VERANDA is a forum for the very best in living well. Always gracious, and never pretentious, we keep readers abreast of the finest in design, decorating, luxury travel, and more, inspiring them with beauty and elegance. VERANDA is both an ideas showcase and a deeply pleasurable escape, a place where homes feel as good as they look.
Veranda
Editor’s Letter
Editors’ BOOK CLUB • FOUR TITLES ON OUR READING LIST THIS SEASON
THE V LIST • MICHELLE NUSSBAUMER’S EXOTIC FABRICS, MODERN FLUTING, AND A GARDEN BUCKET LIST
Where Creativity Springs Eternal • Three designers at the top of their respective fields look to nature to unlock their most imaginative thinking. Consider these gardens the ultimate oases of originality.
IN HER ELEMENT • At Jaipur’s dazzling Suján Rajmahal Palace, jeweler Shalini Kasliwal talks more-is-more style, life-changing risks, and the most valuable thing she’ll give her daughter (spoiler: it has nothing to do with jewelry).
FINISHING SCHOOL • An uptick in magical murals and hand-stenciled designs hints at a dramatic return for decorative painting as a fine-art portal to the past.
SCENE STEALERS • HAND-PAINTED TABLEAUX FROM THE NATURAL WORLD ELEVATE ACCENTS TO PRECIOUS WORKS OF ART.
Luncheon in Living Color • This classic garden party scheme—blue, green, and pops of pink—takes a fanciful turn on Stephanie Booth Shafran’s spectacular spring table.
GARDEN TO TABLE
Belles of Ireland • Touring the grand architectural gems of the Midlands and southern coast, classicist Steven Gambrel reveals the quiet strengths of the country’s powerful design legacy.
STUDY WHERE YOU STAY • The best Irish hotels for an architectural time hop
Enchanted Forest • A woodland-themed luncheon draws shimmering flora- and fauna-inspired jewels to the scene. Among the revelers: a gilded assortment of china decked in gracious greenery
A Place In the Sun • Your best-kept dinner-party secret could be just outside your back door. Master grower Joel Chesebro (chef for Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove) shares tips for creating a flourishing kitchen garden and bringing an air of exhibitionism to suppers with friends.
PEAK HARVEST ESSENTIALS • From raspberry tweed to hammered copper, this year’s growing gear is as gracious as it is gritty.
BEST IN SHOW • It’s a winner’s circle edged in Iceberg roses and purple alliums, olive trees and camellias. For this celebration of outdoor design, our judges pored through scores of entries, seeking the landscapes with the strongest ground game. They came up with garden gold. From an emerald jewel in downtown Chicago to a flourishing wildlife sanctuary in Montecito, these are the landscapes par excellence.
THE JUDGES
Freshest Flowering Landscape • Bold mass plantings in ultralinear beds transform a Hamptons property—and shake up conventional flowering plans.
Most Inspired Materials Mix • A contemporary garden mirrors its dual backdrops of sea and mountain, blending an elegant sense of order with wild beauty.
Prettiest Sculptural Design • An urban property gets a full-scale foliage edit to reveal the beautiful bones underneath.
Magnificent Farm Rescue • An abandoned Christmas tree farm is recast as a refined weekend retreat, with age-old agrarian ideas guiding its return to grace.
ESCAPE TO THE COUNTRY • The best pastoral gardens remain rooted in their surroundings. Here, Parker’s elements of a classic rural design
Most Whimsical Watering Hole • They didn’t build the Grand Trianon in suburban Houston. But with a few vernacular building traditions, this team danced beautifully close.
Most Linger-Worthy Veranda • In perfect concert with the evergreen wilderness, vivid color echoes the convivial spirit of...