Planning Your Summer Garden: 9 ‘Oops’ to Avoid
Spring, and its established ritual of “opening the garden,” is surely a gardener’s favorite time of the year. Top of my list is to check my “to do” notes and update… Read More
Author: Bettie Bearden Pardee
Jupiter Island Redux: The Historic Gate House
We love our friends for many reasons, but when their sensibilities incline towards preservation I cherish them even more. Eighteen years ago a childhood friend purchased one of the first… Read More
5 Colorful Facts You’ll Love about Daffodils
Daffodils signal spring — bringing us out of the winter doldrums with their cheery yellow faces and swaying forms. Even Wm. Wordsworth was smitten, penning his now beloved verse —… Read More
9 Lighter Takes on an Elegant Spring Luncheon
Winter is over and spring’s re-birth signals that it’s time to start entertaining with a capital “E.” For many (like me) that means a refreshing take on a traditional approach…lighten… Read More
The Whitby: Experiencing New York’s Newest Hotel
A last minute business meeting for Jonathan prompted me to call in my birthday gift –- a stay at New York’s newest hotel, The Whitby, on 56th just off Fifth… Read More
Spain’s Colorful, Whimsical Architecture
As an art major, I was always keen on the modern masters, sometimes the quirkier the better. So imagine my pleasant surprise when my twenty-something assistant, Michelle, returned from Spain… Read More
Spring on the Eastern Shore
The past four months have been a glorious blur of travel — revisiting favorite sights, chancing upon design inspirations in the most unlikely places, taking a fresh look at things… Read More
Casa Tranquila: At Home in Palm Beach
It’s seldom that I pair a home and its garden with individual posts. But Terry Rakolta’s exterior and interior are so elegantly and sympathetically considered — one flows gracefully into… Read More
A Miniature Spring Tablescape
Spring…at last? In trying to hasten the green landscapes that seem so long in coming, I resorted to creating my own for spring entertaining occasions in the house. And what a fun… Read More
Bermuda Influences In a Palm Beach Setting
Overlooking its own cove and the Intracoastal Waterway beyond, a white-stuccoed Bermudian style house boasts not just a name architect, Thomas Kirchhoff, but a name landscape design firm, Nievera Williams,… Read More