Table of contents for July/August 2025 in Veranda

HAVING SPENT THE PAST TWO years planning—and now planting—a garden with my husband and our dear friend and landscape designer Zachary Westall, Audrey Hepburn’s words (above) ring especially true. Gardens require just the right mix of dreaming and doing: Dreams of tomorrow—of future family celebrations like birthdays, graduations, engagements—inspire us to do more gardening today. But as any seasoned gardener will tell you, it’s in the doing of gardens that the real magic happens. Planting a garden has taught me so much about patience, resilience, enjoying the moment (a critical lesson for a dreamer like me), even selflessness. In a more meaningful way than ever before, gardens have become, for me, living symbols of hope. This summer, we are saluting the best in garden and outdoor living design with our…

THERE’S SOMETHING SPECIAL about using what you’ve grown to create an arrangement and really enjoying that moment of the season,” says interior stylist and floral designer Jimmie Henslee. “As a gardener, I love watching my plants get big enough to cut—I wait all year for these blooms.” At his Dallas–Fort Worth area home, he harvests fruits, vegetables, and herbs with the same aesthetic fervor as the flowers, creating vibrant snapshots of the season’s bounty. Zinnias pair with fig branches and tomato vines; rhubarb mingles with roses. A textile fanatic, Henslee finds inspiration in patterns like Bennison Fabric’s classic Rosevine, which is echoed in a centerpiece of English roses, grapes, and Dutch clematis in his courtyard. “The colors are visually cooling for the warmer months,” he says. Meanwhile, the breakfast nook’s…

I feared running into a bear. I pictured an elk wandering into my tent at midnight and ghosts of century-old miners lit by a crackling fire. My imagination is a wild, wild place, and so journeying into Vancouver Island’s dense forest, to a lodge only accessible by seaplane or boat, I worried I’d spend four days like Jerry O’Connell’s Vern in Stand By Me, wide-eyed in the wilderness. I also feared falling off the side of a mountain. What did not scare me was scarcity of Wi-Fi. But it should have. Not because I found it diffcult to be away from DMs and revolving-door social reels (it wasn’t), but because slipping into a world governed by red cedars and slow rivers and, yes, bears, sharpens everything. It’s like cleaning a…

The enchanting island of Sri Lanka has been known by many names. While under British rule for 133 years it was Ceylon, but long before that, the ancient Persians dubbed this teardrop at the heart of the Spice Route and maritime Silk Road “Serendip”. Ah yes, serendipity—land of happy, unexpected discoveries. The Persians got it right, I discovered, when I ventured there a few months ago in search of tea. I wanted to dig deeper into Camellia sinensis, the cousin of the flowering shrubs in my South Carolina garden and source of the immune-boosting cuppa that has had an outsize impact on global trade and culture. I’d studied Japan’s tea ceremony rituals, like the chanoyu, and so in Sri Lanka, I set out to explore a tea bungalow resort amid…

Flowers have always been my best frıends. So, of course, they came to my aid in a dark and desolate season—the summer I lost my father to Covid. Not only did their beauty help me begin to heal, but I found that their world, the garden, changed my world. The garden taught me a new way to create and to live. It was in my heart from the beginning. I grew up surrounded by nature at my grandparents’ home in Switzerland, where my grandmother and I collected and pressed botanicals together; my mother was also obsessed with flowers, especially roses and camellias. But once I began working in Paris—first for Emanuel Ungaro and then for Dior, where I now oversee Maison Dior, Baby Dior, and decoration for major events—I became…

A Divine Riviera Stroll Wispy grasses, bursts of French lavender, pea gravel paths crunching underfoot: In this Ligurian Neverland, classical marble-finish tables, knotty faux-bois seating, and all the aged stone one can gather give rise to leisurely morning rambles, caffé in hand. A Fragrant Riad Repast In a Moroccan-inspired courtyard scented with jasmine vines and orange trees, garden ghdas (lunches) extend long after plates have been cleared. Conversation around an intimate, Giacometti-style table rolls into afternoon snoozes on cushy, faux-cane chaises, dreams of nearby souks floating in as guests stretch out and drift off. A Cool Caribbean Sojourn Reprieves from blindingly sunny days are paved in crushed shells and mottled limestone. Tucked beneath sky-high palms, furniture appears painted by the sea—or Oliver Messel himself, one might overhear at cocktail hour.…

I’M PLAYING WITH THE CONCEPTS OF enclosure and openness,” says landscape designer Colm Joseph. He was charged with transforming a 7,100-square-foot blank canvas—a subdivided plot on the grounds of an 1800s Victorian walled garden within a country estate in East Suffolk—into a modern, naturalistic landscape that both suits the historic setting and offers a contemporary contrast. “Walled gardens were originally created to enclose and protect the interior space from outside elements, but here we wanted to connect it to the wider landscape beyond.” Central to his plan: reimagining the property’s old redbrick wall as a sculptural feature, leaving it unadorned and an object of beauty rather than a barrier. The modern, greenhouse-like home on the plot gave Joseph leeway to play with various garden styles like Arts and Crafts, he…

THE TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR DRIVE from Florence to the cliffs of Cala Piccola is not for the faint of heart. After zigzagging up a narrow road from Porto Santo Stefano over rocky terrain and descending down a steep road (once a mule path) toward the sea, one enters a driveway, courtyard, and gate to the enchanted property of luxury linen makers Federico and Gaia Leonori Pratesi. Originally designed in 1967 for Gaia’s parents by Roman architect Mario Fiorentino, the 2,150-square-foot home is constructed of humble materials like local Argentario stone and terra-cotta tile. “His philosophy was one of harmony—of using materials that felt as though they had been shaped by the land itself,” Gaia says. The turquoise waters of the cove below belong to Monte Argentario, a peninsula on the southern coast…

PICNIC DECADENCE  Page 46 Penkridge Ceramics Porcelain Damson with one leaf, John Derian. Miniature Wicker basket, La Tuile à Loup. Porcelain Cherry tomato, John Derian. Augarten Hand-painted Porcelain Croissant dish, Abask. Penkridge Ceramics Porcelain Roll and French Baguette boxes, Augarten. Carol napkin, Arilloom. Giovanna rectangular tray, Maison Madison. Page 48 Soleil d’Hermès coffee cup and saucer, Hermès. Astier de Villatte Victor medium platter and Cesar platter, John Derian. Penkridge Ceramics Porcelain Victoria plums, John Derian. Ramatuelle Bamboo side plate, Z.d.G. by Zoë de Givenchy. TWO IF BY SEA Interior design: Meg Braff; megbraffdesigns.com. Architecture: Gerard Beekman; madisonwortharch.com. Landscape architecture: Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design; fernandowongold.com. Pages 78-79 Flooring: Chris Pearson; chrispearsonfloors.com. Wallcovering on ceiling and chair fabric: Nobilis; nobilis.fr/en. Paint color: White Dove by Benjamin Moore; benjaminmoore.com. White two-tier table: Meg Braff Antiques…

JAUNTY STRIPES The animated zigs and zags on a chair’s slubby silk slipcover (Jim Thompson) are inspired by the lettering of a Buddhist manuscript; the curtains’ carnivalesque design (Manuel Canovas) reimagines an archival Louis XVI ikat on subtly glazed linen. For more buying information, see 26. SUPERSIZE ANCIENT MOTIFS In a richly hued pattern draping the table, Vervain revives the powerful forms of ceremonial masks—and the Cubist, Fauvist, and Expressionist imagery that drew heavily upon their influence. REVOLUTIONARY FLORALS In its exuberant L’Orangerie pattern, Pierre Frey reprises the silk warp printing that French makers adapted in the second half of the 18th century; today, it appears as multicolor ikat bouquets, blurred as if materializing from a summer dream. MADCAP CLIMBING VINES Though a playful foil for more traditional motifs, Brunschwig…

A PRECIOUS POD Peeking out of Brent Neale’s yellow gold case, five chrysoprase “peas” are hand-carved to mimic natural variation. POMEGRANATE CRUSH This 1940s gold and ruby brooch by Verdura seeded the maison’s abiding affection for the crimson fruit. For buying information, see page 48. MAGIC BEANS Margot McKinney levels up the legume with diamonds and yellow, pink, and orange sapphires—and detachable South Sea pearls, of course. CANDIED APPLE Lionheart’s hemispheric emerald and polished gold charm riffs on the chunky Italian jewels of the 20th century. CHERRIES JUBILEE More than 13 carats of green spinels crown Chopard’s shimmering stone fruit earclips, alight in rubies, garnets, and diamonds. For more buying information, see Trade Secrets, page 112.…

ADEEP REVERENCE FOR THE HANDMADE may not be the first notion that comes to mind when reflecting on the legacy of Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon, whose passion for the garden and patronage of the arts are widely recognized. But for de Gournay Director Hannah Cecil Gurney, it was Mellon’s “eye for craftsmanship, for the quiet mastery behind things that are beautiful because they were made by skilled artisans,” that prompted her to approach the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, which oversees Mellon’s Virginia estate, garden, and library, with the idea of creating wallcovering and porcelain patterns inspired by Mellon’s inimitable style. Working with Oak Spring President Peter Crane and Head Librarian Tony Willis, the de Gournay team sifted through Mellon’s collection of rare books, manuscripts, and artworks to inform their six…

CREATING A GARDEN THAT APPEARS “simple, relaxed, and timeless” is rarely simple, but Debbie Roberts rose to the occasion when Acres Wild, the landscape and garden firm she co-owns with Ian Smith, was tasked with transforming a hillside estate overlooking the Arun Valley, near England’s southern coast. The West Sussex–based garden designer cultivated simplicity thanks in part to a restrained palette, with flowers and grasses in hues limited to soft blues, mauves, creams, limes, and whites “to be in harmony with the colors of the surrounding landscape and sky,” she says. Hardscape materials—including wide brick-and-flint walls delineating terraces on the east and south sides of the refurbished house (also of old brick and flint) and tumbled limestone paving—feel at home here. To wit: The end of its undulating lane meets…