to her daughters, they are the most precious things in Aileen Thomas' life.

Would you like to see your house, townhome, condo, apartment or cottage featured as The Capital's Home of the Week? To nominate your home, e-mail Wendi Winters at wendi@quantumstep.com. Include your contact information and details about your residence.