Drink

TOP NOTCH

Level 7 rooftop bar

by JESSIE AMMONS

EEXIT THE ELEVATOR AT THE TOP FLOOR OF NORTH HILLS’ NEW AC Hotel Raleigh and you’ll enter a sleek lounge that feels a world away. Level 7 is a rooftop bar designed to cater not just to hotel guests, but to Raleigh. “We have more regulars than anything else, which is what we want,” says general manager Anthony Zinani. Since its early April opening, those regulars include midtown workers in search of a convenient happy hour spot and nearby residents glad to have a hip watering hole close to home. Zinani says the city’s growth provides new opportunities in all directions. He gestures to the breezy rooftop patio and sweeping cityscape views. The setting sells itself. Bar manager Peter Horak complements the scene with drinks inspired by the season and the region. Glass cabinets suspended from the ceiling are heavy on spirits made in the Triangle and in North Carolina: TOPO vodka, Defiant whisky, Raleigh Rum Company, Durham Distillery gin.

To welcome summer, Horak mixed up a sangria. Although he skipped the local ingredients, he combined gin with freshly muddled berries, elderflower liqueur, and a white tempranillo wine, inspired by Level 7’s other occasional muse: Spain. There’s a small tapas menu and mostly Spanish wine list, which adds up to a vibe that encourages lingering, relaxing, enjoying. “We want people to sit down and have a full experience,” Horak says.

SUMMER SANGRIA

“This is a white sangria that appears red,” bar manager Peter Horak says. The white wine base gets a rosy hue from freshly muddled berries.

1 bottle (750ml) tempranillo blanco wine

8 ounces Bombay Sapphire gin 4 ounces elderflower liqueur (such as St. Germain) 4 ounces peach schnapps Up to 4 ounces simple syrup, depending on preference 1-3 cups seasonal berries (Horak recommends blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries)

Muddle the berries. Use a fine strainer to strain berry juice into a pitcher or punch bowl. Add wine, gin, elderflower liquer, and peach schnapps. Stir well, and add simple syrup to taste (if you want). Add a few fresh berries and let sit in refrigerator for 2 hours. Serve over ice.

Serves 6 - 8

PATRON SAINT of OYSTERS

St. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar debuts

by DEAN MCCORD

SSt. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar, which opened on Wilmington Street in April, isn’t a typical New Orleans Creole or Cajun restaurant, with a faux French Quarter theme. “I wanted the place to reflect a more contemporary vision of New Orleans, with influences from the large immigrant population there,” says Sunny Gerhart, the chef and owner, whose Louisiana roots run deep. He has done that with a menu that incorporates Vietnamese and Asian influences, using ingredients like coconut and miso alongside more traditional fare such as andouille and house-made boudin.

“The restaurant reflects his family’s history, but in the present,” says Gerhart’s longtime friend, mentor, and former boss, Ashley Christensen, who handed over the site of Joule, her former coffee shop and restaurant, so that Gerhart could create a place of his own. He’s created a newly vibrant and fun eatery, with a strong sense of community. He’s made it his own with new booths, local art, and a bar made from old church pews, which are a nod to St. Roch, the Catholic patron saint of good health, bachelors, and dogs (it’s also the name of the neighborhood in New Orleans’ Bywater area where Gerhart’s extended family lives). His St. Roch is more than a sum of its parts, more than just a place to get good oysters, red beans and rice, and booze. It’s also a reflection of Gerhart, his family, his upbringing, and the individual champions who have kept him going over the years. It may sound unlikely that a restaurant could act as a stabilizing force in a person’s life, but St. Roch is one for Gerhart. It is his rock, or rather, with apologies, his Roch. Gerhart is a quiet and undemonstrative man, so it’s a surprise to learn that his father, Tiburtius Gerhart, Jr., was a hard-edged, brazen Marine, tasked with excoriating fuzzyfaced enlistees in boot camp. His father’s military career meant Gerhart never lived in any one place for more than three years. But he was always home in New Orleans, where his parents had their roots, where he lived as a young child and again as a young teenager, and where he returned regularly for holidays with his extended family.

Life’s work

Gerhart may have learned to love food in New Orleans, but he learned to make it his life’s work in North Carolina. During his high school years, his family moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina, where his father was stationed at Camp Lejeune. Gerhart went to college at East Carolina University, “but I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted to do.” It was in Greenville where his attraction to food and wine began, first in a local wine store (where Humble Pie chef Josh Young also worked). “I quickly became more interested in the wine than I was in going to school. I also learned how much I loved sharing wine with people.” Gerhart began to explore the country. He worked in a winery in northern California; moved up to Baltimore where his parents moved after his dad retired; and waited tables and sold wine in Wilmington, where he lived on a sailboat. And then, on April Fool’s day in 2004, Gerhart’s father, 46, died suddenly of a heart attack. Bubby, as his friends and family called him, was gone. So Sunny, an only child, moved to Baltimore to take care of his mother, Shawn. He worked in a wine shop to keep himself connected to the food world, but he was restless. Shawn knew that he was interested in going to culinary school, so she told him, “If it’s what you want to do, do it. It’s just money.” Gerhart followed his mother’s advice. “As soon as I was at cooking school, I knew this is what I wanted to do, and I worked hard at it.” With an hour-and-a-half commute each

way to school and long hours at the wine shop, Gerhart rarely got more than five hours of sleep. But he persisted, and landed in Raleigh after graduation, working beside Ashley Christensen at critically acclaimed Enoteca Vin, where she first made her name. When Christensen opened Poole’s Diner in December 2007, Gerhart was at her side. Several years later, after Gerhart had left Poole’s to work at other places, Christensen tapped him to open her new coffee shop/restaurant concept, Joule. But after dinner service was dropped and Joule became more of a coffee shop and lunch place, Gerhart got antsy. “I was tired of making &*^%$@! sandwiches.” He wanted to do something new, something on his own, something that reminded him of home. So in October 2015, Gerhart started talking with friends and looked at spaces and concepts. He gave Christensen a year’s notice that he would be moving on. And then Christensen herself came up with an idea. She realized Joule wasn’t going to become the place she wanted it to be, and offered the space to Gerhart. “I always loved the Joule space,” Gerhart says. And so, on New Year’s Eve 2016, Joule served its last meal – fittingly, the brunch menu from Poole’s Diner. And just four months later, on April 28, St. Roch opened its doors. Now it’s Gerhart’s new home, a place where he has honored his family, friends, and others who have supported him over the years, but most importantly, Bubby and Shawn. And where the rest of us are welcomed as his new family, his Raleigh family, enjoying roasted oysters, a muffaletta salad, and a Sazerac – with a twist. Just like home.

STORYof a house

NO PLACE LIKE OM

by JESMA REYNOLDS

photographs by CATHERINE NGUYEN

WWHEN AMANDA MAY AND HER FAMILY MOVED TO THE TRIANGLE FROM Italy three years ago, they had a bit of cultural adjustment to do. They’d left a beloved, tiny farmhouse nestled among Tuscan hills for a newly built, 4,000 square-foot house in a subdivision outside of Durham. Its vast rooms felt blank and empty. As an integrative health coach, Kundalini yoga teacher, and Reiki Master, May wanted to create a space that was sacred and inviting, so she enlisted the help of interior designer Lauren Burns, whose specialty is to incorporate what’s important to her clients. “I always ask my clients: ‘Does this have meaning to you?’ ” says Burns. Trained at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington D.C., Burns realized early on that the Mays’ eclectic style told a larger story – “where they’ve lived, where they came from,” and tried to tell that story through interior design. “Everything in here is from someone,” May says. “Lauren knows a lot of my stuff is not fancy, but most is meaningful.” There are books from her adventurous grandmother who lived in Hollywood and traveled the world as a single woman in the ’40s; a mandala that her husband brought back from Nepal; a collage of a Madonna and child by her

RHAPSODY IN GREEN

Opposite top: “I’m not a decorator but I know what evokes that sacred space for me. This house is my sacred space. This property is my sacred space. This room is where I do my (yoga) practice,” says May. May transports her gong, which weighs almost 90 pounds, with her to the yoga classes she teaches in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The Kundalini-certified teacher has taught all over the world, including at the U.S. Consulate in Italy, and in businesses throughout Europe.

This page: In the family room, designer Lauren Burns added texture and earthy warmth with fur, hide, and wood. With guidance from Burns, May found the fabric for the drapery panels in Italy, bringing it back in a “body-size bag” on a return flight home. The generous kitchen island features a pair of quilted banquettes selected by Burns. The deer antlers above the cooktop belonged to May’s father.

Previous page: A wooden Buddha hangs on a wall by the front door. The Madonna and child collage is by May’s friend, the artist Susi Bellamy.

SET AN INTENTION

Opposite page: Built as a dining room, May and Burns transformed the space into a lounge. It’s where May works on clients as a Reiki practitioner, and also where she teaches private yoga sessions that include gong bathing, a form of sound therapy. The kitchen nook is flooded with light. Some of the meaningful objects that May has collected are arranged on a side table. This page: Amanda May relaxes in the lounge with her dog Eddie, aka Edamame.

British friend and artist Susi Bellamy; and deer antlers that once belonged to her father. Burns found a place for all of them, and created rooms that are ethereal, magnetic, and inviting at the same time. The house also has plenty of modern touches. In the former dining room, now a minimalist “lounge,” Burns installed a funky blown-glass bubble chandelier. It’s the place where May does energy and healing work with clients, including gong bathing, a form of sound therapy. On the wall hangs an abstract piece called Surface Beneath, by Taos artist K.C. Tebbutt. Painted with oils, mineral pigments, and ink on rice paper, its mandala design glows like a kaleidoscope as an LED light behind it changes color. Its “breathing light” is meant to bring focus and clarity to the viewer. “Nothing is here by accident,” says May. “Everything is intentional.” That’s true throughout the house. “When you move and move and move,” May says, your home has to “come from within.” That, she says, is “how you make a house a home. When people walk in, I want them to be greeted with compassion and protection. They don’t have to buy-in or agree. It doesn’t matter to me, but there are some things that are universal – the cycle of life, compassion, and love, and where we find home – in our heart.”

LOTTA

SJOELIN

Bringing beauty and dignity to kids in crisis

by LIZA ROBERTS

WWHEN A CHILD ARRIVES AT WRENN HOUSE, THE TRIANGLE’S ONLY homeless, runaway, and crisis intervention shelter for kids ages 10 – 17, it could be any hour of any day. But no matter when a young person arrives, he or she is welcomed into a place not only of help and safety, but also one of calm and dignity, with clean and beautiful furnishings, a freshly made bed, and a sense of order. For 30 years, Wrenn House, a program of Haven House Services, has been serving local youth in need of safety, counseling, and temporary shelter nonstop, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But it wasn’t until this year that the home looked and felt as good as the work that it does.

“It has been an amazing transformation,” says Lotta Sjoelin, founder of the nonprofit A Lotta Love, which recently refurbished and redecorated the house from top to bottom with a fleet of volunteers, a $30,000 grant from the Women’s Giving Network of Wake County, and thousands of dollars of donated goods and services. Painters, floor installers, electricians, and tilers all chipped in: “When they see what the work is for, they say ‘I’m not going to send you a bill,’” says Sjoelin, who is an interior decorator by trade. The contractors, like her volunteers, were inspired by Wrenn House’s mission and a sobering understanding of its need. “There are very few places like this,” she says. And none, it’s safe to say, that look like it. Wrenn House serves eight kids at a time who stay anywhere from one night to three weeks; the typical stay is about a week long. Kids come because they are homeless, because their family is in crisis, because they are unsafe, because they’ve run away. Parents living in their cars sometimes drop kids off at Wrenn House at night so that they can sleep in a bed. “There are 2,700 homeless kids in Wake County,” Sjoelin says.

“The poverty in Wake County is incredible. One in four kids go to school hungry. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.” Kids at Wrenn House are provided with counseling, case management, referrals, and an education in life skills. Social services workers facilitate their return to relatives, friends, or someone they trust. Thanks to Sjoelin, these kids are able to weather the storm in physical surroundings that also address their psychological and emotional needs.

Creating a home

Sjoelin transformed Wrenn House with a combination of scrappy ingenuity, professional know-how, penny-pinching, and an occasional splurge. The dining room table, for instance, is a one-of-akind creation made from a single slab by a woodworker in the mountains (“I got a very good price for it”); original oil paintings donated by the Durham Arts Council bring serenity to several rooms. “That painting was commissioned,” Sjoelin says of the geometric canvas on the living room wall. “I wanted color. I wanted this to be an energetic room.” She chose furniture in practical materials that wear well like leather and wicker; many rugs are sturdy indoor/outdoor types. At every turn, she tried to make Wrenn House feel like a home, not an institution, even putting picture frames on the requisite documents on the walls – fire routes, house rules – and turning them into graphic works of art. When she finished transforming the dining room, her first room at the house, the kids in residence walked in and their jaws dropped. “They said: ‘This is for us?’” Sjoelin recalls. “They didn’t understand. We told them yes, it is for them. They deserve it.” Much of the elbow grease that went into the clean-out, clean-up, painting and installing was done by groups of 20, or more volunteers Sjoelin gathered for what she calls “D-Day” blasts. “It’s so much fun,” she says.

She knows how to plan and execute a project like this because she’s done it before. She started in late 2014, when a friend told her that the HomeStart shelter for homeless women and children in Chapel Hill could use some pillows. When Sjoelin arrived with her arms full, she was dismayed to find the shelter spare, depressing, “bleak.” She immediately decided to gather resources, volunteers, and furnishings to transform it room by room. Former HomeStart resident Mimi Lubin says she was amazed when she saw what Sjoelin had done. “I thought, who would come and decorate my room?” The impact, she says, was huge: “It made me feel like life was going to get better. It really gave me energy. It brought me to life.” A mission and a nonprofit – A Lotta Love – was born. Sjoelin has since transformed environments in five other Triangle shelters, including Wrenn House, and spawned two A Lotta Love chapters. “I’ve found my passion,” Sjoelin says. “I’m so fortunate.”

Powerful advocate

Sjoelin’s enthusiasm, expertise, and concern for the people whose living environments she transforms make her a powerful advocate. “I got $3,000 worth of Pottery Barn Teen things today,” she says, “Bedding, accessories, backpacks … I ask everywhere. You can only get ‘no.’” She also asks everyone, especially kids, to get involved. Sjoelin requests that donors consider raising enough money to donate a room (about $700); she then designs rooms for maximum style, efficiency, and durability. Finally, she asks volunteers to pitch in to paint, hang curtains, and move furniture. She’s got teams of students who help her. Students at Durham Academy, for instance, have founded an A Lotta Love club that raises money with bake sales to refurbish rooms at Durham shelters. And the Alpha Chi Omega sorority at UNC-Chapel Hill has raised as much as $10,000 for HomeStart renovations and put on Christmas parties for its residents. “My goal is not to raise as much money as possible, but to raise aware-

ness,” Sjoelin says. Awareness of the problems that contribute to homelessness, especially in young people, will bring change, she believes. “If we can expose them, they can change it.” So lately, when people ask how they can get involved, she urges them to follow her lead: “Just start with a room,” she says. “If I can do it, anyone can do it … My goal is to see this in Greensboro and Charlotte.”

alottalove.org; havenhousenc.org