The Summit

Fahnon Bennett

COVER STORY: JOHN BARTLETT

The Brooklyn-based lmmaker and award-winning photographer makes it his mission to capture humanity, humor and soul in his work, in full display for the cover story on fashion designer John Bartlett. “Photographing Bartlett in his home with his dogs and particularly his designs made it that much easier to personalize the image and capture his impressive story.” Bennett was the longtime in-house photographer and videographer at Douglas Elliman Real Estate based in New York City.

Natalie Chitwood

MAKER: ANDREA WESTERLIND

“It’s always a great photoshoot when I can get barefoot and climb in a boat!” Chitwood, whose images have appeared on the pages of The New York Times’ T Magazine and Dwell, photographed outdoor apparel master Andrea Westerlind at her stunning Berkshires estate as the outdoorswoman shed, kept bees and frolicked with her baby.

Mira Peck

THE EXPERT: GARDEN

A professional horticulturist and oral designer, Peck is especially passionate about ecology and designing with native plants. “I see the garden as a performance unfolding over time, a source of inspiration in all seasons.” She’s also a graduate of the School of Professional Horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden.

Bill Cary

THE SEARCH: REAL ESTATE

Covering real estate for more than two decades, Cary has worked for The Wall Street Journal, The Real Deal,Mansion Global and The Poughkeepsie Journal. He splits his time between an old chicken farm in the Ulster County’s Stone Ridge and an apartment in NYC. “The real estate market up here has just exploded since the pandemic. It’s been fascinating to see.”

Todd Plummer

STREET: GREAT BARRINGTON

Plummer’s fashion stories, which have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Vogue, has led the writer on untold adventures, from dinner at Martha Stewart’s Hamptons home to curling up with Gisele Bündchen on her sofa. “It’s been so interesting seeing how Great Barrington and other towns have evolved,” he says. Plummer recently moved back to his native Massachusetts from New York City.

Tara Solomon

SPACES: BARNFOX

Former “Queen of the Night” nightlife columnist for The Miami Herald, Solomon is founder of TARA, Ink., a topshelf communications rm in Miami and has been published in WWD, InStyle, Food & Wine, Los Angeles, Palm Springs Life and several international editions of Vogue. Here, she pro les Barnfox cofounder Frederick Pikovsky who, not unlike the pop culturist herself, is obsessed with summer camp. “Interviewing Frederick brought back all the camp feels.”

MOONCLOUD

47 RAILROAD STREET GREAT BARRINGTON

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Canvas

In the summer of 1995, on one of Manhattan’s notorious humid days, my longtime business partner, George W. Slowik, Jr. and I met our next-door neighbor at the Chelsea o ce building where our newly formed magazine company, PressCorps, had established its headquarters. The only other tenant on the oor of that just-this-side-of-rundown edi ce was up-and-coming fashion designer, John Bartlett. When I popped my head in to introduce myself, Bartlett, handsome, funny, was as charming as advertised and our friendship was o to a promising start.

Not two years later, Bartlett took the fashion world by storm by winning a remarkable two CFDA awards—“Best Newcomer” and “Menswear Designer of the Year”—and, with a bolt of lightning, our sweet, neighborhood fashionista had suddenly been thrust into the NYC whirlwind reserved for only the most fabulous, zeitgeist-y “It” stars. Bartlett rode that intoxicating wave for quite a while, until it stopped. Then, things got complicated—in business, love and life.

A few years ago, in the middle of hosting an impossibly chic dinner party high above Gotham on a trendy hotel roo op, I realized just how many fashion, interior, jewelry and magazine designers I counted fashionable friends Happily reunited with award-winning designer and Marist College Fashion Program Director among my close friends, many of them in attendance John Bartlett in his Rhinebeck home. that evening. As a creative myself—I’ve been the top editor for dozens of magazines including People en Español, Out, ELLIMAN, Cannabis Now—it’s fairly clear why I’m drawn to right-brain dreamers. Still… the excitement I get from facing a blank canvas and creating something relevant, something memorable, something undeniable from scratch is a particular skill I’ll always seek in the people I most want around me.

In 2006, a er yet another delirious late night at LA’s historic Chateau Marmont with my wellmoisturized friends—celeb interior designer Thom Filicia among them—my group relocated the evening’s shenanigans to my new home a few blocks away on the very day I had moved in (the building, coincidentally, was designed by the Chateau’s architect, William Douglas Lee).

Within seconds of entering my home, lled to the brim with unopened moving boxes, the Queer Eye OG sketched the apartment’s decorating story—down to the last detail—on the back of a cocktail napkin. In less than three minutes, the rst- oor design was complete and it was as unexpected as it was genius. I carefully followed Thom Filicia’s sketch and to this day, I still get compliments on the memorable aesthetic of my quasi-legendary West Hollywood crib.

Those who’ve worked with me realize fairly quickly I’m an editor in chief who unapologetically emphasizes design in the magazines I lead. I’m also someone who’s been blessed with extraordinarily talented close friends. So, yes, John Bartlett, Thom Filicia, Kathleen Gates (The Mountains’ creative director and my longtime magazine partner), Narciso Rodríguez, Josh Warner, Beverly Tracy, Scott Avjian, Herman Vega, Matt Macdonald, Ann Dexter-Jones and many other accomplished designers have enriched my life in immeasurable ways. But yet…here I am wanting more.

You see, I believe life would be intolerable without a little assist from our fantastical friends. Even now, as I start to think about the next issue of The Mountains and how my amazing team and I get to play with another blank canvas, a familiar excitement courses through me. What, I ask, could be more thrilling, more necessary than creating something beautiful that matters? What indeed.

—Richard Pérez-Feria