Acorn Cottage Style started as a temporary need to sell some items from our Acorn Cottage B&B in West Chester, Pennsylvania in the historic Brandywine Valley which we had sold in order to buy another property. Now, ten years later, we are still selling items chosen with love and a very particular sense of style and now expanding into a website with retail and interior design service. The owner of Acorn Cottage Style, Zena Croydon, started her career majoring in Drawing and Painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, continuing on to the University of Chicago for Graduate Studies. Both schools were rigorous in their discipline and depth of study, and created a strong foundation in the Fine Arts. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Zena became friends with such artists as Elizabeth Murray, Art Green, Jim Nutt and Tobey MacLennon. Taking some time off from studies in Chicago, she became manager and curator at the Oko Gallery at 10th and Eye St. in Washington DC. There she curated shows for artists like Ben Blinstrub and Zareh Makarechian. She then moved to Mexico City for about 5 years and worked in the Zona Rosa at a gallery selling such major artists as Siqueiros, Orozco and Zuniga. Upon returning to Chicago, she worked as Art Director for the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday Magazine and won Art Director Awards for the Graphic Design and photography for the Sunday Magazine section. After accepting an offer to teach in the Art Department of FSU, Zena continued expanding her professional work with clients in Montreal and Toronto, where she met her current husband and decided to relocate to Toronto. Returning again to the USA, both she and her husband were offered teaching positions in the Delaware Valley, Zena teaching color theory and foundation design at the Tyler School of Art. Her philosophy has always centered on the visual arts, the joy of color, the sense of balance in a composition, the knowledge of art history and current ideas in art and design. All of these are brought to bear on each decision regarding the color, composition or mood of a room, chair, or textile. Art and art history inform each decision in the items carried at the retail level or created for clients' interiors. Zena often jokes that the design items afford her to carry the artists she represents. All the art work is original, some of antique vintage, much of it contemporary, whether it is in the fields of painting, sculpture or crafts. All original work is one of a kind.