Ernest Beck spent almost a decade as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Budapest and London. After leaving the Journal in 2002, he became a freelance contributor to numerous publications including the New York Times, Metropolitan Home, and SmallBiz, covering topics ranging from real estate to sustainability, and the convergence of business and the worlds of art, design, and architecture. He is the editor of the book Brancusi's Endless Column about a mysterious sculpture in Romania (Scala, 2007).