Alsace Secrétaire

Some desks are made for the private business of writing letters, the kind you fold away the moment it's done. Found in Lille and originally from Alsace, it stands tall and slim on shaped plank sides, its front dropping open to a writing surface over a fitted interior of little drawers and cubbies, with an open shelf above. The French call it a secrétaire à abattant, and this one carries the carved, cut-out charm of Alsace, the region on the German border where furniture always kept a bit of folk decoration. Sylvie stands it in a bedroom corner or a hallway, the shelf above for books and the flap dropped for writing letters.