Love Wins!

It began as an old stone manor.

Why “Hazel Knoll?”

It didn’t take too long to settle on a name for my blog and my business; I tossed around a few names that I currently use on different sites, and I just kept coming back to one I used a long time ago. I ultimately decided on Hazel Knoll for one primary reason: it is, quite literally, my happy place.

I unknowingly began Hazel Knoll back when I was in my early 20′s. I worked in a book store. I wore a lot of black to offset the kaleidoscope of ideals and aspirations that swirled within my melodramatic little twenty-something heart.

It was when those ideals failed to converge with reality, and when my aspirations went unrealized, that I turned to art for solace. I started to draw the most comforting place I could imagine.

It began as an old stone manor.

There are vines growing up the side of the house, and there’s a long, tree-lined lane opening out to a circular gravel driveway with an old, dry fountain in the center. To the left of the manor, down a gradual slope and bordering the woods, is an unkempt hedge maze. To the right, there are time-worn, mossy stone steps leading to a copse of hazel trees that surround a spring-fed pool of water. Behind the house, there is a small lake fed by the same spring, and beyond that is the knoll for which the estate is named.

I could go on at length about the tiniest details I crafted into the place – inside and out. The house and grounds was – and in many ways, still is – an extension of my psyche. Calling my business and its corresponding blog, “Hazel Knoll,” is my way of making it entirely mine.