WAG Magazine May 2014

jenny du Pont: Nurturing the garden conservancy

FLOWER

POWER

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Blondie’s ambition Groundbreaking women who landscaped America New wave of interest at the Surf Club A bouquet of tulips, butterflies and gardens Peter Max-imizes Marilyn Chic Choices

may 2014 | wagmag.com

WA Celebrating Five Successful Years

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hanging in history • 12 38 • simple goal: make it green grown in america • 14 40 • the virtual gardener the garden as living canvas • 18 44 • heart-felt design a tribute to the tender tulip • 22 53 • the not-so-secret gardener winged wonders • 26 61 • setting a place for style butterfly net gain • 28 64 • something to sniff at marilyn & max • 30 68 • surf’s up... perennial success • 32 73 • sis gets her way back to the garden • 36 78 • on the go with mo

Danielle Gori-Montanelli models one of her felt hats.

Photograph by Lorenzo GoriMontanelli.

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may 2014

Features

42 where are they now?

Checking in with Rolando Santana

46 wear

The constant gardener

50 wear

Petal pusher

57 way

Elegance in bloom

66 well

Scent of a woman – and a man

76 wonderful dining Upper crust

80 wine&dine The native spirit

81 wanders

The magnificent seven

84 chic choices

Gifts and new products

88 when&where Upcoming events

92 w’reel deal

Plucking the summer movies

94 pet of the month Plus pet portraits

96 watch

We’re out and about

104 wit

We wonder: How do you stop to smell the roses?

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Waggers Editor’s letter

Cover photograph by Bob Rozycki.

Lisa Cash, Anne Jordan Duffy, Barbara Hanlon, Marcia Pflug, Pat Renz and Patrice Sullivan

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Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

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Welcome to our “Flower Power” issue, and all I can say is that after the winter we’ve had, we so deserve it.

I mean, did you think it would ever end? It was like “The Man Who Came to Dinner” – staying on and on and on.

Fortunately, it’s now one for the record books and you’re ready to don your Lilly Pulitzers (see Wear), pull up a patio chair and inhale the sweet perfume – see fragrance story – of May WAG. We’re all about the pretty stuff this month as we stop to smell the roses (see Wit), tiptoe through the tulips (with Ronni, our resident bulb whisperer) and cultivate our gardens with people like cover girl Jenny du Pont – yes, yes, of the du Ponts – who brings her passion for gardening and expertise in the nonprofit arena to The Garden Conservancy in Garrison, which has done so much for all of us by making exceptional private gardens here and elsewhere accessible to the public during its Open Days program.

Is there anything more magical, more intimate, more romantic than a garden, with its sensuous sculptures, secret allées and stone or topiary walls to shut out the world, if only for a bit? Cappy, our happy wanderer, takes us to some of the greatest, echoing Ronni’s tulip story and Audrey’s exploration of the Chinese garden, with its fanciful, symbolic architectural elements. It is said that a Western garden is developed, but a Chinese garden is built.

There are echoes of both Cappy’s wanders and Audrey’s Chinese gardens in our feature on The New York Botanical Garden’s “Groundbreakers” exhibit, which salutes the women who shaped America’s gardens at the dawn of the 20th century. They include Beatrix Farrand, who created the Asian-infused Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine. Farrand would also create The Botanical Garden rose garden that would ultimately become the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, named for the wife of Abby’s youngest child, David.

How does our garden grow this month? It blooms with individuals who have taken an idea and made it blossom – fashion fave Rolando Santana;

Urban Gardens blogger Robin Plaskoff Horton; Blondie’s Treehouse owner Howard K. Freilich; new Surf Club on the Sound owner Anthony Martello; jeweler Danielle Gori-Montanelli; artist Peter Max; humorist Mo Rocca; comedian Joan Rivers; and Oscar de la Renta, whose homes and gardens, like his couture, teem with life.

So careers in bloom are a big subtheme. (You know how we can’t resist a good sub-theme or metaphor.) Another big sub-theme this month is the butterfly, as you’ll see in our overview and our feature on artist Kathleen Griffin, whose plans to transform the Smallpox Hospital ruin on Roosevelt Island with butterfly sculptures could be 2015’s version of Christo’s “The Gates.”

Butterflies flit through my house, so to speak. They grace my jewelry box, my botanical kitchen, my bookshelves, even my special spring apron, thanks to Aunt Mary. She always stopped to watch them during our many visits to The Botanical Garden. I remember once taking her to the enchanting “Butterfly Conservatory” at the American Museum of Natural History, and she was entranced by a tiny white butterfly that alighted on my white sweater. She was just crazy for butterflies. So much so that I gave her a silver necklace with a butterfly pendant that never left her neck.

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A 16th-century hand-colored engraving of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon by Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck, with the Tower of Babel in the background.

Hanging

in history

Were the famed gardens of Babylon myth or reality?

By Georgette Gouveia

They are the stuff of myth, legend and romance, beloved by artists and writers, irresistible even to historians, who should know better than to trade in fancy.

Still, the very name – the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – conjures nights under the stars, threading through walled, terraced galleries of grapevine and fragrant, flowering trees.

Who wouldn’t want such a place to be real, if only in memory? Plus, the Hanging Gardens, like the Taj Mahal, have a terrific backstory, one centered in amour. It seems that Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (who ruled from 605 to 562 B.C. in what is now modern-day Iraq) loved his wife, Queen Amytis, so much that he built the fabled gardens so she wouldn’t be homesick for her mountainous native land (Persia or Medes, take your pick, but at any rate, modern Iran).

The idea of a luxuriant garden all wrapped up in sex proved too juicy for those championship tale-spinners, the Greeks, who passed the story on to the Romans and so it wound its way down through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance until our own time with nifty embellishments along the route. Some historians said it was the Assyrian Queen Semiramis – the inspiration for everything from a Rossini opera to a Degas painting to a Rhonda Fleming B-movie – who built Babylon’s famed walls and cultivated its gardens almost two centuries after Nebuchadnezzar.

Even Alexander the Great – who conquered the Persian Empire in 331 B.C., making the by-then somewhat seedy Babylon his capital – figures into the variations on the Hanging Gardens theme. Legend has it that he restored the gardens, much as he was planning 12

to rebuild the equally touristy Ziggurat (the biblical Tower of Babel), as a way to amuse his wives, mistresses and the ladies of the Persian harem. (Oliver Stone’s underrated “Alexander” includes a scene in which Alexander and his lover Hephaestion, played by Colin Farrell and Jared Leto respectively, share a conversation while overlooking a garden and a ziggurat that only Hollywood CGI could imagine.)

It’s all credible – until you start examining the evidence. As noted in “Babylon: Myth and Reality” (The British Museum Press, 2008), edited by I. L. Finkel and M.J. Seymour, the Greek historian Herodotus’ scrupulous 5th century B.C. account of Babylon makes no mention of any gardens. Nebuchadnezzar, who put his stamp on all his building projects, left no written record of such gardens nor are there any archaeological traces. And while the name Queen Amytis appears in the work of the Roman historian Josephus – our main source on the romance behind the Hanging Gardens – virtually nothing is known about Nebuchadnezzar’s wives.

So it appears that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are myth – unless we are willing to consider that they weren’t in Babylon. In the 1990s, Stephanie M. Dalley of Oxford University’s Oriental Institute first suggested that the gardens were actually 300 miles to the north in archrival Nineveh, where they were created by the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib. Last year, Oxford University Press published her book “The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced.” There she based her conclusions on several key factors:

• In the ancient world, there were many Babylons, a name meaning “Gate of the Gods,” including Nineveh, the “New Babylon.”

• The Greek historians who were the primary sources for the story actually camped with Alexander the Great near Nineveh before the Battle of Gaugamela (Oct. 1, 331 B.C.), which sealed the fate of the Persian Empire.

• The geography of Nineveh could’ve supported a water supply for such gardens.

• There was a relief in Sennacherib’s palace that depicted such gardens.

• Sennacherib himself wrote about his adored wife: “And for Tashmetu-sharrat the palace woman, my beloved wife, whose features the Mistress of the Gods has made perfect above all other women, I had a palace of loveliness, delight and joy built...”

So why all the confusion? Part of the problem is that some of the Greek histories – particularly those written about, for or at the time of Alexander – are lost to us. Then there is Berossus, a Babylonian priest writing in Greek about Nebuchadnezzar two centuries later.

So the story of the Hanging Gardens is very much the story of hanging history.

One thing remains clear: The Hanging Gardens remain an ideal and perhaps in some cases a reality. The Mulia Bali, a luxury resort that opened on the Indonesian island in 2012, has a spectacular series of marble terraces graced by lotus-bearing caryatids, palm trees and pools that cascade to the teal waters of the Indian Ocean.

Nebuchadnezzar and Sennacherib would’ve been pleased. n

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Grown in america

By Georgette Gouveia

The iconic Moon Gate at The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, designed

by Beatrix Farrand.

Photograph

by Rustin Dwyer.

Courtesy The New York Botanical Garden.

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When it comes to landscaping, there have been biblical gardeners (Adam, and according to filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, Noah), sexy gardeners (John Rowland on “Desperate Housewives”) and historical gardeners (Frederick Law Olmsted, Lancelot “Capability” Brown, André Le Nôtre). We tend to think of them – to the extent that the general public thinks of them at all – as having been men, with Gertrude Jekyll as the exception that proves the rule.

Yet at the dawn of the 20th century, as the United States was coming into its own, so, too, were its gardens and its daughters. Both looked to other cultures but with an eye to becoming modern and uniquely American. And they found that purpose in one another.

“The garden (as profession) seemed like a natural, proper extension of what women did, because they found means of expression in their own gardens,” says garden designer Patrick Chassé, an expert on Beatrix Farrand, one of the subjects of “Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens & The Women Who Designed

Them” at The New York Botanical Garden May 17-Sept. 7.

Besides Farrand (1872-1959), the exhibit considers the work of Marian Coffin (1876-1957), Ellen Shipman (18691950) and their colleagues, who brought form, color and life to Winterthur in Winterthur, Del., Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Harbor, Maine, and the Peggy Rockefeller Garden among others at The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

It’s the kind of multidisciplinary approach that worked so well in The Garden’s presentations on the Alhambra, Emily Dickinson and Claude Monet, says Todd Forrest, The Garden’s Arthur Ross vice president for horticulture and living collections, part of “Groundbreakers” seven-member creative team. What the team has come up with is a feast for many of the senses, including an exhibit on the women who photographed the great gardens – Jessie Tarbox Beals, Mattie Edwards Hewitt and Frances Benjamin Johnston; a poetry walk featuring the works of the

Beatrix Farrand. Courtesy The New York Botanical Garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library.

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The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden.

Photograph by Larry Lederman. Courtesy The New York Botanical Garden.

nature-loving Edna St. Vincent Millay, a groundbreaker in her exploration of female sexuality; public programs that spotlight jazz and the martial music of John Philip Sousa, the soundtrack of that time; a mobile app for navigating the show; and a catalog.

But the centerpiece will no doubt be the evocation of The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, which Farrand created in 1926 for The Eyrie, the summer home of Abby and her husband, philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. Considered one of the finest examples of its kind, the garden earned its reputation for its sophisticated East-West interplay, along with the way it juxtaposes traditional summer offerings with a mossy woodland and an Asian-influenced Moon Gate and tile-capped enclosing wall – all in a coastal Maine clearing. The New York Botanical Garden pays tribute to this in “Mrs. Rockefeller’s Garden” at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. There visitors will pass through a tile-capped wall onto a path bordered by a blend of delphiniums, dahlias, astilbes, foxgloves, hydrangeas and others.

The woman who ultimately inspired this was like someone out of an Edith Wharton novel. But then, Farrand was Wharton’s niece. Her father, Freddy, and Wharton were Joneses – as in keeping up with the. Money, however, doesn’t buy breeding, as Wharton’s novels attest.

Freddy was a cad who ultimately divorced Farrand’s mother, Minnie, and married 16

his mistress, in effect disinheriting mother and daughter. Still, they had a champion in Wharton and anyway, Farrand was not interested in remaining a debutante.

“I made up my mind,” she said, “to go in regularly for landscape gardening.”

Easier said than done, however. At a brown bag roundtable over the winter, Patrick Chassé and Todd Forrest talked about the limitations in Farrand’s day for women seeking to be landscape architects, which were largely educational. A landscape architect must know surveying and engineering. Few if any such schools would accept females (though Marian Coffin would graduate from MIT in 1904 with a degree in landscape architecture).

Farrand, four years older, studied horticulture with Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and a cousin of the painter John Singer Sargent, then set up shop in the attic of her mother’s house. Thanks in part to her social connections, she earned many notable commissions, ultimately completing more than 110 gardens, including Dumbarton Oaks and projects at the White House during the Woodrow Wilson administration and at what is now The Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan. She consulted at Princeton and Yale universities. Her Connecticut work, which appears to have begun with the garden for Greenwich real estate developer Nathaniel Witherell, included

the gardens at Eolia, the summer home of the Harkness family of Standard Oil fame (now Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford); Hill-Stead, the Farmington home of architect Theodate Pope Riddle; and Three Rivers Farm, now Promisek, a Roman Catholic lay community near Bridgewater.

But Farrand’s greatest work may have been The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, inspired by Abby and John D. Jr.’s 1921 trip to China for the dedication of Peking Union Medical College, built by the Rockefeller Foundation – the centerpiece of their Far East tour.

This was not to be the only FarrandRockefeller collaboration, so to speak. In 1915, Nathaniel Lord Britton, founding director of The New York Botanical Garden, asked Farrand to design a large rose garden on 1.25 of The Garden’s 250 acres in a valley flanked by a ridge and a gorge near the evocative stone cottage that had been part of the Lorillard estate. Farrand came up with a plan that conjured the rose garden of the Château L’Hay and the lost garden of Malmaison, once the refuge of the Empress Josephine. From an iron gazebo radiated three walks and 10 smaller paths along which visitors could stop and smell more than 100 varieties of shrub roses and more than 200 horticultural varieties.

In 1947, Marian Coffin proposed streamlining the garden. It would be dismantled in 1969 after it fell into disrepair

and was deemed too remote from The Botanical Garden’s center. Then in 1985, a Farrand exhibit spurred Beth Straus, a member of The Botanical Garden’s horticultural committee, to resurrect the rose garden. To that end, she turned for funding to David Rockefeller, the youngest of Abby and John D. Jr.’s six children. The garden was named in honor of David’s wife, Peggy, who had become the keeper of her mother-in-law’s garden in Maine.

All these ladies are gone. The care of The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden – open to the public on select days – is in the hands of Neva Goodwin, Peggy and David’s daughter. And the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden remains one of the joys of a Botanical Garden visit.

“Don’t plant a rose garden unless you mean to look after it, because it is only in storybooks that a neglected rose garden is attractive,” Farrand once said.

Yes, but sometimes a garden, like life, can have a storybook ending.

For more on “Groundbreakers: Great American Gardens & the Women Who Designed Them” at The New York Botanical Garden May 17-Sept. 7, visit nybg.org. For reservations to visit The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, visit rockgardenmaine.wordpress.com/. And for more on Beatrix Farrand, check out “Beatrix Farrand: Private Gardens, Public Landscapes” (The Monacelli Press, 2009) by Judith B. Tankard, who’ll be speaking at The Botanical Garden June 4 from 10 a.m. to noon. n

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The garden

as living canvas

By Audrey Ronning Topping

18

“When I find pleasure in orchids, I love uprightness; when I see pines and bamboos, I think of virtue; when I stand beside limpid brooks, I value honesty; when I see weeds, I despise dishonesty. This is what is meant by the proverb, ‘The Ancients get their ideas from objects.’”

– Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 18th century Oriental gardens are a distinctive and empowering art form that originated 5,000 years ago in the unique gardens of China.

The gardens of Japan, of bonsai, ikebana and miniature landscape art are intimately connected with the greatest of Chinese arts – landscape painting. In the 18th century, descriptions and paintings on scrolls, screens and porcelain were exported to the West and added impetus to the art of “natural” landscaping in England, while in the last century the flora of China transformed the work of gardeners all over Europe and America.

The love of flowers is an ancient passion among the Chinese. Today one cannot walk through a garden in England or North America without finding species of rhododendron, jasmine, azalea, lilacs,

roses, clematis and tree peonies – which Marco Polo once described as “roses big as cabbages” – and countless other flowers that first appeared in China. Without Chinese gardens, we would not have garden chrysanthemums or peaches that came to Persia via the Silk Route across Asia. Perhaps the main difference between the theory and practice of garden design in the West and East is that in England and America a garden is planted, but in China a garden is built. A Chinese scholar’s garden is not attached to the house. His interests are in exotic architecture, space and layout as well as odd

rocks, fairy-tale scenes and blossoming fruit trees. The buildings in Chinese gardens are reminders that gardens are meant to be lived in as well as viewed.

The early emperors of China contributed two major themes to the art of garden design – the vision of magical dwellings

of the Eight Immortals and the idea of the park as a microcosm in which might be found all the riches of the world. Chinese gardens were not only the products of emperors. Rich men liked to show off their wealth by landscaping their estates.

Later poets, painters, scholars and literary elites all added to garden design. In traditional China, the scholar-official stood at the pinnacle of society, second only to the imperial family. Following the ideals formulated by Confucius in the fifth century B.C., the officials retired early and lavished their resources on the cultivation of garden arts. After the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220), thousands of private gardens began to show the influence of changing values and to develop two different themes that were to become essential aspects of the Chinese garden. One concerns the expression of Taoist nature philosophy in gardens; the other the growth of a rich, unique and fascinating connection among the arts of gardening, painting, poetry and calligraphy.

Despite centuries of evolving garden

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In England and America a garden is planted, but in China a garden is built.

design, the essence of Chinese gardens remains virtually unknown in the West, and even in the East, except for Japan and Korea, they have almost become a lost art.

In The People’s Republic of China, many old and famous gardens that survived the wars and revolutions of the 20th century have now been restored and are open to the public. Part of their appeal is their strangeness. Everyone can feel visually empowered by the sight of a Chinese garden, but before their beauty and complexity becomes fully accessible to the viewer, it is necessary to understand something of the myths and meanings of the imaginary names that lie behind them.

In her book “A Chinese Garden,” Maggie Keswick makes an interesting comparison: “Perhaps the closest analogy to the experience these gardens offer would be a walk through Chartres Cathedral.

In both, the first sensual impressions lead on to more cerebral pleasure and, lying behind the forms for those who wish to find them, are apparently unending layers of meaning which become increasingly esoteric and mystical as they are explored.

Like the plans of Gothic Cathedrals, Chinese gardens are cosmic diagrams, reveal20

ing a profound and ancient view of the world, and of the man’s place in it. But in their long history they have also been – in a quite real way – the background to a civilization.”

Today, there of thousands of private and municipal gardens in most Chinese cities, but China has three main “Garden Cities” – Hangzhou, Suzhou and Wusih. Hangzhou, the ancient garden city of the emperors, has a history of more than 2,100 years. Marco Polo, one of the earliest foreign visitors to Hangzhou – then called Kin-sai, a name signifying “The Celestial City” – later wrote: “Kin-sai merits preeminence to all other cities in the world, in point of grandeur and beauty as well as from its abundant delights, which might lead an inhabitant to imagine himself in paradise.”

Since that time Hangzhou has suffered cruelly. It was partially destroyed by Genghis Khan and the Mongols in the 13th century and razed again during the Taipei Rebellion in 1862. Fortunately, Premier Zhou Enlai saved the gardens and ancient temples from Mao Zedong’s Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Today, Hangzhou is a modern city

with wide tree-lined streets. Many of the old temples, villas and palaces still stand on the picturesque mountains stretching around the nine-mile shore line of West Lake, which is almost a garden in itself.

The most famous Chinese garden builders were retired Mandarin scholars.

Steeped in classical learning, they found great satisfaction in bringing antiquity alive through the names chosen for their creations. All Chinese gardens, as well as their pavilions and vistas, were given names with long poetic and historical associations, which helps to guide and stir the visitors imagination. Subjects for poetry and paintings enriched these artistic traditions. Without this rich interplay of allusions, the historical flavor and intellectual stimulation of the garden would have been greatly diminished. My husband and I once sailed around Hangzhou’s West Lake in a dragon-shaped gondola to explore the romantic, cloverleaf shaped island called “Three Lanterns Reflect the Moon.” We wandered through the scroll-like Sung dynasty garden, past the “Pavilion of Moon Arriving and Breeze Coming” and over the moon bridges to the “Park of Orioles Singing in the Wil-

lows.” In reflections the semi-circular moon bridges, mirrored in he clear waters, complete themselves, producing the ideal round shape – a symbol of the moon and of perfection.

Just as Alice, when she walked through the looking glass found herself in a new and whimsical world, so we, when watching the carp darting through the shimmering lotus blossoms floating on the “Pool to Linger In,” found ourselves as though caught up in some magical time machine and lost all contact with the modern world. We wandered as if in a trance past the golden Buddhas in the “Monastery of the Souls Retreat,” and through the “Caves of the Morning Mists and Sunset Glow,” decorated with 280 Yuan dynasty rock carvings in low relief and covered with the mineral patina and green moss of 700 years. Carved in the 13th century, the carvings represent symbolic animals and the pilgrims that brought Buddhism along The Silk Road, from India to China.

Illuminating one cave is the original rock carving of the laughing Buddha, whose mood is still so contagious that visitors get carried away and the sound of laughter echoes from the caves. n

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a tribute to the

tender tulip

By Ronni Diamondstein Photographs by Ronni Diamondstein and Bob Rozycki

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I love flowers and tulips are among my favorite. I photograph them, paint them and enjoy them in my home and garden. My fondness blossomed when I lived in the Netherlands some 25 year ago.

Flowers are a big business in the Netherlands and you can find them all over. How lucky was I to go to the market every Tuesday or Saturday in the heart of Rotterdam where I lived and gather an armful of tulips for 20 guilders ($10) or so.

Living in the Netherlands intensified my fascination with this flower and I could never get enough of them. I drove through the Dutch countryside to see the striped fields of brilliantly colored tulips and visited Keukenhof, the world’s largest flower garden, where tulips abound.

The Dutch love their flowers too, especially tulips. At one point in history they were crazy about tulips to a point of frenzy. They called it tulipomania, a widespread obsession with tulips, especially the highly prized varieties of unusual color and variegation. Tulipomania raged in Holland from 1634 to 1637 during the

country’s golden age. It was the first economic bubble and futures market as men traded bulbs like they would trade commodities today. How was it possible that a single bulb could be exchanged for a sum that would have purchased a town house in the finest quarter of Amsterdam? But it did. And for the practical Dutch it is a mystery why a single flower caused such uproar.

Quite simply this imported luxury, a wildflower of the Asian steppes, could be easily transported and reproduced ad infinitum. Highly prized varieties, such as the Semper Augustus with its flame and striped blooms, were offered for a bride’s dowry besides being traded like stocks.

The tulip had a unique trick that added to its attraction. A plain colored flower might appear the following spring with feathered pedals and delicate, flamed patterns. Little did these 17th century tulip fanciers know a virus caused it. Eventually, the market for tulip bulbs flooded, there was a panic, and the market crashed. This mania has puzzled historians and economists ever since.

Beth Kuck-Hundgen of Whispering Pines of Chappaqua – in full bloom with the bewitching bulbs – finds the perfect tulips for this writer’s treasured Dutch modern vase.

The Dutch were not the first to go crazy over the tulip. The bulb enchanted the Persians in the 10th century and was the symbol of abundance and indulgence

during the Ottoman Empire. But tulips found their most fertile ground in Holland, first blooming there in the late 1500s when they were imported from Turkey.

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4/14/14 1:24 PM

Olympic Flame and Ballerina tulips in The New York Botanical Garden’s Perennial Garden.

Golden Age artists like Jakob Marell were summoned to paint watercolors and created catalogs of the coveted blooms. Other artists from Jan van Huysum, the master of Dutch flower painting, to Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet painted this simple yet elegant flower.

Much has also been written about tulips and the craze they created. Garden expert Anna Pavord wrote “The Tulip,” a definitive nonfiction work about the flower that made men mad. Then there are the romantic historical novels, “The Black Tulip” by Alexandre Dumas and Deborah Moggach’s international bestseller, “Tulip Fever,” both set in the 1700s.

This love of tulips came along with the Dutch when they settled in New York, originally named New Amsterdam, and Holland, Mich., where the connection to the Netherlands is strong. You can see more than 100,000 tulips this Mother’s Day weekend in Albany at the annual Tulip Festival that celebrates the city as the oldest Dutch settlement in America.

The United States imports three billion tulip bulbs a year.

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“Nothing says spring more than a bunch of tulips!” notes Beth KuckHundgen, who owns Whispering Pines of Chappaqua, where tulips are popular. “Everyone wants to see spring after a long winter.” Tulips happen to be one of Kuck-Hundgen’s favorite flowers, too.

“They have a seven-to-10 day shelf life and are not an expensive flower. And they come in a wide range of colors.” KuckHundgen sells a variety of types of tulips.

“I love the single tulips and most people buy them. The doubles and parrots are also a favorite.” She buys her tulips from a local grower in New Jersey that she feels has superior tulips. “They grow only the best varieties. Their tulips are very strong and have large heads.” When they are no longer in season locally, she can source them from the Netherlands.

Simple tulips in a simple vase are my favorite way to arrange them and KuckHundgen seems to agree.

“I prefer them to be displayed in mass using all the same color. Tulips continue to grow after cutting so if you like yours nice and orderly a tall narrow vase would

be your choice. I myself prefer a freer spirited tulip and will use whatever container complements the flower and occasion.”

Kuck-Hundgen has some practical advice: “Do not put tulips in the same vase as narcissi (the daffodil family).

They give off sap that adversely affects the shelf life of the tulip.” And she adds that because tulips are phototropic, keep them in a cooler spot in your home away from direct sunlight. Here’s a tip I learned from a Dutch flower merchant for keeping your tulips lasting longer.

Trim the stem at the bottom and cut an “X.” This gives the bloom a better drink of water.

Tulips are everywhere in the spring. Enjoy them as you stroll down Park Avenue in Manhattan or on the grounds of The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx where you can see the closest thing to the wild tulips that incited the 1630s’ craze.

“We have 60 varieties of tulips planted this year in the Perennial Garden, Seasonal Walk, Home Gardening Center’s Cutting Garden and in pots around the grounds,” says Kristin Schleiter, associate

vice president for outdoor gardens and senior curator of herbaceous collections at The Botanical Garden, where tulips are in bloom from late April through early May. “And there are three kinds of species tulips in the Rock Garden that are more like the ones that first grew in the wild. They tend to be shorter so they are perfect scale for the Rock Garden.”

Schleiter says that planted tulips – as opposed to cut bulbs – do best in a sunny, well-drained spot. In our area of the Northeast, deer feast on tulips so Schleiter shares a trick from Dutch landscape designer Jacqueline van der Kloet: “Interplant tulips with daffodils since they are deer resistant and you have a shot.”

For me, the tulip will forever be an irresistible flower that brings back fond memories. When in doubt, a bright bunch of tulips is always the perfect bouquet to send or receive.

After a recent fire, Whispering Pines of Chappaqua has moved to a temporary location, 83 S. Greeley Ave., in Chappaqua. For more information, call 914-238-5661. n

winged wonders

By Georgette Gouveia

They’re as apparent as fashion and as profound as death itself.

They alight for a moment, flitting from flower to flower and yet are capable in some cases of traveling great distances.

They’re tiny, gossamer things, vulnerable to predators and yet powerful in their deception to elude those predators and perpetuate their species.

They’re some 40 million years old and yet live for no more than nine months.

And while their time on this earth is poignantly brief, they’re immortal in art and memory.

Butterflies are contradictory creatures, much like us. Perhaps that’s why we like them so. Then, too, they are harbingers of the yearned-for spring, particularly after this winter. Indeed, The New Yorker optimistically featured a big butterfly – with glamorous leopard-print wings, no less – on the cover of its March 24 issue, a mere four days after the calendar, if not the temps, turned to the gentler season.

Still, it always seems to be the time of the butterfly, doesn’t it? From the David Nelson metal sculptures on the cover of Neiman Marcus’ April book to MacKenzie-Childs’ new Butterfly Garden enamelware to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Two Butterfly Between the Finger ring of diamonds and yellow sapphires to Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” – which The Metropolitan Opera is presenting through May 9 – butterflies flutter through the mind and imagination to find a permanent resting 26

place in the heart.

But just because we love them so doesn’t mean we always understand them. We might, for instance, think of them as the colorful cousins of the drab moth. No, no, no, says David Grimaldi, curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Invertebrate Zoology. He’s also curator of the museum’s “Butterfly Conservatory,” an exhibit in its 16th year that has been extended through June 22 and that features 500 butterflies, including monarchs, zebra longwings, paper kites, blue morphos, scarlet swallowtails and green birdwings, among other species. (There are 8,000 species of butterflies worldwide.)

Grimaldi’s interest in butterflies comes from his study of moths, of which butterflies are types, having evolved as brightly colored variations of the inchworm moth.

Another misconception: While monarchs are famed frequent fliers, what you’re seeing in PBS’ 2009 documentary “The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies” is a generational migration, Grimaldi says, as one group dies off and others are born en route from Canada to Mexico in what can be described as the insect equivalent of snow-birding in Boca Raton.

Butterflies are pollinators, doing their

thing on behalf of the birds and the bees (and the butterflies) as they flit from flower to flower, drinking up nectar with their distinctive noses. Despite their delicacy, they’re quite the little gourmands, if not gourmets, also feasting – particularly in the tropics – on dung, rotted fruit and even carcasses, making excellent use of their long, coiled, studded tongues. If you find butterflies alighting on you in The Butterfly Conservatory’s 1,200-square-foot vivarium, it may be because they think you’re hot – literally.

Butterflies need salt, so they like water, whether it be from a birdbath, a puddle, human perspiration or urine. So don’t mind if they make a pit stop on your glistening body. It’s a good thing – or not, depending on what folklore you listen to.

A butterfly collage alights on the cover of The New York Botanical Garden’s current Adult Education Catalog. The collage features acacia, costus and camellia flowers; reindeer moss; Calathea leaves; Macleania fruit; tendrils from the passion flower vine; and milkweed, a vital source of nectar for the monarch and other imperiled butterfly species. Courtesy The New York Botanical Garden.

More on that in a bit.

Like us, then, butterflies have what Grimaldi calls “excellent sensory modalities” – sharp eyesight, great taste buds and a keen sense of smell. And like us, they’re not averse to showing off, adapting vivid hues and patterns to mimic other insects and plants, advertise their toxicity to potential predators and, in the case of the male, attract Ms. Butterfly for a little

DANCE off the grid amour. It’s a sweet life of nectar, pollination and procreation, but one that is increasingly threatened by a loss of habitat resulting from herbicides and pesticides.

“We haven’t lost any species, but the populations have declined,” he says.

Among the endangered species are the monarchs as well as the tiny, less adaptable bog elfin and Karner blue butterflies, which have very specific habitats.

Another problem is butterflies emerging too early and then being blindsided by storms and snow. Increasingly, butterflies are found farther north and at higher elevations, and that, Grimaldi says, is absolutely the result of climate change.

One place where the butterfly will find the perfect habitat is the Native Plant Garden, a 3.5-acre site within The New York Botanical Garden that’s celebrating the one-year anniversary of a contemporary redesign to focus on indigenous vegetation of the Northeast.

There’s a 230-foot water feature along with plenty of milkweed, Joe-pye weed, buddleja (butterfly bush), rhododendron and, in summer, dusky rose for butterflies to feed on. Milkweed is also known as asclepias, after Asclepius, the GrecoRoman god of healing – the milky substance having been used as medicine.

It’s actually toxic, says Brian Sullivan, The Botanical Garden’s vice president for landscaping, outdoor collections and gardens. But rather than harming butterflies, it enables them through coloration to let predators know that you can look, but you better not touch.

Whether you’re enjoying the elusive beauties at The Garden or in the Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly Conservatory and extensive collections of specimens, you’ll be experiencing colors and patterns that Grimaldi says are incomparable. But that hasn’t stopped artists and artisans going back to ancient Egypt and Mexico from trying to equal them. The naturalist and botanical illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian chronicled the butterfly’s odyssey from larva to pupa/chrysalis to maturity in “Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium” (1705), a seminal book of hand-colored copper engravings. Some 200 years later, American Loïe Fuller captured Paris’ high society with dances and costumes that evoked the butterfly’s flick-

ering movements.

Today, the versatile insect is a go-to fashion accessory and home design accent, as seen in Scully & Scully’s “Papillon II” tray; Rejuvenation’s butterfly door knocker; the Tiffany Blue Book 2014 brooch of blue chalcedony, Montana sapphires, moonstones and diamonds; Sophia Webster’s leather boots of towering cutouts; Ovvo’s titanium and fused surgical steel sunglasses, with their winged temples; and Thale Blanc’s butterfly-kissed Plexiglas and gold brass clutch.

But to understand the butterfly as metaphor in the deepest sense you have to look to the arts. There it is the symbol of yearned-for freedom (the Steve McQueen prison movie “Papillon,” Vincent van Gogh’s “Prisoners in the Courtyard”) while its metamorphosis becomes the framework for love’s oft-tragic trajectory.

In Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” the innocent young geisha Cio-Cio San (chocho sahn) is transformed from blossoming bride to proud wife and mother to despairing suicide, betrayed by her faithless American lover and her deluded quest to be a modern American woman. Puccini knew his Japanese folklore. In Japan, the butterfly (cho) represents the soul and can be, as it is throughout the Far East, a portent of good or evil.

David Henry Hwang’s play “M. Butterfly” offers a transgender-bending variation on Puccini’s theme as a French diplomat falls for a cross-dressing Chinese Opera singer and finds himself echoing Cio-Cio San’s end when he realizes that the singer he loved is really a man and a spy.

Not all metamorphoses end badly, however. The ancient Greek word for butterfly is “psyche,” which happens to be the name of the naïve beauty beloved by the god of love himself, Eros (Cupid).

But Psyche can’t leave well enough alone.

(A meddlesome mama-in-law, Aphrodite, and jealous sisters don’t help.)

Psyche goes through hell itself to win back Cupid, but win him back she does.

The 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova gives us the touching ending in a turn-of-the-19th century marble. As Cupid and Psyche embrace – heads touching, tendrils of hair caressing their delicate necks – she holds a butterfly gently by its wings in his hand.

The butterfly – the soul – has come to rest at last in the palm of love. n

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BRUCE MUSEUM www.brucemuseum.org

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Butterfly net gain Installation to alight on Roosevelt Island

By Georgette Gouveia

Kathleen Griffin with one of the butterflies she’s creating for “Butterflies of Memory.” Image courtesy the artist.

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F

or artist Kathleen Griffin, the butterfly flies in the face of nature.

“Nature tells us that the bloom falls off the rose,” she says. “But the butterfly tells us that if you go into your darkest moment, you’ll come out with more than you thought you could ever be. You’ll come out as your own butterfly.”

In February of 2009 – the winter of everyone’s economic discontent – Griffin was “driving down the FDR for the billionth time in my life, feeling sad and overwhelmed,” as she writes on her blog butterfliesofmemory.com. Approaching the Queensboro Bridge, she glanced at the Smallpox Hospital, a protected ruin on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River.

When Griffin was growing up in New Fairfield as an art-loving child in the 1980s – “you couldn’t keep paper in the house,” she says – she and her mother would make a similar journey. And Griffin would imagine the building to be a castle with herself as its queen.

Now with adult cares, she looked to it for comfort and instead had a vision – butterflies.

“I see a swarm of shining yellow butterflies over the building, carrying it off, magically transforming the ruins; completing, perhaps, an idea I started as a young girl. It was like a dream that had always been floating just above the spires of the old Smallpox Hospital, waiting for me.”

That dream is set to become a reality. Griffin is in the midst of creating one of the largest public installations in New York history, a $1.2 million “Butterflies of Memory” project that would make her vision concrete, rivaling Christo’s “The Gates,” in which the Bulgarian artist installed 7,503 saffron-colored vinyl flags along 23 miles of Central Park in 2005. If all goes according to plan, the Smallpox Hospital would be festooned next summer with a steel structure reinforcing the Gothic Revival building and supporting 17 sculpted butterflies that would appear to alight on the former hospital, poised to take flight and carry it off. The butterflies – each measuring 13 feet, weighing 250 pounds and valued at $100,000 – would be made of new steel, epoxy and 23-karat gold leaf and feature three different wing positions. There would be 26 butterflies in all, with some being changed out and displayed in other areas and venues.

To date, one has been completed as a sample. It was made of new steel that comes from Montreal. The steel must be new rather than recycled, because it must withstand winds of 110 mph at 70 feet. The butterfly was fabricated at HumanKind Design & Fabrication in Philadelphia. Griffin estimates it would take her five months to fabricate the remaining butterflies there, as all the engineering work is complete. When a sculpture is actually being made, she’s on site, working roundthe-clock. She has a team of 90 people on the project,

including architects, engineers, volunteers and The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge, where she recently exhibited related drawings, photographs and models.

An installation of this magnitude is about a lot of paperwork, permits, meetings and fundraising. To keep herself grounded in her art, Griffin – who attended Hartford Art School and has a master’s degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence – does a lot of drawing and painting at home. She divides her time between Ithaca in upstate New York and the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

She’s heartened by the response to “Butterflies of Memory.”

“People don’t ask what it’s about. They get it. People say, ‘It’s about me.’ They are the butterflies.

“They’re so beautiful and so simple. They become that flick of memory. Their time span is so small that we don’t perceive them in that life and death moment but rather celebrate them in the present.”

The time of the installation will be brief, too, about 2½ months, after which the steel pieces may be recycled.

“I also wouldn’t want it to be permanent. I think there’s real power in the tenuousness of large-scale art.

“This piece is also about memory and it contributes to art as long as you remember it.”

For more, visit butterfliesofmemory.com, kathleengriffin.com and thelionheartgallery.com. n

Tales of Two Cities: New York & Beijing

May 3–August 31, 2014

An exhibition of artworks resulting from exchanges of ideas between five pairs of artists: Joan Snyder & Wei Jia Alois Kronschlaeger & Lin Yan Michelle Fornabai & Qin Feng Jorge Tacla & Li Taihuan Simon Lee & Chen Shaoxiong

BRUCE MUSEUM

Greenwich, Connecticut 203.869.0376 | brucemuseum.org

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“Marilyn” from the “Marilyn Series,” Peter Max Studio, Copyright 2014. All Rights Reserved.

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Marilyn &ArtistMax pays

homage to Norma Jean

By Georgette Gouveia When Peter Max was at The Art Students League of New York in the 1950s, he studied under Frank J. Reilly, who himself was trained by Norman Rockwell.

“I was totally shocked and surprised that I got to know the famous Mr. Rockwell.”

Sometimes Max and a buddy would take a break on the stone steps of the League’s stately Beaux Arts building, which is diagonally across from Carnegie Hall on West 57th Street in Manhattan. One day a young blond woman happened by. She told Max she liked his paint-dappled pants and equally striking polka-dot socks, then walked on.

“I said to my friend, ‘She looks familiar,’ and he said, ‘That’s Marilyn Monroe.’”

Max got up from his seat and called after her, “Marilyn, we love you and your work.”

And Monroe turned to give them the OK sign, putting her thumb and index finger together.

“She was stunning,” Max recalls, “with this amazing face and sexy body, very feminine, very beautiful.”

Clearly, the encounter stayed with the artist, for when an opportunity arose to paint on some of the best-known photographs of the actress – taken by fashion photographer Milton Greene – Max leapt at the chance. The result is his new “Marilyn Series,” which is part of “Peter Max: A Retrospective, 1960-2014” at Geary Gallery in Darien.

Max fans will be treated to “Marilyn” works like the one in which he turns her into a modern icon – surrounding her with a rainbow halo as she leans toward us, all smiles, white ballerina tulle and décolletage. Paintings like the “Central Park Series” – which capture the park in the four seasons – and the floral, Matisse-like “Friends Kentucky Derby” crystallize his lush, colorful style.

Other recent works include “Brooklyn Bridge” – all streaking reds and blues, linking the Brooklyn of Max’s youth with

the Manhattan of his career – and another iconic woman, “Liberty.” Told the Statue of Liberty looks a little severe in his portrait, Max demurs: “She’s content and happy… but absolutely firm about democracy.”

Max is all about flower power, first in the sense of the bouquet of colors he creates, with pens and also acrylics, which he calls “the new oil paints” for the similarity of their textures to oils but faster-drying properties. He’ll color paper, canvas, photography, even a Continental Boeing 707.

But he’s also about Flower Power, coming of age in the 1960s. “That was my youth, and there was a tremendous excitement around.” Plus, he says, printing, TV, the computer – all were getting off the ground. The technology we couldn’t live without today, he reminds us, had its seeds then.

“Technology serves the imagination and the imagination uses technology.”

With his bold brushstrokes and palette, Max quickly found himself in the vanguard of the Pop Art movement and the glitterati. He has depicted everyone from the last seven American presidents to Taylor Swift.

He has been the official artist of five Super Bowls, the 2006 Olympics, the World Cup USA, the World Series, the US Open, the

Indianapolis 500, the New York City Marathon and the Kentucky Derby.

So it should come as no surprise that his studio, near Lincoln Center, is a bustling place made up of two 10,000-square-foot spaces and employing 50 people who do everything from archiving his work to selecting the music he wants to hear. Max, a big music buff, loves listening to jazz, rock and fusion rock.

Like a jazz artist, he’s keen on improvisation, “riffing” on color and line.

“Look, as an artist, you can go in many different directions. We are all creative beings and creativity is the extent to which you want to go. I love being as creative as I can be. I don’t even know what I want to paint. I just want to see what happens.”

A true New Yorker, Max enjoys going out with friends and catching new performances and exhibits. But he’s also a true child of the ’60s and as such, a serious yoga practitioner.

It was he who brought Sri Swami Satchidananda to America, which led to the founding of the Integral Yoga Institute, now with centers worldwide.

“It gives you inner peace,” Max says of yoga. “It makes you walk 5 feet off the ground. It elevates you and makes you feel young.” n

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Perennial success Howard K. Freilich nurtures Blondie’s Treehouse

By Mary Shustack Photographs by Bob Rozycki and courtesy Blondie’s Treehouse

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Blondie’s Treehouse, with headquarters in Mamaroneck, creates horticultural environments for its clients.

Howard K. Freilich started his horticultural business out of the back of a humble camper in late-1970s Westchester.

Today, he stands as the president of Blondie’s Treehouse Inc., a multimillion-dollar enterprise that’s one of the 10 largest interior horticultural companies in the country.

But don’t expect Freilich to be a humorless executive complete with a designer suit and slick surroundings.

No, it’s a laid-back and welcoming man – a study in casual style with jeans, zippered pullover and earring – who welcomes a pair of visitors to the company’s Mamaroneck headquarters on a recent morning.

Freilich’s light-filled office, nestled within a 19th-century former factory, is vibrant with an eclectic mix of art and books, antiques and vintage finds, rock music and plants – lots and lots of plants.

“Sometimes they say the shoemaker has no shoes. I have lots of plants,” he says with a ready smile.

“It was always a hobby,” Freilich adds. “I was really fortunate. I have a green thumb.”

But Freilich, a Queens native, actually began his studies to become a veterinarian before he would turn his attention to horticulture.

“I started out really as an animal husbandry major, to be a vet, but I have allergies and it made it really uncomfortable,” Freilich says. “Being young and stupid, I continued that for two years in college.”

At some point, he says, “I finally said, ‘It’s not for me.’”

That wake-up call put Freilich on a path that would lead to the success that is Blondie’s Treehouse, which he

Howard K. Freilich of Blondie’s Treehouse in his plant-filled office at the company’s Mamaroneck headquarters.

has nurtured to its 35th anniversary this year.

Its name, he shares, has quite a clear-cut origin.

“My nickname’s always been Blondie. We put trees in houses. It’s what I do.”

That is, of course, in simplest terms. With a staff of more than 100, four locations and sales in excess of $10 million, Blondie’s Treehouse is an industry powerhouse.

The company has won more than 30 awards for its work throughout the tristate area and has been listed as one of

Inc. Magazine’s fastest-growing companies.

The company has built its reputation on dealing directly with businesses and designers.

“We are not a nursery,” Freilich says. “We’re not geared to that.”

In addition to the Mamaroneck facility, the company has a floral studio in Manhattan with a showroom Freilich says is in the “heart of the plant and flower district.”

The New York-based staff is ideally poised for its work with top clients.

“We do The Plaza, Omni and The Ritz and The Mandarin and The Waldorf and The Pierre …” he says.

That work includes stylish interior and exterior plantings and floral arrangements, as well as special-event services.

But the business of Blondie’s extends far beyond New York.

“We do work all over the country now,” Freilich says.

And it’s quite a leap from his earliest days.

PLANTING THE SEEDS

“I started selling plants on the street corner in 1979,” Freilich says.

Back then, he was buying plants at market then bringing them to Westchester and selling them out of that camper.

He also had another avenue. “You would do plant parties in people’s homes, similar to a Tupperware party.”

But already, he had set his sights on bigger things.

“During the week, I went door to door to corporations,” he says. He was soon dealing with a client list

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of top Westchester developers, relationships that would form the basis of his company.

His wife, Louise, then a dietician – she had the “real job,” Freilich says – was a key part of his early success, handling the billing and other details in the evenings.

“On the weekends we would do the installations together,” Freilich says of the team effort.

Through the years, Blondie’s would expand from the camper to former chicken coops to Freilich’s White Plains garage before more formal homes came, first in Larchmont and then in Mamaroneck.

“Every time we’ve made the move it’s always been to a larger facility,” he says. “We started in Westchester, and it’s still in Westchester.”

Freilich says his education played a big part in his success and his career path itself. He graduated from the University of Maryland, with a bachelor’s of science in agricultural resource, and earned an associate’s in applied science from State University of New York at Farmingdale.

Prior to that, Freilich went through the agricultural program at John Bowne High School and would go on to internships and work with the Queens Botanical Garden.

“Right now, we sponsor some of those internships,” he says of coming full circle.

Back in what Freilich calls the “old days,” customers were looking for small plants, most often in pots, or groupings of taller plants or trees.

Now, he shares, it’s all sleek statements and signature looks.

Adjusting to changing tastes while continuing to expand has helped Blondie’s.

“We starting buying out the competition in the late ’80s and that kind of fueled our growth,” Freilich says.

The company now works regularly with designers, architects, real estate developers and property management companies to create green spaces across the country.

On these projects, a Blondie’s crew will do the installation, while a local provider will do the servicing.

“This way we can keep control of the service we’re providing,” Freilich says, whether it’s a major mall in the Southwest or a new project in Hawaii.

Freilich’s reach extends even further. He has been tapped to speak internationally and travels to Europe to attend industry events and spot trends.

“Horticulture is a field where you learn by doing and seeing,” he says. “It’s hard to tell somebody with book knowledge how to grow plants.”

GROWING STRONGER

Blondie’s Treehouse, Freilich says, includes numerous key staffers who have been on board for more than two decades.

It’s an important factor in a field that has so many variables.

“We’re completely reliant on the growers,” Freilich says, adding that weather also plays a big part in his timetable and costs.

Over the decades, he has built a local and national network of growers, which he follows closely.

“It’s good to see where (the plants) are grown, how they grow naturally,” he says.

And it all comes back to Mamaroneck, where business is conducted out of an 1888 restored factory, complete with a vintage smokestack serving as an inactive landmark. The space, Freilich says, is 50,000 square feet on one acre and hosts the greenhouse, interior plant acclimatization center, special-event workshop and holiday showroom.

“We utilize every inch of it.”

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And it seems to be true. As spring was fully arriving, the facility was coming to life.

“You’ll see hundreds and hundreds of flats and perennials,” Freilich says of the stock arriving every day.

And those plants go right back out to projects, with “eight trucks leaving here every day.”

Holiday decorations, he adds, are a big part of the business.

“We have a year-round staff doing holiday,” he says, noting the company might have 1,000 Christmas trees they decorate and rent out each season.

“My mother always said, ‘What does a Jewish kid know about Christmas?’”

Clearly, quite a lot.

“We probably have a million dollars of Christmas inventory in stock at any time,” he says, walking visitors through a seemingly endless supply of silks, dried flowers, glass balls and ribbons.

There are wreaths and topiaries and so much more.

IN FULL BLOOM

The company, with its continuous education and accreditations, keeps up on trends.

Freilich, a certified landscape professional, also teaches courses on green walls and roofs and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) practices.

Victoria Shapiro, who works in both design and marketing for Blondie’s, says a successful Elaborate floral wedding designs are just one element of the horticultural work by company such as Blondie’s has to Blondie’s Treehouse. have a broad reach.

“It’s no longer just a plant in a pot,” Shapiro says. “It’s ipe wood, a Brazilian hardwood. Blondie’s, he adds, will a presence, too.” also integrate elements ranging from koi ponds to green As Freilich says, “You’re selling a lifestyle, and we’re a walls. part of that.”

It’s clear Freilich simply loves the chance to do ever “Outdoor living has really become a major, major more. trend,” he adds. Lighting, he says, has also evolved.

A Hamptons estate – with natural tributaries and wa“Certain things come in and out of vogue,” he says. ter features – is a new project.

“Succulents are really popular now.”

“It’s really challenging – and it’s great,” he says.

Customers, he adds, are also more aware of things such Freilich, a onetime White Plains resident, lived in Aras sustainability. monk for some 20 years. With his children now grown, It’s not just the plants they are selling, but integrating he and his wife have recently moved into Manhattan and them into a story. also have a home in the Hamptons. That’s where he conAnd Blondie’s is itself doing a bit of integrating, Freilich tinues his own gardening, though he shares that decades shares. of lifting and bending have affected his back, so he now “Right now we’re going through a rebranding of the focuses on container gardening with the planters at waist company.” height.

Today, the company looks ever forward.

It’s clear that remaining hands-on will continue to be “Seven years ago we got into doing exterior landscapes, his signature, though. building designs,” he says. And that has included terraces, “You can look at my hands,” he says. “They’ve always water features and beyond. got cuts on them.”

“We’re doing really cool, unusual, creative type of And, he adds, a bit of soil – but you just know Freilich work.” wouldn’t have it any other way.

Blondie’s now works with interior designers and also “I’m lucky I have something I love to do every day.” offers its own designs, such as the selection of benches he shows off. They are contemporary designs crafted out of For more, visit blondiestreehouse.com. n

back to the garden

By Ronni Diamondstein

After this harsh winter it feels great to work in the garden and enjoy the beauty of nature in your own backyard. Turning a patch of bare earth into a beautiful garden that is the envy of your neighborhood can happen no matter what color thumb you have. Garden centers and nurseries are plentiful with plants and tips on designing and caring for your garden. In this day and age, it is rare to find family-owned businesses. Here is a pair of thriving local floral and plant resources that can help keep your garden in bloom:

Poundridge Nurseries Inc.

Nielsen’s Florist.

Photograph by Raya Ward.

An array of annuals at Poundridge Nurseries. Photograph by Michele Langone.

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Poundridge Nurseries Inc. in Pound Ridge has everything you could want to make your home and garden flourish all year round. Located inside the historic Lockwood Estate barn built in 1778 and later renovated for the store, Poundridge Nurseries provides outstanding horticultural services to both locals and visitors alike.

“We are especially known for the best and biggest trees. That’s our forte. We scout out the best-shaped specimen trees from the East Coast in Connecticut and North Carolina to all the way out in Oregon,” says Lou Weinstock, the current owner, whose grandfather Vincent Pascuiti, a New Rochelle resident, bought the property in 1920 and has kept the business in the family ever since.

“Container gardens have grown in popularity over the years,” Weinstock says.

“They are an easy way to beautify your home and garden. Native plants seem to be a current trend, too. And we sell a lot of hydrangeas and dwarf conifers.”

Popular native plants are echinacea (purple coneflower,) lupines, asters, bee balm and black-eyed Susans. And they have a wide variety of starter vegetable plants and fruit trees.

Poundridge Nurseries also features garden art and furniture, including unique teak pieces, as well as gardening supplies.

And it is well known for an extensive Christmas shop, the place for everything you need for the holidays from lights and ornaments to trees and custom-designed wreaths.

“We offer landscape design and do fullservice landscape work, from start to fin-

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Sandy Nielsen-Baumann, manager of Nielsen’s Florist. Photograph by Raya Ward.

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ish, crews and all,” says Weinstock. The design team has an outstanding reputation and can work within any budget.

Landscape designer Michele Langone keeps up a helpful blog chock full of gardening tips and seasonal to-do lists on the website. Langone offers her best advice: “Get a head start. Starting early will make the growing season more pleasurable and less stressful!”

For more, visit prnurseries.com.

Nielsen’s

Nielsen’s Florist celebrated its 70th anniversary in style with a wonderful flower show in early April. Hilda and Christian Nielsen opened their doors at the Darien location and their four grandchildren still run the full-service garden shop. From beautiful fresh-cut flowers and arrangements to home décor, gifts and outdoor plants and flowers, Nielsen’s is a one-stop shopping experience that enables you to lunch in the café or sit in the beautiful conservatory. Nielsen’s is dedicated to maintaining successful relationships with its customers. “It’s all about lifestyles and providing a superior product and great customer service,” says manager Sandy Nielsen-Bauman, one of the owners.

“We host a lot of weddings, private parties and nonprofit events in the conservatory that support our community,” adds Nielsen-Bauman, who credits these ties

to the community for the center’s longevity. “You’re helping people at their happy times and consoling them in sad.”

Baumann says they have kept up with current trends by going to all the trade and gift shows and following fashion. For indoor plant trends, she shares what is popular at Nielsen’s.

“We sell a lot of orchid plants, dish gardens and green foliage. Succulents are very big now for their clean contemporary look with little or no maintenance.”

Tony Vitti, a buyer for Nielsen’s, says the best-selling outdoor plants are blue hydrangea in all shapes and sizes. “Everblooming and Knockout roses are easy care and provide color all season long.”

Vitti says customers are looking for allsummer color. This is true for flowerbeds and borders where annuals are the most popular.

Nielsen’s specializes in outdoor fourseason container and patio pots. “Then we’ll do window boxes with evergreens and conifers that are great for the holidays and winter season,” Vitti says. Have the experienced design team customize them for your home or, if you prefer, do it yourself and the staff will help you select just the right containers and flowers. Other services include party- and corporate-decorating and inside and outside Christmasdecorating.

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White Flower Farm.

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simple goal: make it green by ronni diamondstein

One of the most renowned mail-order nurseries, White Flower Farm has been doing business in Litchfield County in northwestern Connecticut since 1950 and is a premier source for plants.

“Our goal is to make your garden grow,” says Barb Pierson, the nursery manager. White Flower grows more than 800 species of plants in 32 greenhouses, offering a wide range of perennials, bulbs, annuals, vines and shrubs, along with gardening tools, gifts and advice to gardeners all over the country. (Oscar de la Renta – fashion designer and passionate gardener – was a customer when he first moved to Kent in the 1970s. See story in this issue.)

White Flower Farm popularized the English perennial cottage garden and then expanded to lots of different plants, including vegetables. The farm is also known for its preplanned gardens that are composed of beautiful groupings of plants. “We offer combinations of colors that look good together like painted fern, amsonia and foxglove. These flowers extend through the season, which people like. The hummingbird collection of native plants is a favorite,” says Pierson. “Not

only does it attract birds, but also it provides pollinator plants to attract bees.” She adds that people want low-maintenance plants. “Shrubs like hydrangeas are increasing in popularity as they are low-maintenance and add value to your property. Grasses are easy-care plants and seasonally interesting, pretty and droughttolerant.” This year the perennial of the year is Native Wind, a grass.

Another new trend is growing vegetables in raised beds and containers. “More people want to grow their own vegetables, and if you have a deck this is easy,” says Pierson.

The farm is open from April through November and hosts special events. “One of the best is our Great Tomato Celebration over the weekend of May 16-18 this year. We have over 80 varieties of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables.” The Annual White Flower Farm Open House is June 21 where you can tour the display gardens.

“The Tuberous Begonia House is one of a kind and opens in early June. The flowers are so gorgeous they don’t look real, and it is a good reason to visit.”

For more, visit whiteflowerfarm.com. n

Springtime at White Flower Farm. Photographs courtesy White Flower Farm.

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3/7/14 2:34 PM

Robin Plaskoff Horton in New York City.

The virtual gardener

By Patricia Espinosa

Meet Robin Plaskoff Horton. She’s what brands call an influencer. Her award-winning lifestyle blog Urban Gardens, where she muses about urban style, design and nature, is the social platform from which she wields her authority.

“My readers or followers are very targeted, they trust me to recommend things, they find inspiration in what I show and that’s why they follow and read,” says the Old Greenwich resident about her audience, whose interests lie in gardening, food and wine and travel, which she says is the trifecta for advertisers. Brands reach out to her because her readers are their customers.

Named one of the top 10 home and garden Twitter must-follow accounts by Mashable, a news blog about social media and technology, Urban Gardens is garnering a lot of attention.

So much so that the self-proclaimed “cool-spotter” is invited to attend design shows around the world, including Maison & Objet in Paris, the London Design Festival and most recently Modenus BlogTour, which began last month in Venice. BlogTour selects groups of the best interior design and lifestyle bloggers and invites them to visit the world’s most inspired design venues.

And the invitations keep coming. Like the one she received from Pinterest just days before our interview asking her to Pin 10 items then co-host and moderate a Pinterest chat.

While Horton’s fan base is nothing to shake a stick at – she’s amassed more than 60,000 followers on her blog, 125,000 on Facebook, 35,100 on Twitter and about 5,000 on Pinterest – what matters to brands is not the numbers, but the level of engagement; and hers is significant. In 40

simple terms, engagement means when a follower has clicked, liked, commented or shared a post.

Social media has changed the landscape of traditional advertising and turned it on its head. Many people don’t trust ads and are skeptical of what they promise to deliver.

But if someone they know and trust recommends something, they are more inclined to buy it. That’s why brands are rethinking how they spend their advertising dollars and increasingly are looking at influencers, like Horton, to help sell their products.

“You get brands to do content marketing with you, also known as sponsored content or native advertising. By law, you have to disclose that. If you click on that, it should go to the disclosure statement.

You have to disclose if you’re invited on a trip,” says Horton unapologetically about the way she monetizes her blog. Because making a living doesn’t seem to interfere with her scouting the world for the most innovative and eco-friendly designs and her readers know that.

When people ask her about social media and say they don’t get it, she explains it this way: “OK, who would you want to sit next to at a dinner party? Do you want to sit next to someone that’s me, me, me? Even if they have interesting stories, at some point you’re going to look around. No, you want someone that has some interest in you and they know a little about you. Like ‘Oh, you might like to read about this.’”

About 12 years ago, back when Horton says green was just a color, she conceived of Urban Gardens as a print publication while taking a weeklong professional design workshop with the renowned design-

er Milton Glaser at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. The assignment was to develop a concept for a print magazine – name it, design it and come up with a marketing plan.

“At the time I didn’t know why I came up with Urban Gardens, but I know now intuitively I was thinking, ‘What would

Named one of the top 10 home and garden Twitter mustfollow accounts

by Mashable, a news blog about social media and technology, Urban Gardens is garnering a lot of attention. attract advertisers and what combines all the stuff I love?’” “‘That’s a terrible idea. Who would advertise?’” she remembers Glaser telling her.

The following week, Horton felt vindicated when The New York Times’ Living Section (now the Style section) ran a feature all about urban gardens. Still, the designer would shelve the idea for several years until resurrecting it as a blog in April 2009, the same year it was nominated in the Lifestyle category for a Webby, hailed by The Times as “the Internet’s highest honor.”

“It’s not like I didn’t make that happen,” she says about her success as a blogger. “But I didn’t consciously make that

happen. We all have parts and those parts emerge and you know the cliché: Follow your passions. So true.”

After five years, Horton is redesigning her blog but keeping the same branding because the Internet has evolved and the way people read things is different. (It will relaunch this summer.) Now, it’s important she designs a site for mobile first and desktop second. She’s also going to get rid of her tagline “unlimited thinking for unlimited spaces,” even though she loves it because it’s no longer about unlimited spaces.

“Now that I know about blogging and social media the way that I do, these things take a life of their own. It’s really about two-thirds listening and one-third putting out. To be good, you have to be agile, flexible and adaptive, like any business or endeavor,” she says.

In publishing her blog, she discovered that what her readers wanted or liked most were the same thing she enjoyed writing most about. “I realized that that was why they loved it, because if I was passionate about it, they were, too.”

Born in Tokyo and raised in Malibu, Calif., the designer has lived for various periods of time in Puerto Rico, Berkeley, Calif., Paris, Zurich, Boston, New York and Connecticut. That worldly aesthetic runs through her blog as does her artistry as a designer.

“Urban style is really a gestalt more than everything takes place in an urban setting. Because people go out of town, they go on vacation… Urban style is more of a sensibility.”

For more information, visit urbangardensweb.com. n

where are they now?

Rolando Santana’s Spring/Summer 2014 Collection takes its cue from the designer’s Mexican compatriot, artist Frida Kahlo. Misty bouquets of floral prints suffuse creamy backdrops on Santana’s signature ladylike daywear, recalling Kahlo’s vibrant palette and penchant for floral tiaras. Pinks, neutrals and peplum in fabrics ranging from raffia to bouclé reinforce Santana’s classic demure style – the subject of a recent fashion show at Neiman Marcus, The Westchester, in his hometown of White Plains.

Kahlo lived in Mexico City in the Casa Azul, or Blue House, and the color – reflecting the sea in all its moods – is the inspiration for his new evening collection, with pleated cotton and textured plissé organza representing the waves. Whether it’s a long-sleeve, high-neck shimmering pale blue creation or a scoop-neck, sleeveless navy affair, Santana’s sculpted, textured gowns caress the female body in all the right ways. Along with pieces from the new Wedding Atelier Collection, Santana’s designs enable a woman to feel as good as she looks.

For more, visit rolandosantana.com.

– Georgette Gouveia

Black satin strapless ruffle gown.

Image courtesy Rolando Santana.

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Price: $665,000

heart-felt designs Danielle Gori-Montanelli’s jewelry a whimsical treat

By Mary Shustack Photograph by Lorenzo Gori-Montanelli

A recent posting on the Facebook page for the Danielle Gori-Montanelli Studio shows a photograph of the artist as a little girl clad in a romper and sandals, her face playfully covered with floral decals.

The caption? “I’ve been crazy for flowers for a long time!”

Indeed, the artist’s work in felt is filled with flowers and leaves but also plenty of candy – licorice allsorts are a trademark – as well spring hats, crayons, birds, fruits and more geometric motifs such as waves and links.

It’s all a sweet spin on jewelry’s more traditional glittering mode but no less creative.

“I guess the licorice was a turning point in my life,” Gori-Montanelli says, crafting a sentence you certainly won’t hear every day.

Indeed, for Gori-Montanelli, who switched from metal jewelry to felt some dozen years ago, coming up with the candybased theme was a design breakthrough.

“When I finally got it, I screamed,” she says, having translated her grandmother’s beloved candy into part of her livelihood.

Customers have been equally delighted, turning these wildly colorful licoricethemed pieces into instant bestsellers.

“It’s funny,” she says. “I feel like it’s been my bread and butter for three years now. … It has touched such a nerve. I think it’s the nostalgia.”

And it’s also a glimpse into various twists and turns of her creative life.

Gori-Montanelli, who grew up in Potomac, Md., went to Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers to study painting.

One day she saw a poster advertising a year abroad in Italy.

“I remember walking through the hallway,” she says, when the images of “little golden rooftops” from the 12th century caught her eye.

“I saw that poster and I was so moved. It changed my life.”

Gori-Montanelli would go on to spend her junior year in Italy, where she studied painting. She was also involved in jewelry during her college years, taking a jewelry-making course in Danbury, and would find early success following a chance encounter at Julie Artisans Gallery on Madison Avenue.

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“I walked in there with my mother, and they looked at the pin I was wearing,” and were hooked. Julie Artisans would go on to carry her work until last year, when the gallery shut its doors after some 40 years. (Today, Gori-Montanelli’s pieces are among the offerings at Marimekko in Manhattan.)

Gori-Montanelli – then using her maiden name, Berlin – built a strong reputation during 15 years in metalwork, her figural works with moving parts and unique themes earning her much attention. She was exhibiting at the finest craft shows and finding success, eventually ending up back in Italy, where she would live in Florence for more than a decade. It was a homecoming of sorts for her husband, Lorenzo Gori-Montanelli, who had moved from Milan to New York at age 11.

It was during this time that Gori-Montanelli not only became a mother – but also had a monumental switch in her work.

“Basically, I got pregnant,” she says.

“It’s as simple as that. I knew I was having a child and I wanted to get away from the blowtorch and chemicals.”

Choosing to work with felt seemed natural.

“At the end of every craft show, if it went well, I would buy myself a felt hat.”

And soon, she began to think she could make felt her own medium.

After “15 years of just silver, one color, well, silver and bronze, it was so exciting.”

Her early pieces tended to focus on nature.

“They were very organic. They were leafy shapes and polka dots. Very fun.”

She continued to develop her signature look, eclectic bursts of colorful designs and now sells her necklaces, pins, collars and hats not only at shows, but also online through her own site and others such as ArtfulHome.com.

Home base is now Middlebury, Vt., where she lives with her son, daughter and husband, a filmmaker and photographer who has taken on the business side of her work.

The circuit of prestigious craft shows – spring has already included stops at CraftBoston and the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, D.C. – has also brought Gori-Montanelli to the Mu-

A model adorned with a floral-themed creation by Danielle Gori-Montanelli.

seum of Arts and Design in Manhattan.

In October, she was again showcasing her work amid a selection of jewelry artists from around the world at “LOOT: MAD About Jewelry 2013.”

She was also in Westport for CraftWestport in November, her work striking a chord, says Stacey Jarit. She’s the director and founder of Artrider Productions, which puts on CraftWestport and other shows, including Crafts at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown. (The spring edition is May 2-4).

“From the moment I saw her work, I went crazy because she’s so incredibly special,” Jarit says. “We see hundreds of new artists each year, and Danielle is one of the most exciting. She possesses the special creativity that pushes great artists to constantly explore new things and reinvent themselves and their art.”

Shows serve to bring Gori-Montanelli’s work to a wide and savvy audience, and she’s always happy to discuss her process with customers.

Her method is most laid-back, as she rarely plans it all out in advance. Usually, she’ll just grab some felt and start cutting.

The felt, she shares, is primarily 100-percent wool designer felt sourced in Europe.

“It’s really, really beautiful,” she says, adding she uses quite a lot.

In fact, one company in Germany so values her business they send her a bottle of Champagne every year.

Gori-Montanelli cuts most pieces by hand, though she has begun using dies for the more geometric shapes. She most often sews, but sometimes glues, the pieces together. It is, she says, timeconsuming and hard on her wrists.

But when she’s at a show, she realizes once again just how much she enjoys it all, especially connecting with people.

“I love being at a show and talking to the people,” she says, adding with an infectious laugh. “You get compliments and money all day. It’s great.”

For more, visit studiodgm.com. n

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The constant gardener Oscar de la Renta cultivates life

By Georgette Gouveia

Sable-trimmed satin gowns from Pierre Balmain Haute Couture by Oscar de la

46 Renta, 1997. From “Oscar de la Renta: The Style, Inspiration, and Life of Oscar de la Renta.” Copyright Peter Lindbergh/Vogue, Condé Nast. Courtesy Assouline.

Perhaps it is the proud Latino in him or the fact that he was born on the CancerLeo cusp, the sign of those who know how to feather their beds and make a statement. But there is a luxuriousness to an Oscar de la Renta creation – an elegance, glamour, drama, ornamentation, attention to detail, command and sense of completion. On Page 47 of Assouline’s new “Oscar de la Renta: The Style, Inspiration, and Life of Oscar de la Renta” (207 pages, $125), model Karlie Kloss comes at us like a fiery flamenco dancer – shades of Oscar’s sojourn in Spain, working for Balenciaga – her hands gathering folds of brilliant red satin before her, her creamy lace top hinting at décolletage while mirroring the voluptuous line of her white chandelier earrings.

Turn now to page 95 where a revelatory Hillary Clinton poses for Vogue in winecolored velvet in the White House’s Red Room. She looks as if she’s been painted

by David.

What these two images have in common are breathtaking looks for real women – the fitted bodice underscoring breasts, the flaring, bell- and ball-shaped skirts suggesting the curvaceous delights beneath. Not for Oscar the minimalists or skinny minnies, the boyish figures beloved by misogynists and sadists. But then, he was the devoted son of a strong mother and grandmother – Maria Antonia and Juana Fiallo; the attentive kid brother to five sisters; the admirer of his uncle’s Russian equestrian mistress, who fed his imagination with stories of the far world; the adoring husband of the incandescent Françoise de Langlade (onetime French Vogue fashion editor, who died of breast cancer in 1983) and the equally incandescent Annette; stepfather of Annette’s daughters Beatrice and Eliza. (He’s also the stepfather of Annette’s son Charlie – not to mention father to his own son, Moises.)

So Oscar knows women – and he knows what they want. Indeed, he championed ready-to-wear in the 1950s when hardly anyone in fashion knew what that was. No wonder he has had the confidence of female icons ranging from the Duchess of Windsor to Oprah Winfrey.

Should it surprise, then, that the convivial Oscar and the quiet-loving Annette bring their complementary Oscar- and Annette-ness to their three homes (in Manhattan, Kent, Conn., and his native Dominican Republic)? These teem with texture and pattern – the butterfly wallpaper and drapes in Annette’s Kent bath alone are swoon-worthy.

So, too, are the gardens, for Oscar and

Annette are passionate, constant, bluejeaned, pick-up-a-spade, down-on-yourhands-and-knees gardeners.

Nowhere is that more evident than at their country retreat, Brook Hill Farm in Kent, where Sarah Mower writes the couple have transformed the “tumbledown clapboard house and disused stables” and especially its gardens into “one of the most stunningly elegant private sanctuaries in America.”

Oscar and Françoise bought the property in the 1970s for its stunning views of undulating hills and forests. In the book, he acknowledges that when he married Annette, she had the architecturally superior country home, a beautiful Federalstyle place in Katonah. But Brook Hill’s garden potential convinced her that they should sell the Katonah house and focus on the Connecticut property, whose gardens were originally designed for Oscar and Françoise by Russell Page. He did The Frick Collection’s garden across the street from where Oscar and Françoise lived in Manhattan.

Page believed that a garden is a room.

So, Oscar says in the book: “First, I planted a wall of yew around our pool; this eventually became our very first ‘room,’ where I have only late-blooming white flowers. The second is what used to be a parking area, and the third – my favorite – is what I call ‘my secret garden.’ It was initially intended as a rose garden and was built in a space 50 feet by 50 feet and divided into four planting areas by a brick path. It’s a paradise.”

One that is filled with honeysuckle, Alba roses, Artemisia and iris siberica.

Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt – in Greek mythology, Artemis – stands watch over pear trees. (She also turns up in a tabletop Augustus Saint-Gaudens incarnation in the couple’s Park Avenue apartment.) There’s also a henhouse on the property and plenty of space in which Annette’s rescue Norfolk terriers can play.

“A garden,” Oscar observes, “is probably the most pure and spiritual of joys – a communion with nature and beauty in their most simple and fundamental forms. It is an experience that needs to be lived at every instant. In a garden, one cannot reflect on something bad. What is truly wonderful is that it teaches you a lesson about life’s continuity. In a sense, a garden is a fragile vision that can quickly disappear out of neglect, but with constant work and tender love, it can preserve beauty forever.”

Oscar confesses in the book that he thought he would never have a garden, moving as he has from Madrid to Paris to

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New York in a career that has blossomed with each decade. Yet in a sense he was born for a garden. In his native Santo Domingo, he cherished the mango tree in the family garden, along with the hibiscus and tuberose. The ylang-ylang tree in the square still has a Proustian effect on him, the scent anywhere transporting him back there, back in time, so much so that ylang-ylang was an ingredient in his first fragrance, Oscar (1977).

At his Dominican home of Punta Cana on the Caribbean, Oscar indulges what Mower describes as “the languid riot of orchid, frangipani, tuberose, oleander, and hibiscus,” which “speak to his sense of color and pattern.”

It’s there that an equally important aspect of Oscar, the humanitarian, is thrown into particularly sharp relief. There he adopted Moises after losing Françoise and there he started La Casa del Niño – a school, orphanage and day care center that serves 1,200 children through eighth grade. There’s also a program for disabled youngsters.

“Oscar is a man of profound humanity, who demonstrates grace under adversity and who supports those in need without hesitation,” Vogue editor Anna Wintour writes in the book’s foreword.

Perhaps Oscar is a gardener, then, as God intended Adam to be: He is a cultivator of life. n

A statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt protects the pear trees in the gardens of Brook Hill Farm, Oscar de la Renta’s Kent, Conn., home. From “Oscar de la Renta: The Style, Inspiration, and Life of Oscar de la Renta.” Copyright Oscar de la Renta Archives. Courtesy Assouline

48

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Petal pusher Has there ever been a designer that says – no, screams – Flower Power the way Lilly Pulitzer does?

Even her appointment book – accented with adorable pastel, floral Lilly stickers that proclaim “me day,” “weekend getaway,” “birthday party” and, of course, “wear Lilly” – is a riotous garden of limes, pinks, teals, yellows and subtle reds and blues.

Can we expect any less from her trademark, Palm Beach-kissed designs?

For spring, Lilly salutes the garden cities of Savannah and Charleston – along with Charlotte and the Outer Banks – with pink and white floral sheaths, slit maxi dresses with bold tropical prints, sweet, scallop-edged short shorts, flirty, strapless jumpsuits and shifts with edgy arabesques.

For more, visit lillypulitzer.com. n

Buttercup scallop hem short in PB Pink A Delicacy.

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Bella fit and flare dress in PB Pink Strike a Posie.

Delia shift dress in bright navy Fountain Hopping Engineered.

Kourtney strapless jumpsuit in Iris Blue Chablis.

Biltmore maxi shift dress in resort white Ring the Bellboy.

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Top: Two views of the Hollister House garden in Washington, Conn. Photographs by George Schoellkopf.

Bottom: Two views of Rocky Hills in Mount Kisco. Both sites have been part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.

52

The not-so-secret

gardener Jenny du Pont helps make America’s private treasures public

By Jane K. Dove Photographs by Bob Rozycki

53

enny du Pont and The Garden Conservancy in Garrison were made for each other.

“My position as president and chief executive officer of the Garden Conservancy uses all of the different skills I have developed over my lifetime and I love that the mission is pure,” du Pont says. “We focus on the transformative nature of gardens in the lives of people … and that is very rewarding to me.”

Du Pont assumed the post in April 2013 after a multifaceted career as a practicing attorney both here and in London; the executive director of Miracle House in Manhattan; and a leader of several philanthropic and nonprofit boards.

“I was always an enthusiastic gardener, and when I heard about the opportunity at The Garden Conservancy, I decided to explore it. I was becoming increasingly drawn to the nonprofit, ‘giving back’ side of the work world and The Garden Conservancy struck a special chord. I get to do many things I am very interested in, including preserving, sharing and educating.”

At The Conservancy

The Garden Conservancy

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The Garden Conservancy was founded in 1989 by gardening expert Frank Cabot and since that time has become the nation’s leader in preserving America’s exceptional gardens for the education and enjoyment of the public. Five of the approximately 100 gardens under the umbrella of The Garden Conservancy are National Historic Landmarks and 17 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Garden Conservancy is probably best-known to the public for its national garden-visiting program called Open Days. The program was launched in 1995 and more than 300 private gardens in 22 states across America now open their gates annually, drawing thousands of visitors.

In April 2012, The Garden Conservancy received the prestigious Historic Preservation Medal from the Garden Club of America “in recognition of outstanding work in the field of preservation and/or restoration of historic gardens or buildings of national importance.”

Some examples of The Conservancy’s garden projects include the magnificent Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, Calif.; The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in Bishopville, S.C., created by the self-taught artist; and the rehabilitation of the historic gardens that played an important role in the lives of prisoners confined to San Francisco’s desolate Alcatraz Island.

The Garden Conservancy’s many lectures and symposia offer both its members and the public an array of contemporary ideas relevant to fine gardening, design and preservation. Its handbook, “Taking a Garden Public,” presents an overview of the issues and strategies involved in preserving and sustaining a garden for the good of all.

A natural progression

Down the Hudson River from Garrison, du Pont grew up in a Dobbs Ferry home with a view of the river.

She now lives in neighboring Tarrytown with her husband, financial consultant Pierre S. du Pont 5th, a scion of Delaware’s well-known political and industrial family, and their children.

“After being ‘all over the place’ professionally, it was good to come back to the river towns six years ago,” she says. “We didn’t consider any other place. It’s a great commute, both up to The Garden Conservancy headquarters in Garrison and down to New York City.

My husband, four children and I have moved several times for work over the years and it feels good to be back home. Wherever we lived, I kept up some form of gardening, from containers in London and Washington D.C., to large vegetable and flower gardens on five acres in Massachusetts. I love peonies, roses and daffodils.”

Du Pont says she is committed to keeping The Garden Conservancy moving forward and fulfilling its mission.

“We are now coming upon 25 years and have rejuvenated and preserved 100 gardens. We are very committed to our mission. We take a real interest in what goes on and are quite passionate about it. This is an exciting time to be leading the organization and I believe all of my skills, talents and experiences will be used to the fullest in the best possible way.”

Du Pont – who earned a joint JD/MSFS degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University – says she believes her legal training and years of practicing law bring a distinct advantage to the multifaceted conservancy. When she served as executive director of Miracle House – a smaller nonprofit that provides temporary housing, meals and advocacy support to people coming to New York City for critical medical treatment – she also found her legal skills very useful.

Du Pont has also served as a board member, fundraiser 55

Jenny du Pont and Amanda Tripp, a Garden Conservancy colleague.

and appointed official for organizations including Phillips Exeter Academy; Princeton University; the American Friends of the British Museum; Hancock Shaker Village; and the town of Dover, Mass. She says the work taught her a lot about best practices with regard to boards, governance, development and fiscal responsibility.

Since 1997 she has served as a board member of the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based nonprofit with offices throughout New England. The organization’s charge is to protect New England’s environment for the benefit of all people, using the law, science and the market.

Committed to the mission

Fulfilling the mission of The Garden Conservancy, however, is her overarching goal and something she works toward each day.

“We must continue to promote the message that preserving and sharing beautiful gardens is relevant and has tremendously beneficial effects on communities.

56

I would love to see our Open Days program expand along with our educational opportunities.”

Another area du Pont plans to focus on is embracing burgeoning and ever-evolving social media to promote the mission of The Garden Conservancy. “These changes are so immense and so widespread that the opportunities for sharing information have become almost limitless. One of my near-term goals is to figure out how to use these different avenues to our advantage.”

Du Pont says The Garden Conservancy “has done very well but is not yet through achieving.”

“What the staff has accomplished is amazing, but what we can still do is boundless. I would like to see a more intense focus on educating the public to understand that a wonderful garden ‘is not just somebody’s flowers.’ We have great traction now, and I think we are going to continue to have great success. There are so many ways gardens are relevant and important to life, and we want to help people see all that they are and can be.” n

A bouquet of Open Days

Now that spring is finally here, The Garden Conservancy has scheduled a host of Open Days for gardens in the lower Hudson Valley.

Visiting opportunities include two gardens in Mount Kisco and North Salem May 4; four gardens in Chappaqua, Hastings-on-Hudson, Mount Kisco and Greenwich May 10; one garden in Mount Kisco May 24; three gardens in Bedford Hills, Cortlandt Manor and Katonah June 1; eight gardens in Brewster, North Salem, Redding and Ridgefield June 8; two gardens in Upper Grandview and Upper Nyack June 22; four gardens in Bedford Hills, New Rochelle, North Salem and South Salem June 29; and three gardens in Bedford Hills Cortlandt Manor and Pound Ridge July 27.

Additional Open Days are scheduled into fall. Visit opendaysprogram.org or call 888-842-2442, weekdays, for specific times and admission fees.

way

Elegance in

bloom Hidden Spring Farm offers supreme indoor-outdoor living

Presented by Houlihan Lawrence

HIDDEN SPRING FARM at a Glance • Harrison • 7,123 square feet • 11.817 acres • Bedrooms: 5 • Baths: 4 full, 1 half • Price: $9.9 million

58

Story by Houlihan Lawrence Photographs by Tim Lee Ordinary superlatives cannot adequately describe the remarkable natural beauty that greets you upon entering this supremely peaceful estate. Providing a sense of privacy and expansiveness that is unusual to find only 35 minutes from New York City, the 12-acre setting retains the quiet beauty of a country retreat with its sparkling ponds, stream and cascading waterfall. Dazzling natural splendor unfolds in every direction where majestic trees, velvety lawns and lush gardens ablaze with color create a delightful tapestry throughout the seasons.

Equally memorable is the elegant home that stands as the centerpiece of the estate. With roots that date back to the 18th century, the residence was a simple farmhouse until the present owners undertook a masterful renovation and expansion. The resulting home is simply a triumph – a fresh take on a classic country house that brims with charm, sophistication, style and character. Throughout the home, splendid period rooms mix happily with expansive glass-wrapped spaces that invite in the stunning surroundings. Highlights include a study and formal dining room that are original to the home, a dramatic Great Room with a vaulted ceiling, a romantic garden room, an English conservatory and a sumptuous master suite.

Quality craftsmanship and superb detailing further refine the beautifully scaled spaces, many of which open through French doors to expansive terraces overlooking the ponds and gardens.

Outdoors, the pleasures continue with a golf hole, a beautiful free-form pool and gardens created by the noted landscape architect Armand Benedek. Additional highlights include a handsome guesthouse and a striking pool house that echoes the architectural style of the main residence. Noteworthy for its country-house elegance, breathtaking setting and complete privacy, Hidden Spring Farm continues to stand proudly as one of Harrison’s most significant estate properties.

• One of Harrison’s most beautiful and private estate properties.

• Set on nearly 12 acres on five separate tax lots with subdivision potential.

• Ponds, stream, waterfall, heated pool, golf hole and mature gardens.

• 5,607 square feet in main residence with additional living space in the guest house and pool house.

• Antique pine floorboards, leaded windows and vintage fireplace mantels from England and France.

• Four bedrooms, four baths, one powder room, staff quarters and six fireplaces.

• One-bedroom pool house with kitchenette, entertaining room, changing rooms, spa bath and gym.

• One-bedroom guest house with living room and kitchenette overlooking the pond.

• 500-bottle wine cellar.

• Three-bay garage, garden sheds.

• Close to schools, major roadways and rail station.

• Only 35 minutes from Manhattan.

For more information, contact Lisa Murphy at Houlihan Lawrence’s Rye Brokerage, at 914-3912655, 914-967-7680, ext. 409 or lisamurphy@houlihanlawrence.com. n 59

60

Setting a place for style

By Mary Shustack Photographs by Bob Rozycki

Detail of tabletop design by Marc Blackwell New York.

61

Interior Design Magazine with Ali Tayar.

Fashion Institute of Technology.

Ralph Lauren Home, with Gensler + Herman Miller in background.

IA Architects & Teknion Studio.

62

Beacon Hill, designed by 2Michaels.

Gensler + Herman Miller.

There’s not a bad seat in the house.

That was the feeling you had after touring the selection of artistic, whimsical and fanciful tables set for the annual Dining by Design benefit held at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show in Manhattan in late March.

DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS again tapped a stellar roster of notables from the fashion, interior design, art and architectural worlds to create dining vignettes. With participation from individuals, firms and educational institutions including Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Diane von Furstenberg, Design Within Reach, the Fashion Institute of Technology and the New York School of Interior Design – just a small sampling of the dozens – the showroom floor simply dazzled with creativity.

The tabletops not only served once again as inspiration for the Pier 94 showgoers but also as the backdrop for special fundraising events for DIFFA, which is marking its 30th anniversary.

During the preview, WAG had the chance to catch up with Marc

Blackwell of Marc Blackwell New York, who was putting the finishing touches on his bold creation.

What, we asked, were the designers given to work with?

“Just the size,” the longtime participant told us.

“I’ve done 14 tables, so my parameters are that it’s a self-contained table.”

And indeed, his dome-shaped creation truly invited you in to celebrate spring, new beginnings.

The bold hues, the custom-made dinnerware and the cluster of vases holding poppy stems were at once contemporary and timeless.

As Blackwell, a DIFFA board member, explained, the tabletops that together created the most eclectic surroundings had themes and messages that ran deeper than their surface beauty. His, for example, was a nod to DIFFA and its enduring support of those living with HIV/AIDS. “The 30 vases on the table represent the 30 years of DIFFA, in celebration of DIFFA’s 30 years of giving.”

It was a fitting tribute, one that would be welcome at any table. n Flexform by Soren Rose Sponcer for Manhattan Magazine.

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Something to sniff at

By Georgette Gouveia

T

here is something ineluctable and ineffable about fragrance. You know it the minute you scent it.

It tickles, teases, tantalizes and maybe even traps the nostrils. But what is it that entices or repels? How to describe the experience? By the time you do – poof – it may be gone.

We at WAG couldn’t do a Flower Power issue without a discussion of perfume and for that we needed a nose.

Fortunately, Tania Sanchez graciously agreed to answer our questions.

Sanchez is a perfume collector who has written hundreds of reviews on perfume websites. She is the author with biophysicist Luca Turin of “Perfumes: The Guide” (Viking, 2008), a bible of fragrance.

It is not a book for the weak of ego.

Like the Lord, it giveth and taketh away, awarding stars – or not – to a host of scents and describing those grades in the

64

most, well, perfumed prose.

Here’s Turin on Chanel’s Chance, a floral oriental: “… Avoid this one, unless you’re dating Piltdown Man.” Ah, but here’s Sanchez on that Chanel classic, No. 5, a powdery floral: “… It is an ideally proportioned wonder, all of a piece, smooth to the touch and solid as marble, with no sharp edges and no extraneous fur trimming, a monument of perfect structure and texture. And some people think perfume is not an art.” No wonder it’s one of the book’s best florals.

(See list.)

Why does perfume have such a mystique?

Sanchez:“I am not sure what is meant by mystique. Most perfume companies enjoy manufacturing unnecessary mystery by trying hard never to tell you the truth about who makes perfume, out of what and how. If you mean something more like romance or thrill, I suppose

it is because it is a bit forward to smell each other to see if we like it, like dogs meeting in the park.”

Can you tell our readers a little about what goes into making a great fragrance?

“Sure. Much of it is like the making of a non-great fragrance: A client, who wants to sell you and me a perfume, hires a perfumer, usually but not always via a composition firm, which employs the perfumers and sells the oil to clients.

The perfumer has a brief, which is a description of what sort of fragrance the client wants. There is generally an evaluator working with the perfumer, to give feedback over many trials.

“Now, most perfumes these days are deliberate copies of existing perfumes.

They analyze whatever worked last time and do the same again. And perfumers are expected to do this in a matter of weeks or months if they’re lucky, where-

as perfumers once had the luxury of years to come up with something great and new. They are also given a budget just slightly higher, if that, than the budget for the scent of fabric softener.

For a fragrance to have even a shot at greatness, the perfumer needs a willing client with taste, good creative direction, time and budget, and then add talent, luck and ideas.”

I’ve heard it said that perfume reacts with your body chemistry and therefore not every fragrance is for every woman.

How should a woman or a man go about selecting a signature scent?

“I’ve heard that, too, but the effects of skin chemistry are drastically overstated. A small number of people do have wacky skin chemistry, but the majority of us wearing Chanel No. 5 are going to smell like Chanel No. 5, not pickles

or sardines. As for signature scents, you just wear something you love to smell and hope the people around you don’t mind too horribly. Finding that is the problem and why we wrote a book. Remember this: Don’t buy anything until you’ve worn it for a few hours, since perfumes are designed to change most drastically in the first 15 minutes or so and then more as the day goes on. Perfumes made on the cheap (their actual sticker price may be high or low) will smell great in the first few minutes and then collapse into hideous funk. This goes for men and women.”

You are going to a remote (but fabulous) resort yet can only bring one carry-on and thus one scent with you. What would it be?

“I don’t want to say and risk competing with your readers for my next bottle!”

The 10 Best Florals (According to “Perfumes: The Guide”) n A mouage Gold (Amouge) huge floral – Luca Turin writes: “…

This perfume is about texture rather than structure, a hundred flying carpets of scent overlapping each other. It’s as if Joy had eloped with Scheherazade for a thousand and one nights of illicit fun.” n B eyond Paradise (Estée Lauder) symphonic floral – Turin again: “… hits to perfection the dappled, fresh light of early morning shining on the sort of impossible garden that Swedenborg would have seen in visions and described in detail. Not sure about Beyond, but definitely Paradise.” n C hamade (Guerlain) powdery floral – Turin: “… The modern Chamade still smells great but gets to the point much faster and has a slight flatness I have noticed in recent Jicky versions, something

n

n n

n

milkier and more sedate in the vanillic background. Nevertheless, a masterpiece.”

J oy parfum (Jean Patou) symphonic floral – Turin: “… Joy does not smell of rose, jasmine, ylang or tuberose. It just smells huge, luscious and utterly wonderful.”

No. 5 (Chanel) – See introduction.

O dalisque (Parfums de Nicolaï) fresh chypre – Turin: “… It’s as if the perfumer had skillfully shaved off material from a classic chypre accord until a marmoreal light shone through it. A unique, underrated marvel and great on a man as well.”

O smanthe Yunnan (Hermès) milky tea – Tania Sanchez writes: “… Osmanthe Yunnan is beautiful from start to finish, distinctive, impossible to improve, unforgettable, unpretentious and the best

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well Scent of a woman – and a man

By Erika Schwartz, MD

Recently, while doing a TV interview about sex and my upcoming book, the interviewer, a lovely man, seemed stumped when I said both men and women had the same sex hormones. He made me repeat the sentence. “What do you mean?” he said. “I never heard of that. Don’t men have testosterone and women estrogen?” Of course, the answer is yes. But it’s yes to both men and women. We all have estrogen and testosterone and even the hormone made specifically after ovulation, progesterone. The difference between men and women is that we don’t make these great sex hormones in the same quantities, pulses or cycles. Men have a lot more testosterone and women a lot more estrogen and progesterone. But the beauty of it is that we need all three of these socalled sex hormones to be, shall we say, a real man and a real woman.

Yes, the dance of these sex hormones along with oxytocin and other less wellknown hormones – their rise and fall and interaction – leads us to the highest of highs in our sexuality, romance, desire to mate and get close with another human, while their loss or imbalance throws us into the deepest troughs of depression and loss of libido. It’s as simple as that. Well, maybe not that simple but pretty close. When our estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels are in perfect balance, and when we make pheromones – another type of hormones that attracts us to each other sexually – we’re able to continue our quest for an all-encompassing romantic relationship or just something as simple as the desire to have sex.

But there are other complicating factors I’d like to remind you of. Our culture is probably the most significant of complicating factors when it comes to our sexuality and how we interpret and express it in our everyday life. We live in a youth-obsessed culture and as a result, we gauge our sexuality and hormone balance by what our youth do or

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say on the pages of magazines or in the social and visual media. So we believe sex and youth are one and the same and a marriage made in heaven based on lots of sex when we are 20 is the only way a marriage will last into our 60s when the hormones are long gone, the kids have left home and we are looking at

Others, the lucky ones, put the kids and busy lives on the back burner at least once a week on date night and keep on having sex and chasing each other around the house and the block.

Those are the ones who have kept the spouse’s scent not just in their nostrils but also in every cell of their bodies and doggedly won’t let go. Good for them. the stranger across the table and wishing we could desire him or her the way we did decades ago. Well, the truth is that things don’t work out that way, at least not most of the time.

When we get a bit older, when the kids come into play and stop us from paying attention to each other and take the focus away from the couple and move it onto their never-ending needs for at least the next two decades, with or without the help of hormones, we start a slow but definite decline in our sexual drive. Getting caught in the act by 5-year-olds, staying up all night with a vomiting 7-year-old and waiting for the teen to come home at curfew are not exactly ways to improve and increase our

sex drive nor will they bring romance onto the front burner of our married lives. So what do we do? We fake it, lie to our friends and family about it and make believe everything is fine. It’s one way to hope things will work out and our marriages and sexuality will survive.

That’s the course most of us take. We saw our parents do it, and we continue on their path.

Others, the lucky ones, put the kids and busy lives on the back burner at least once a week on date night and keep on having sex and chasing each other around the house and the block.

Those are the ones who have kept the spouse’s scent not just in their nostrils but also in every cell of their bodies and doggedly won’t let go. Good for them.

The others, well, they slow down.

We hope they develop a relationship that keeps them together beyond the kids and sex, because if they don’t I can assure you that one of the parties will make sure they uncouple by the time the youngest goes to college. But that is not all about hormones. It’s about life and culture and what I like to call our own personal truth. If you listen to yourself and have been working honestly at making the relationship work and stay romantic and woo each other and caress and hug and yes, have sex, you will probably keep the passion going, the intimacy will last and you will live to celebrate the 60th anniversary and go home and get back between the sheets even if it only is for a cuddle and sleep.

So keep in mind, it starts with the hormones when we are teens and stays with hormones for about four decades and then it’s also about commitment, love, intimacy and yes, holding each other close and tight while the vicissitudes of life attack you. But you keep each other’s scent and presence in your life and enjoy it indeed forever.

For more information, email Dr. Erika at Erika@drerika.com n

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Surf ’s up‌

at a beloved, newly renovated Sound Shore club

Story and photographs by Mark Lungariello

The commanding European statue graces the Surf Club on the Sound entrance.

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Anthony Martello, the new owner of the Surf Club on the Sound, passes by a shrub at the back of the club and notices a few dead, yellow leaves. He plucks them, flicks them away and then prunes the plant a bit, like a barber giving it a fresh cut.

It’s one of the first T-shirt days of spring on Davenport Avenue in New Rochelle, where all of the city’s famous coastal clubs are located. Martello walks the grounds of the club, which is not only preparing for warmer weather but is being revamped under his watchful eye. Flowers have already been planted near the gated entrance and dozens of landscapers are redoing the back lawn.

“Our goal is to be the best,” he says. “I always felt the place had the potential to be the best due to its location.”

Martello helped build the Surf Club in the early 1990s as a contractor. His Matell Contracting Company Inc. also built a second reception hall on the second floor several years ago under the former owners.

While Martello is new to the catering business, he knew the place well and attended many events there. “I always felt very comfortable. It felt like home,” he says.

Last year, he bought the property and hosted his first event New Year’s Eve. The party was a success, he says,

Grand entrance.

but he immediately considered ways to improve. After the party, he bought all new coffee machines.

As the club’s new owner, he is looking to reconstruct the club from the ground up. He’s bought new china, silverware and tablecloths since taking over. He also replaced virtually every member of the service staff. Each member of the new staff, he says, has at least 20 years of experience in catering or service. Chef Teodor “Ted”

Anthony Martello.

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Profita remains from the old management, but the club is revamping its menu. The prime rib option has been replaced by filet mignon.

Many people who live in the area have fond memories of Sweet 16 parties and weddings at the Surf Club. (Two of my three siblings were married there). Martello knows people have their own impressions of what the club is.

“They’re going to have a new look at the old place,” Martello says. “If they thought the old service was good, we are going to take the catering to a whole new level.”

While Martello walks the property, construction crews are repaving the parking lot. A few workers clean up the statue near the front entrance. The statue, which depicts Poseidon on horseback, is so large that it had to be shipped from Europe in pieces and a large foundation was put in place to support its weight.

In the back, workers are painting the club’s name, along with palm trees, on the bottom of the pool, still empty from winter.

“Looks good,” he shouts down to the crew.

The club sits on a storied slice of the Long Island Sound with a 180-degree view that includes Davids Island. For years, the property was home to a mansion built by Col. Delancey Astor Kane and his wife, the former Eleanora F. Iselin. Kane, the great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, had a horse stable on the property. The Colony Club opened on the grounds but was razed and replaced along with the stable in the 1990s.

Martello says he hopes to create a new pool with a snack bar for next season, pending permits from the city.

The cabanas have already been redone and new sand will be shipped in to revitalize the beach area.

Inside, the club has installed kinetic lighting and LED lights throughout. The two reception areas – each with its own hors d’oeuvres rooms, bridal suites and bathrooms – have gold-leaf additions. The club works with Westchester Floral Decorators and florist Diana Gould for its memorable centerpieces and other arrangements. The downstairs reception area can accommodate 500 people, while the upstairs can handle up to 250.

The club’s new general manager, Sandro Carlacci, has worked at some of the premier catering establishments in the area over the last 30 years, including the late Alex & Henry’s and the neighboring Glen Island Harbour Club.

Carlacci says the Surf Club’s goal is to bring the Manhattan-style club experience to Westchester. Customer service is the focus, he says, but more aesthetic improvements may be on the way.

Like the statement the club is making at the commanding entrance: There’s now a piano to complement the winding staircase and imposing chandelier. It’s a favorite spot for wedding photos and the piano adds another dimension.

“It plays itself, so you can pretend to know how to play,” Martello jokes.

The Surf Club on the Sound offers many photo opportunities.

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For more information, visit thesurfclubonthesound. com or call 914-633-8221. n

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UNDERSTANDING SPINAL CONDITIONS: Causes and solutions to disorders of the spine. Friday, May 2, 9:30 a.m. at Greenwich YMCA. Neurosurgeon Paul Apostolides, MD of ONS and Greenwich Hospital will speak about new technologies and treatments that are helping patients recover from painful conditions of the spine. Learn about the causes and prevention of neck pain, disc herniation, spinal stenosis, osteoporotic compression fractures, degenerative disc disease and spinal instability. To register call the YMCA 203-869-1630.

UNCOVERING THE TRUTH ABOUT BACK PAIN: Separating fact from fiction about back pain and spinal disorders. Thursday, May 8, at 1:30 p.m. Neurosurgeon Scott Simon, MD of ONS and Greenwich Hospital will speak at the Greenwich Senior Center about the most common reasons for back pain as well as disorders of the spine. The talk will include the importance

of proper diagnostics, how to know when back pain is serious or not, the latest treatment options, and expose the myth of “laser spine surgery.” To register call 203-862-6721.

RACKET SPORTS INJURY PREVENTION FOR WOMEN Tuesday, May 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the Noble Auditorium, Greenwich Hospital. Orthopedic surgeon Katie Vadasdi, MD, sports medicine physician Gloria Cohan, MD of ONS, Physical Therapist Tatyana Kalyuzhny, PT, DPT, MDT, from ONS Women’s Sports Medicine Center and Patrick Hirscht, Tennis Pro, Round Hill Club will talk about how to avoid the most common injuries in racket sports like Achilles tendon tears, shoulder and wrist injuries and rolled and sprained ankles. Learn how to identify injury warning signs, how to know it’s time to see a doctor and what’s new in orthopedic treatments. To register call 203-863-3627 or register online at www.greenhosp.org.

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Sis gets her way with Sweet Melissa

By Nikki Davidson Photograph by Bob Rozycki

Ask 10 people at random if they like wine.

Don’t be surprised to find that some are not wine drinkers. That’s because wine can be intimidating to people, says Melissa Prospero, whose family owns Prospero Winery in Pleasantville.

“Twenty-one year-olds are more inclined to drink beer, fruity drinks, Red Bull, Smirnoff Ice. ... To get a young drinker into wine it takes a while.”

But, says Prospero, wines are really not that hard to understand.

“It’s the marketing and the media,” she says. “They create this image around wines that is snooty and that you have to know so much about it.”

This is slowly changing, though. As wines become less daunting, it’s easier to approach new market, and “sweet wines are great introductory wines to a novice,” she says.

Enter Sweet Melissa, a new red wine

with a fun and friendly brand.

“Sweet Melissa is made from Brachetto grapes, which come from the Piedmont area in Italy,” says family friend and former restaurateur Billy Losapio, who is WAG’s new editorial adviser.

“It produces a highly aromatic, lightly effervescent pink wine with distinctive notes of strawberries, raspberries and a perfumed bouquet reminiscent of rose petals. Served chilled, it is perfect for all occasions. I love it.”

Prospero says, “We started importing (Brachetto), and when we imported it we needed to bottle it. Since I’m the youngest in the family and everybody always gave me a hard time, I said, ‘We’re going to name it Sweet Melissa, and I’m finally going to get my claim to fame.’ Originally, we had a whole story on the back label, that it’s named after the owner’s youngest daughter, and people really fed off that and they loved it.”

Made in Pleasantville and first bottled there, the brand soon grew too large to manufacture locally, so the Prosperos moved the operation to a co-op winery in Italy. Though the product is the same, the bottles are now slightly different because they’re imported.

Despite its local origins, Sweet Melissa’s hottest markets are Chicago and Atlanta, likely picking up more quickly “in southern and western states because they have more of a sweet market.”

Soon, Sweet Melissa will be releasing a Moscato, which will be sold in about 13 states and available for purchase in the Westchester/Fairfield area.

Much deliberation went into the design for Sweet Melissa, with the idea for its look coming from Prospero’s brother, Danny. “I work with a marketing team to come up with the artwork,” she says.

Prospero pulls out a bottle, describing the accessible packaging with its twist-

off, environmentally friendly cap.

She also uses social media to market Sweet Melissa. “Every girl named Melissa can relate to the wine. They like it.

They buy the product for events and tastings. I’m reaching out to every Melissa out there. We can have a Sweet Melissa march on Washington.”

Prospero smiles at the thought: “Kids that grow up in the industry come up with these crazy ideas like Sweet Melissa and create these wine brands.”

Both Prospero’s parents were born in the same town in Italy, L’Aquila, in the Abruzzo region, and immigrated to the United States around the same time.

When Melissa’s father, Antonio, graduated from Westchester Community College in the 1970s, he and her mother, Silvana, opened a fruit stand in Pleasantville, from which they started selling California wine grapes. This evolved into the sale of home wine-making

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equipment, including bottles, tanks and palletizers. By the time Melissa was born, her father had started importing the machines that sterilize, fill and cap the bottles for wine, beer and spirits. Due to the economy, Prospero Winery has recently had to scale back, thereby eliminating retail as well as its tasting room and has become more of a wine company – creating, importing and distributing brands and custom bottles for other wineries.

Melissa Prospero “grew up in the middle of the business,” and after attending college in Florida, transferred to a university in Italy, specifically because it required hands-on internships, including a six-month experience at a winery in Tuscany. Prospero came back to the United States and made herself at home marketing wines.

“All I can say is that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but in this case, the grape doesn’t fall far from the vine,” Losapio says. “Melissa comes from two passionate parents. … She is a lovely young lady with a passion as well.”

Melissa adds, “When you’re in a family business, it’s 365 days a year.” There are no typical days at the office for Prospero.

She rushes from a speaking engagement to a conference call with a distributor and then onto other business.

“I would say working with my dad and traveling with my family has taught me so much,” she says. For the business, she has been to more than 25 states, as well as Canada, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Prospero’s Italian heritage has played a vital part, too. “In Italy, it’s just standard

that there’s always a carafe of wine on the table. It was easier for a farmer to have a carafe of wine than a carafe of clean water.” It is standard on the Prospero table as well.

As for living in Italy, Prospero says, “Probably when I retire. It just feels like home there.”

Despite being an expert, “everybody knows that I don’t talk about wines in a complex way. I tend to describe my wines in basic terms. … Everybody wants me to try some and see what I think about it. I love to cook and I love to entertain. I use a lot of my friends as guinea pigs to try new wines.”

Perhaps the most valuable insight Prospero shares with others is her unique suggestions of how to drink it. “I tell people, have red wine with popcorn. You might like it. It might change your life. Have ice wine with ice cream.

“People think my pairings are crazy, but they’re actually very cool. Next time you’re sitting on the couch looking for something to eat or drink, try a full-bodied Pinot Noir with peanut butter and jelly. If I have Dove Chocolate peanut butter little heart squares and Pinot Noir, I will down the bottle in 20 minutes.”

So does Prospero have a personal favorite? That “depends on the time of the year and what I’m cooking because I can fall in love with any wine. I feel like you can pair a wine with any chocolate, any food, any ice cream, any mood you’re in. If it makes you happy to drink red wine with sushi, by all means, drink red wine with sushi,” she says with a laugh.

“Why not?” n

wonderful dining

Upper crust Mom ’n’ Pop feed the knead Story and photographs by Andrea Kennedy Two words: Chocolate bread.

When I was a Westchester neophyte, those words were all it took for me to hightail it to The Kneaded Bread, Port Chester’s one-stop shop for possibly the best bread in Westchester. Some say the state. Even the nation.

“If you like the chocolate bread, you need to try the chocolate challah,” says owner Jennifer Kohn who runs the bakery with her husband, chef Jeffrey Kohn.

I do, so I did. Its doughy braids of pastry-light wisps are heaped with chocolate hunks and flecked with nibs. It’s the kind of pull-apart perfection where each tug beckons another and before you know it you’re left with crumbs.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Jennifer, though, might agree.

“Bread is my desert island food,” she says, particularly French baguette with good butter and apricot preserves.

“I have always loved bread from the challahs my family ate on Friday nights to scarfing down bread baskets in restaurants growing up,” she adds. “I love a good crust, love seeds, anything. I love a bakery – the smells, the feeling. Even a nostalgic old-time bakery that still uses string to tie their boxes gets to me.”

At 16 years old, The Kneaded Bread could be considered old-time in its own right. Jeffrey, a CIA-trained Rye Brook native, saw the county’s void for artisan bread at a time when Port Chester was still more or less a culinary void between Rye and Mamaroneck – before Tarry Lodge or the buzzing Bartaco, before The Waterfront anchored Main Street, and before the word “artisanal” appeared on every chalkboard menu from Brooklyn to the Bay Area.

“We had a big sign that said ‘Coming Soon Freshbaked Artisan Bread,’” remembers Jennifer. “Everyone around here kept asking us what artisan meant.”

The starter

Jennifer and Jeffrey were a foodie duo since the ’90s.

They quit their jobs – Jennifer’s at Mercury Records working publicity for hair bands like Def Leppard and Kiss – to work restaurant gigs and save for a six-month culinary tour through Europe.

“Traveling for food is our thing,” says Jennifer. “We’ve eaten in three-star Michelins in France, from a woman making snack patties on the beach in Jamaica to a roadside stand in Rhode Island.”

While saving, Jeffery made friends with a baker. Seeing how he was planning a life with a bread devotee who also happened to possess impressive business ambitions, the stars just aligned. In June of 1998, after prepping everything hand-by-hand – and hand-in-hand – from menu planning to painting the walls their sunshiny hue, the then-betrothed pair opened for business.

“A lot of it was on-the-job training,” says Jennifer.

“The morning we opened, I was running through my clothes to find change for the cash register.”

Rapid rise

Jennifer and Jeffrey Kohn

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With storefront signage its only marketing, word of The Kneaded Bread’s quality and variety swept the coun-

ty, earning an ever-growing cult following – not to mention an influx of accolades – for freshness and flavor.

“We don’t sell anything the next day and everything is coming out of the oven that morning,” says Jennifer.

“We use no dough conditioners, no fillers, no preservatives and most of the bread rises over two days which enables it to get a better crust. The crust acts as a natural preservative.”

That, and the loaves taste sensational. Today The Kneaded Bread bakes more than 300 a day with flavors like ciabatta to their dreamy brioche, a proper sourdough and French baguette, and everything else from multigrain to kalamata olive to pumpernickel. Call ahead to see if they’ve made pretzels – also packed with provolone – a hit from the days they were available at The Capitol Theatre.

The cinnamon swirl and provolone earn a special kind of devotion.

“We’ve been coming here for the provolone bread since he was just a little guy,” said one longtime patron in line, motioning to her son who’s now a head taller than his mom.

The customer favorite packs a wallop of sour saltiness in every nook and cranny. Sliced open, you’ll find cheesy layers coating bread bubbles and gooey eruptions escaping the crust.

Flour power

Though it all comes back to the bread, loaves were just the beginning. It’s now impossible to ignore their pastries

like scones, cakes, cookies, donuts (on weekends), dusted almond croissants and the salty-sweet, super-sticky pecan buns. (Another selection that invites rapid unraveling.) Lunch hours are packed for make-your-own salads, house-made soups – fans will be thrilled to hear it’s gazpacho season – and sandwiches like the consummate favorite, albacore tuna.

But unlike shops whose quality inversely correlates to expanding product lines, the growing bakery never waded into mediocrity. Jennifer and Jeffery still employ the same small-batch, made-from-scratch methods, the same dough starter and the same hands-on philosophy as they did on day one.

And, sure, they’ve since gained a troupe of dedicated employees – like manager Fernando Bastida, with them for 14 years – who take 4 a.m. and red-eye shifts to start the two-day rise, monitor temperamental yeasts and get daily bakes out by opening bell. But when you call to check the daily lunch menu, it’s Jennifer’s voice you’ll hear on the message. She’s still taking out the trash, taking orders and ringing up customers lined out the door.

“The bakery is a 24-hour operation,” says Jennifer, who’s fared everything from bum ovens to power outages.

“The other day I had to run back at 10 o’clock at night.

There’s always something.”

And though these days the change drawer stays stocked, The Kneaded Bread is still as Mom ’n’ Pop as ever. In the most literal sense, too, for since opening (and marrying four months later), Jennifer and Jeffrey have also earned

the official titles of Mom and Pop to their two sons, now pre-teen, who keep them pinballing the county from school to basketball practice to the Q Restaurant and Bar, the Kohn’s BBQ spot also on Port Chester’s Main Street.

(You’ll find Jeffery behind the bar at lunch every Thursday, slinging drinks and talking Syracuse b-ball.)

“We’re just a good team,” says Jennifer. “We are completely partners. We couldn’t do it without each other.”

When he’s not at Q, sourcing, pricing or menu planning, Jeffrey’s been known to make some midnight yeast runs, and Jennifer handles everything from payroll to display.

“I write all the tickets, so it’s my handwriting on everything,” she says. “And I’m always moving stuff around and rearranging things to make it pleasing to the eye.”

Jennifer also had a four-year stint at MoMA, and her design prowess shows. Notice how boules (round loaves) are interspersed with footballs (oval loaves) or raisin breads nestle next to potato rosemary. And the product isn’t the only pretty part. Tiered displays encircle a towering fresh floral centerpiece, vintage breadboxes and pastel pastry stands pack in charm, and canary-colored walls with oversized windows (the better to see fresh-baked fare) lure fans, families, foot traffic and first-timers alike.

“It’s sunny and it smells good,” says Jennifer. “People just like coming here.”

The Kneaded Bread is at 181 N. Main St. in Port Chester. For more, call 914-937-9489 or visit kneadedbread.com. n

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On the go with Mo

By Heather Salerno

Mo Rocca launched his Cooking Channel show, “My Grandmother’s Ravioli,” with a simple premise.

He grew up enjoying his grandmother’s elaborate Sunday dinners, but she passed away before he could learn how to make her homemade pasta. So he decided to travel the country visiting other people’s grandparents, who would teach him their culinary secrets.

But Rocca has a confession to make. The series returns for a third season later this year — and he still doesn’t know how to cook.

In fact, he never uses the oven in his Greenwich Village apartment. The last thing he pulled out of there? “Sweaters,” he says, with his trademark deadpan delivery.

One thing’s for sure: Rocca doesn’t consider himself a gourmand. He would rather find the perfect barbecue chicken – “moist all the way to the bone, even though, I, like a lot of people, hate the word moist” – than wait on line for the latest food fad. (The cronut? Too rich for his taste.)

“When I leave the shoot, do I come home and cook?

You probably want me to say ‘yes,’ but the answer is that I don’t,” he admits.

So why in the world does Rocca consider this a dream job? That’s easy: He’s far more curious about the folks wearing the aprons than what they fry up in a pan.

“I’m just so interested in who these people are, their lives and in some cases, the very dramatic experiences they’ve had,” he says. “The cooking is really only the spine of it.”

Rocca will talk about his own experiences – in and out of the kitchen – at The Ridgefield Playhouse May 3. He’ll try to give the audience a sense of what he does for a living, which may prove challenging, since he jokes that he’s “still trying to figure out exactly what it is that I do.”

At 45, Rocca has had a wide-ranging professional journey. He got his big break working at “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” including the Peabody Awardwinning “Indecision 2000” presidential campaign coverage. He gave pop culture commentary on VH1’s “I Love the…” series, and was a correspondent on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Last year, he produced a documentary about voting in America, and he’s a frequent panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Not to mention, he’s contributed pieces to “CBS Sunday Morning” since 2006, getting promoted to correspondent in 2011 after developing a knack for quirky segments, such as tracing the origin of the word “OK.” A presidential history buff, Rocca has also done nearly 20 offbeat profiles of the nation’s commanders-in-chief.

Most recently, he visited Buffalo to take a look at the lesser-known No. 13 Millard Fillmore.

“I look at my career in television like going back to college and taking all electives,” he says.

Still, a common thread runs throughout his diverse gigs. “It’s about telling a story that will keep an audience riveted,” he adds. “It’s not that big a difference for me between ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Sunday Morning,’ believe it or not.”

That means he’ll do just about anything for a good story, whether it’s trying Double Dutch for a feature on jump rope, or turning a cartwheel while interviewing Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas. On “My Grandmother’s Ravioli,” sometimes the guests turn the table: In the show’s premiere episode, Scarsdale’s Ruth Teig sur78

Photograph by Thom Kaine.

prised Rocca with a live carp in her bathtub to illustrate how Jews in Europe would keep fish fresh before refrigeration was invented.

For Rocca, it’s not about stunts or making his subjects look silly. He has a warm-hearted approach, allowing each grandparent’s story to shine as they prepare a meal together. Teig, for instance, whipped up a traditional Shabbat dinner and explained that, as a Holocaust survivor, she truly appreciates the good things in life.

And although Rocca swears he’s paying attention as these little old ladies (and a few gentlemen) show him how to make plantains or paella, their lessons go beyond making a delicious dish.

“I wanted to meet the people and learn – forgive me, you’re going to gag on this line – but to learn the recipe for living,” he says.

A native of Washington, D.C., Maurice Rocca is the youngest of three boys born to his Italian-American father and Colombian-born mother. “Everyone thinks I’m a WASP, or Jewish,” he says. “No one suspects I’m halfLatin.”

Rocca was always a performer, however, starting out with song-and-dance roles in community theater as a kid. During the summers, he attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he befriended actress and Purchase College alumnus Parker Posey. “We were 16 years old, reading Stanislavsky,” he recalls.

He went on to Harvard University, where most of his time was spent with the renowned Hasty Pudding theatrical society. Rocca then made his way to New York, landing parts in the Southeast Asia tour of the musical “Grease” and the Paper Mill Playhouse’s “South Pacific.”

Yet after awhile, he felt his talents weren’t best suited to the stage.

“Lining up outside the (Actors’) Equity to audition for a revival of ‘Damn Yankees’ on Broadway, like I did in 1994, that really didn’t make that much sense for me,” Rocca says.

Instead, he turned to writing and producing for television, starting with the PBS children’s series, “Wishbone.”

Rocca credits his training on that program with landing “The Daily Show,” calling it “the perfect training camp.”

Now, after logging so many different performances over the years, Rocca doesn’t know what his job title should be. Satirist? “Kind of pretentious.” Humorist? “A little fuddy duddy.” TV personality? He used to call himself that, tongue-in-cheek, but “it’s just too cheeseball. I can’t do it anymore.”

Well, who would be a better career role model then – David Letterman or Dan Rather? After a moment, Rocca chooses CBS colleague and veteran journalist Charlie Rose.

“I don’t know if I could do the heavy lifting Charlie does, spending an hour talking to someone like (International Monetary Fund managing director) Christine Lagarde, but I admire that very much,” he says.

Then again, Charlie Rose hasn’t snuggled with strangers for a story about professional cuddlers, as Rocca did earlier this year. OK, he amends with a chuckle, “Charlie Rose with a dash of wacky. That’s my model.”

Mo Rocca appears at The Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road, 7:30 p.m, May 3. Tickets are $75. To order or for more information, call 203-438-5795 or visit ridgefieldplayhouse.org. n

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wine

& dine

From left, Maker’s Mark CEO Rob Samuels, Doug Paulding and glass artist Dale Chihuly under the newly commissioned art installation at the distillery in Loretto, Ky. Courtesy Maker’s Mark.

The native spirit Maker’s Mark is leading the blooming tradition of Kentucky bourbon

By Doug Paulding In the beautiful and bucolic setting that is Kentucky, where horses and history abound, where people address you as “sir” or “ma’am” and really mean it, where social courtesies are paramount and instilling manners in children is as expected as nourishing and clothing them, bourbon is booming.

The bourbon industry was alive and well for decades, if not centuries, but the current growth of bourbon sales is impressive. They have doubled in the last decade and it is anticipated will double again in the next decade, if not sooner. Recently, there have been more than $225 million in regional distillery capital improvements and expansions. In 1999, bourbon producers got together and created the bourbon trail modeled after Napa and Sonoma wine trails and Scotland’s Scotch whisky trail. In 2007, the United States Senate declared bourbon to be “America’s native spirit.” Bourbon production has been around since American Revolutionary times but “small batch,” “single barrel” and artisanal producers are fueling the growth of the entire industry.

The rules for bourbon production are rather simple. The mash, which is the fermenting product that becomes distilled into whisky, must be at least 51 percent derived from corn. It must be aged for at 80

least two years in new and charred oak barrels, and no artificial colors or flavors can be added. And it must be bottled between 80 and 160 proof, although most bourbons are bottled between 80 and 130 proof. Barrels can be used only once for bourbon production. The barrel aging process gives 100 percent of the color and 70 percent of the flavor.

Rob Samuels, the current CEO of Maker’s Mark bourbon, said, “A couple of decades ago bourbon makers could not imagine people from New York and Boston making the trip to Kentucky to taste their whisky.” Today, the bourbon trail is a very popular destination. Last year Maker’s Mark welcomed more than 120,000 people to their visitors’ center for a tour of the grounds and facilities, an explanation of the production process followed by a guided tasting.

On my recent trip to Maker’s Mark, Rob told me, “For generations, the T.W. Samuels distillery made whisky – bad whisky. My grandfather, Bill, failed as a banker, then failed as an automotive dealer. His wife Margie suggested he pick up the family trade of whisky production and take it to a higher level. Go for quality, not quantity.” So Bill burned the family recipe and set out to create a handmade, handcrafted whisky which would be soft,

full-flavored and well-made.”

He began by increasing the percentage of corn in the mash. He also used winter wheat rather than the more customary rye. Think of the difference between rye and wheat bread. The rye imparts a spicy bite to the whisky that Bill Samuels was trying to avoid. With no training in marketing, his wife designed the bottle, the label and insisted on the hand-dipped, dripping signature red wax that seals every bottle of Maker’s Mark. Rob told me, “The Maker’s Mark label is the only whisky label in the world designed by a woman.” In 1953 they bought 700 acres where they still produce all their whisky.

And Margie insisted on rolling some of the profits back into the property to make it “a place people would want to visit.”

Since its inception, Maker’s Mark employs small batch production methods, making just 19 barrels per run. Some producers make as many as 250 barrels per batch. The rickhouse, where the bourbon is barrel-aged, is several stories high. The barrels near the roof age considerably quicker than the ground-floor barrels.

Other producers blend the final product to try to get a consistently predictable flavor profile. Maker’s Mark rotates all of the barrels from high to middle to low throughout the six-year, five-month

average aging process. This very labor intensive approach gives a barrel-to-barrel flavor consistency. Because of Kentucky’s very hot summers and very cold winters, one year of oak aging in Kentucky is equal to four years of Scotland’s oak aging. Rob told me, “A 5-year-old bourbon is equal to a 22-year-old Scotch”.

So how do you mark the celebrated history and 60th anniversary of Maker’s Mark? Rob commissioned Seattle-based glass artist Dale Chihuly to create a unique, backlit, hand-blown ceiling in the visitors’ center barrel-aging room. It takes very little light to bring out the rich golden tones of an oak aging room. A couple of light bulbs can do the trick. The Chihuly ceiling, made of 1,300 individual pieces and assembled on site employing colors to represent different aspects of the production, is thoroughly mesmerizing and breathtaking.

Chihuly has his original pieces on display in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and has been a featured artist in the Musée du Louvre. This permanent display in Loretto, Ky., gives another compelling reason to visit Maker’s Mark. The Kentucky Derby, on the first Saturday in May, makes me think of bourbon. Look for the red wax seal. Make it a Maker’s!

Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com. n

wanders the

magnificent seven A tour of some of the world’s most beautiful gardens

By Cappy Devlin

The Summer Palace, Beijing, or the “Garden of Nurtured Harmony,” is one of the best-preserved imperial gardens in the world.

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The Nong Nooch Tropical Garden in Pattaya, Thailand, is a place where more than 2,000 daily visitors get acquainted with Thai culture and conservation.

When I was a child, my mother would take us each year to The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. We were in awe of seasonal collections like the Azalea Garden, with its scores of different azaleas and rhododendrons blooming in succession. And we loved looking up at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the remarkable Victorian-style glasshouse that takes you on an eco-tour of the world across the ages.

Now in my travels around the world, I always say to my host, “Take me to your most beautiful garden for a few hours.” Gardens to me are like sanctuaries, and walking through the gardens and park of the Château de Versailles re-energizes your spirit. Probably the world’s most famous gardens, they were built for Louis XIV and designed by André le Nôtre. The planning and landscaping required enormous work. Vast amounts of earth had to be shifted to lay out the flower beds, the Orangerie, the sculpted, mythological fountains and the canal, where previously only woods, grasslands and marshes existed.

The earth was transported in wheelbarrows and the trees were conveyed by

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cart from all the provinces of France, with thousands of men, sometimes whole regiments, taking part in this vast enterprise.

Butchart Gardens, located in British Columbia, are also among the crème de la crème, tapestries of saturated colors against a verdant green backdrop. It’s hard to tell what’s more breathtaking – the spectacular views or the 700 varieties of plants that fan out and bloom from March to October on Vancouver Island.

I’ve traveled throughout Japan and the Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto continues to beckon me, with its cherry blossoms and elegantly spare rock garden.

The temple is considered to be one of the most notable examples of the “dry landscape” style. Some say the Ryoanji temple garden is the quintessence of Zen art and perhaps the single greatest masterpiece of Japanese culture. The garden consists of an austere arrangement of 15 rocks that sit on a bed of white gravel. No one knows who laid out this garden, or precisely when, but it is today as it was yesterday and tomorrow it will be as it is today. Behind the

temple is a stone washbasin called tsukubai, said to have been contributed by the 17th century feudal lord Tokugawa Mitsukuni. It bears a simple but profound four-character inscription: “I learn only to be contented.”

The Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, the Netherlands offer an unprecedented wealth of stunning floral displays. The popular gardens are home to 7 million tulips, including special hybrids that have been or are being developed. Indeed, Keukenhof ’s pride and joy is the truly awe-inspiring Russian black tulip, named after the famous mystical hag, Baba Yaga.

Yu Garden (or Yuyuan Garden) in Shanghai was built more than 400 years ago during the Ming Dynasty in the traditional Chinese style, surrounded by dragon-lined walls, with numerous doorways and zigzagging bridges separating the various tree gardens, ponds and pavilions. (See story on Chinese gardens on page 18.) After creator Pan Yunduan’s death, Yuyuan, which means “Garden of Happiness,” fell into disrepair and later renovations were spoiled by several mid-19th century civil wars.

In 1956, Shanghai’s government rebuilt the garden, recovering its elegance and beauty. Yuyuan Garden was at last reopened to the public in 1961.

The Nong Nooch Tropical Garden in Pattaya, Thailand is popular among tourists because of its stunningly beautiful landscapes and marvelous views.

Everything there seems to be like a fairy tale, from the Thai-style houses to the villas, banquet halls, restaurants and swimming pools. Originally destined to be a 600-acre fruit plantation, Nong Nooch achieved its ultimate expression when owner and namesake Nongnooch Tansacha made a trip abroad and came back with a firm decision to create a tropical garden of ornamental plants and flowers. In 1980, it was opened to the public and got it official name, “Suan Nong Nooch.” Suan means “garden” – a place where more than 2,000 daily visitors can get acquainted with Thai culture and conservation.

For more, visit Cappy’s Travel at 195 N. Bedford Road, Mount Kisco.

Call 914-241-0383 or email Cappy@ travel-by-net.com. n

Ryoan-ji, Kyoto, is one of Japan’s most famous Zen gardens.

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chic choices Gifts and new products ideal for any occasion compiled by mary shustack

Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

FLOWER POWER, MOTHER-DAUGHTER STYLE Whether you wear them at some sunny vacation destination – or simply home from the salon after your pedicure – flip-flops are a go-to item of footwear, especially this time of year. Forget any thoughts of the flimsy old dime-store styles, though. Walking on Roses, a Putnam County-based company founded by Gail Fiero and her

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daughter Marlyse Minnich, above, offers quality footwear decorated with a rainbow of satin roses. The company was formed in order to offer women both comfort and style through a product custom-made by hand. Walking on Roses has clearly carved out its niche – the company is just celebrating its 10th anniversary. The name is

a nod to the mother-daughter team’s love of flowers, particularly the rose. And like blooms in the loveliest of gardens, Walking on Roses offers some 40 varieties to choose from in sizes for both women and girls. So pick a pair, from “Antique Lace” to “Cotton Candy,” “Creamsicle” to the signature, “Therese’s Garden” – or have fun on the

company site through its “Design Your Own” feature. Soles come in black and white (perfect for brides) and styles start at $32. In addition, a selection of styles is sold to benefit charitable causes, which gives you the chance to do good as you look good.

For more, visit walkingonroses.com.

1.

Photographs courtesy Tiger Lily’s.

Photograph courtesy The Aquaponic Source.

RESTFUL, PRACTICAL WATERS Close your eyes. Imagine the calming sounds of gently flowing water. Such restful waters don’t have to have just a single purpose, as Aquaponic Source shares. The Coloradobased company’s new Living Fountain series is designed to help those who want to grow their own plants year-round either indoors or right outside, perhaps on a patio.

The company’s new Ambiance series, shown here, includes the largest Living Fountain available. The hand-woven, weatherproof wicker creates a light, durable fountain that can hold 45 gallons of water. It’s perfect for a larger diversity of plants or those who want more fish. The fountains, available in chocolate or silver, are $795.

For more, visit theaquaponicsource.com.

2.

3.

INDOOR-OUTDOOR FLAIR

WAG was dazzled by the style of Samantha Knapp, whose family business, Tiger Lily’s, promotes savvy style through its Greenwich design studio and custom workshop (featured in WAG’s May 2013 issue). This month, Knapp has shared a selection of Tiger Lily’s newest one-of-a-kind custom creations that incorporate vintage finds. They’re “outdoor-friendly pieces,” designed, as she tells us, to “call on the old to celebrate the new.” We love the sound of that.

And here’s how Knapp describes the selections.

1. Vintage bar cart ($1,495) – “Stripped down to its original patina, the layers of paint protected this Victorian-style bar cart through the generations. Functional and stylish, the top is removable to act as a service tray and the wheels make movement easy for entertaining on lawn, poolside or on a patio.”

2. Ram’s head copper vase ($695) – “Symbol of strength with delicate carved details, this one-of-a-kind antique copper vase has a patina that only adds to its charm. Use as a planter or for fresh-cut garden flowers. The vase is a stunning centerpiece for outside dining.”

3. Bucket with horse bit ($395) – “Equestrian in nature, this aged wood, barrel-shape bucket features a unique leather strap with an ornamental bit. Used to carry or store horse grain or treats, the bucket is both functional and decorative. It can be used to store garden items, as a serving piece or a planter to make a statement.”

For more, visit tigerlilysgreenwich.com.

TASTES GOOD, DOES GOOD We’ve all been there. You try a healthy drink that may be good for you but it just doesn’t taste, well, very good. Don’t worry, though, when it comes to Youthy Forever.

This on-the-go thirst quencher is 100-percent natural, a non-GMO fruit juice made with pear, pineapple, passion fruit and prickly pear – and it tastes as delicious and refreshing as it sounds. Adding to the attraction – a bottle contains 30 mg of resveratrol, a natural antioxidant found in plants, and 40 mg of grape-seed extract, which has been recognized when it comes to heart health. A 10-ounce bottle of Youthy Forever sells for $3.49 in places such as Whole Foods Market. Stock up.

For more, visit youthyforever.com.

Photograph by Bob Rozycki

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chic choices

Photograph courtesy Sweet Jane Paperie.

COUTURE CORRESPONDENCE

Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

A near-religious experience A sip of Santa Teresa 1796 Rum might be likened to something spiritual. It’s transporting, an experience that takes you out of the everyday. WAG was introduced to the handcrafted sipping rum from Venezuela at the recent Architectural Digest Home Design Show in Manhattan. It certainly fit into the stylish surroundings. The awardwinning complex blend is aged first in American oak barrels from four to 35 years and further aged in French limousin oak barrels through the Solera process. Its promotional materials talk about “aromas of chocolate covered nuts and dried fruits. Fruity-yet-dry medium-full body fills the palate with a silky sensation of toasted wood with a long warming finish.” All we know is, we agree with its slogan: “Tasting is Believing.” Priced from $45 for the 750ml bottle.

For more, visit Santa Teresa Rum on Facebook or @SantaTeresaRum on TwitterInstagram.

for the gucci guy Gucci Made to Measure is said to be a fragrance “tailored to make a lasting impression.” Designed for the man who demands the best, this spicy Oriental fragrance is crafted from the finest ingredients that are layered like the most stylish of suits. (It’s Gucci, after all). Just listen to what’s gone into this blend – top notes of Calabrian bergamot, Tunisian orange flower, French lavender and anise seed combine with heart notes of Sri Lankan nutmeg, water lily, juniper berry, plum and cinnamon and base notes of Cistus Labdanum, patchouli, leather and amber for something truly unforgettable. And may we add that having James Franco as the face of Gucci’s male fragrances since 2008 doesn’t hurt either.

The 1.6-ounce eau de toilette is $68.

For more, visit macys.com.

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Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

In this day and age of texts and e-mails, there’s nothing like receiving a beautiful, handwritten note, and Sweet Jane Paperie has just the right touch and feel for that. A custom invitation and stationery studio, Sweet Jane Paperie creates luxurious handcrafted fabric notecards, richly textured papers with stitched edges that are stunning. Janine Serio Durso, a Larchmont-based entrepreneur and mother who founded Sweet Jane Paperie after years of creating custom invitations, refers to her cards as “Couture Correspondence” and hopes that her unique cards help to bring back the dying art of handwritten correspondence in a beautiful way. Certainly, Hollywood’s on board: Sweet Jane Paperie cards were included in the 2014 Academy Awards celebrity gift bags created by Hollywood Swag Bag. Sweet Jane Paperie note cards make wonderful gifts for any occasion – weddings, baby showers, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduations, promotions – while cards that are custom-ordered with names or initials make great personal stationery for all ages. The card sets – a box of 10 is $95 – come gorgeously boxed with a gift ribbon and bag. They’re ready to go.

For more, call 917-273-1009 or visit sweetjanepaperie.com.

– Ronni Diamondstein

PUTTING THE BEST FACE ON IT Was it the periwinkle sitting room with the soothing tea and the peacockdecorated walls? Or perhaps the oh-sovelvety skin-care products? Whatever it was, The Spa at Delamar (as in the Delamar Greenwich Harbor hotel) had us at “Hello.” We sampled the Prime Renewing Pack facial mask (the go-to product), the Body Time Control body nourishing cream and the Body Time Control hand nutritive treatment – all from Valmont, the Swiss skin-care company. These and other Valmont products are applied at the spa with Photograph courtesy The Spa at Delamar.

Valmont’s signature rhythmic, sweeping motion that mimics the structure and movement of a butterfly, at once relaxing and energizing the skin.

We also tried a variety of creams from the other line used at the spa, Biologique Recherche Paris, including Crème au Collagène Marin, with marine extracts for toning; Crème Aux Acides de Fruits, a renewing face cream; Crème VIP O2, an oxygenating face cream; and Masque Biosensible, a hydrating facial mask for sensitive skin.

The products were all light but luxurious to the touch, yet the proof was in a glowing complexion that put a smile on the face. Glow has its price, or prices, anywhere from $30 to $500 for Biologique products and $60 to $1,500 for Valmont. But why not let spa manager Barbara Aquino and her expert staff guide you through the choices? They’re at 500 Steamboat Road.

For more, visit delamargreenwich.com or call 203-413-3520.

– Georgette Gouveia

Photographs courtesy AeroPod.

EYE-CATCHING ARTISTRY Dean Jackson’s booth in the prestigious MADE section of the recent Architectural Digest Home Design Show in Manhattan was the place for double takes. His AeroPods were certainly creations making showgoers take a closer look. His trademarked designs, sparked by a visit to a 2002 classic car show, have been likened to both classic automobiles and Fabergé eggs. It’s a nod to both the streamlined designs and the luxurious materials (rich burl woods and decorative metals) the Toronto artist and furniture maker uses

to craft these “rolling treasures.” A limited-edition series of 49 sculptures, the AeroPods range in purpose from liquor cabinet to humidor to jewelry chest – and beyond, as custom orders are welcome (and Jackson has already fitted one model with a working waterfall). The AeroPods, which take some 200 hours to complete, come in colors such as British Racing Green, Ferrari Red and Alfa Romeo Blue. Prices start at approximately $20,000.

For more, visit aeropod.ca.

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when

& where THROUGH MAY 18

FRIDAY, MAY 2 – SUNDAY, MAY 4

French painter Jean-Francois Larrieu, exhibits his multicolored and multicultural mosaics. Canfin Gallery, 39 Main St., Tarrytown; 914-332-4554, CanfinGallery.com.

Spring Crafts at Lyndhurst returns to Tarrytown for its 30th year with more than 275 artists and artisans. Live music, specialty foods and children’s activities throughout the weekend. 635 S. Broadway, Tarrytown; 845-331-7900, artrider.com.

THROUGH MAY 26

Baseball Card Show – Buy, sell or swap at this popular sports memorabilia show, 2 to 8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Westchester County Center, 198 Central Ave., White Plains; 914-995-4050, countycenter.biz or nyshows.org.

“Black - White - Light: The Sun As Art: NASA Photographs” – Some 20 full-color, high-resolution images of the sun by Fairfield artist Rick Shaefer demonstrate the color spectrum of light. Stamford Museum & Nature Center, 39 Scofieldtown Road, Stamford; 203-977-6521, stamfordmuseum.org.

THROUGH JUNE 7

“Apulia, Then and Now” – A collection of rarely seen art, artifacts and photographs with a documentary, all centering on the culture and civilizations of Puglia in southern Italy. Westchester Italian Cultural Center, 1 Generoso Pope Place, Tuckahoe; 914-771-8700, wiccny.org.

THROUGH JUNE 21

“Pasture To Pond: Connecticut Impressionism,” Drawn from the permanent collection of the Bruce Museum, private collectors, area museums and the trade, this exhibition speaks to the quality and beauty of the perennially popular art of Impressionism. 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich; 203-869-0376, brucemuseum.org.

THROUGH NOV 30

Coinciding with its 65th anniversary and 2014 tour season, the Philip Johnson Glass House presents “Fujiko Nakaya: Veil,” the first site-specific artist project to engage the iconic Glass House itself. For approximately 10 minutes each hour, the Glass House will appear to vanish in a foggy mist, only to return as the fog dissipates.

199 Elm St., New Canaan; 203-594-9884, theglasshouse.org.

THURSDAY, MAY 1

It’s May Day and did you know that King Kong’s climbing post, the Empire State Building, first opened for business on this day in 1931?

SATURDAY, MAY 3

Silvermine School of Art 90th Anniversary Fundraiser – This year’s theme, “Roaring ’20s,” honors faculty members who have taught at Silvermine for more than 20 years. Dinner, live and silent auctions, casino games and dancing to the music of The Smoke Rings. 6 p.m., Silvermine Arts Center, 1037 Silvermine Road, New Canaan; 203-966-9700, silvermineart.org.

SPCA of Westchester’s Dog Walk and Pet Fair – Take your canine buddy on a scenic 2.5-mile walk. Then enjoy live music, food and refreshments, dog agility demonstrations, carnival games, face painting, caricature pictures and henna art. Register on site the day of the event, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at FDR State Park, 2957 Crompond Road, Yorktown Heights; 914-941-2896, spca914.org.

American Red Cross Red & White Ball —This year’s theme features “Designs for Hope” and “A Salute to Service.” Showcasing designer tabletops, dinner and dancing, live and silent auctions, black tie optional, 6 p.m., NetJets Hangar at the Westchester County Airport, 38 Loop Road, White Plains; 203-869-8444, redcross. org/MNYRedandWhiteBall.

The Harrison Players present “Open Mic Night.” $5 admission, 7:30 p.m., The Veterans’ Memorial Building, 210 Halstead Ave., Harrison; 914-698-4599, harrisonplayers.org.

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts welcomes Broadway star Rebecca Luker, performing Jerome Kern as part of the annual Cabaret in the Music Room benefit. A Champagne and dessert reception with Luker follows the performance, 8:30 p.m., Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah; 914-232-5035, caramoor.org.

“L.T.D.” - Livingston Taylor, Tom Chapin and the Jammin’ Divas – Folk legends Taylor, Chapin and the ladies of The Jammin’ Divas have formed a new folk group. The show features them singly as well. 7:30 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203438-6517, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

Audrey Hepburn, everyone’s favorite fashion icon and the personification of grace and sophistication, was born on this day in 1929.

The JCC of Westchester Gala celebrates 20 years of special needs programming and education and will include cocktails, buffet dinner (dietary laws observed), a silent auction and dancing. 7 p.m., Renaissance Westchester Hotel, 80 W. Oak Lane, West Harrison; 914-472-3300, ext. 302, jccmw.org.

Artist Studio Tour – Get an up-close look at more than 30 artists, artisans and mixed-media specialists. This event is free, with refreshments and entertainment, noon to 6 p.m., at the YOHO Artists Open Studios, 540 and 578 Nepperhan Ave., Yonkers; 718644-9604, yohoartists.com.

SUNDAY, MAY 4

The Canticorum Virtuosi 2014 Gala Benefit features cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, dining, a video presentation and live music by the Canticum Novum Singers and the Canticum Novum Youth Choir, 5 p.m., Le Chateau, 1410 Route 35, South Salem; 914-582-3912, cnssoprano@gmail.com.

MONDAY, MAY 5

Cinco De Mayo – It is a time of song, dance, partying and in general, a time to be proud to be Mexican or MexicanAmerican.

TUESDAY, MAY 6

On this day in Oxford, England, in 1954, 25-year-old Roger Bannister breaks track and field’s most challenging barrier – the 4-minute mile.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7

In the wee hours on this day in 1965 in a hotel room in Clearwater, Fla., a drowsy Keith Richards awoke, grabbed a tape recorder and recorded one of the greatest pop

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hooks of all time – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Apparently he did, because immediately after he fell back to sleep.

Jack Hanna, one of America’s most beloved naturalists, will recount his adventures and display a collection of live animal friends in two special appearances at The Maritime Aquarium. 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, 10 N. Water St.; 203838-5416, maritimeaquarium.org.

THURSDAY, MAY 8

Shaken not stirred: On this day in 1963, Sean Connery made his debut as James Bond in “Dr. No.” It was the first of his seven Bond movies.

46th Annual Salute to Seniors – The popular health and wellness fair with live entertainment also features more than 90 vendors and government agencies with products and services of interest to seniors and caregivers. Registration required by calling 914-8136416. Free admission and parking, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Westchester County Center, 198 Central Ave., White Plains; 914-995-4050, countycenter.biz.

Tour two historic properties, Reeves-Reed Arboretum and Greenwood Gardens: Visit 5.5 acres of formal gardens and a newly preserved formal Italianate garden and rustic stone teahouse. Includes lunch at Basilico’s, for which registration is required. Members $100, Nonmembers $125, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Garden Education Center of Greenwich, 130 Bible St., Cos Cob; 203-869-9242, gecgreenwich.org.

“Indulge, A Stylish Treat For Mothers”— Celebrate Mother’s Day in advance in style with beauty and fashion makeovers, cocktails, live music and a super chic swag bag giveaway. WAG editor Georgette Gouveia will be on hand, to autograph and read from her new novel, “Water Music,” 5 p.m., Center Court and throughout Retail Level 1, The Westchester, 125 Westchester Ave., White Plains; 914-421-1333, simon.com/mall/the-westchester.

Meet Italian artist and designer Ippolita Rostagno at her Neiman Marcus trunk show and find out why fashionistas covet the Ippolita look, 11a.m. to 3 p.m., Neiman Marcus, The Westchester, White Plains; 877-634-6269, neimanmarcus.com.

FRIDAY, MAY 9

The Glenn Miller Orchestra — The present version of Miller’s classic big band was formed in 1956 and has been touring consistently since, 8 p.m., Emelin Theatre, 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck; 914-698-0098, emelin.org.

Alison Wachstein, renowned photographer, will address the Westchester Photographic Society on “Garden Photography.” Free and open to the public, 8 p.m., Tech Building, Westchester Community College, 75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla; 914-827-5353, wpsphoto.org.

SATURDAY, MAY 10

On this day in 1977, legendary actress Joan Crawford dies in her Manhattan apartment. Reportedly, “no wire hangers” were found at the scene.

Celebrate spring at Teatown’s Plant Sale. Master-gardeners will be on-site to answer all of your planting questions. Free admission.

9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Teatown Lake Reservation, 1600 Spring Valley Road, Ossining; 914-762-2912, ext.110, teatown.org.

SUNDAY, MAY 11

Don’t forget to call your mother, because today is Mother’s Day. And if your mom is always on the move, Bicycle Sundays gets under way for the 2014 season from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. A portion of the Bronx River Parkway is closed to cars for the exclusive use of bicyclists, joggers, walkers, scooters and strollers. The course runs from the Westchester County Center in White Plains, south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, a round-trip of 13.1 miles, with many points of entry and exit along the way. Westchester County Center, 198 Central Ave., White Plains; 914-995-4050, county center.biz.

The classical chamber music series “Human Voices” presents a performance by the Rebel Ensemble for Baroque Music, with Les Voix

GREAT SHOWS!

80 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT • (203) 438-5795

RIDGEFIELDPLAYHOUSE.ORG

ROCK SERIES

A WHOLE NEW YOU SERIES

Women That Rock Fashion Show

Andy Grammer

A Benefit for Jane Doe No More, Inc.

BACK HOME SUMMER TOUR

Friday, May 16 at 7:30pm

Friday, June 27 @ 8PM

Underwritten by Adam Broderick Salon & Spa and FormFitting Fitness A fabulous girls night out! Featuring a fashion show with celebrity models, rock & roll couture by Lauren DiNardo and Speaker Donna Palombo, Founder of Jane Doe No More.

With hits “Keep Your Head Up”, “Fine By Me,” jubilant, “The Pocket,” “You Should Know Better”and more!

ROCK SERIES

Sheila E

Sunday, June 1 @ 8PM

The Queen of Percussion! With hit songs “Let’s Go Crazy,” and “Erotic City.”

ART, WINE & JAZZ SERIES Wine & cheese tastings and reception with local artist in the lobby @ 7:15pm

Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra Friday, May 23 @ 8PM

Grammy Nominated Ottmar Liebert has become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade!

Jonny Lang

Bernie Williams

The Grammy Award Winning sensation is back with his first studio album in seven years and he's sounding better than ever.

The legendary Yankees slugger and chart-topping guitarist returns! Meet & Greet tickets available!

Sunday, June 8 @ 8PM

Friday, June 6 @ 8PM

Joe Satriani

Tuesday, June 10 @ 8PM

With Marco Minnemann, Bryan Beller & Mike Keneally

With Special Guest SitDown Servant featuring Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar!

Cash is King

Friday, June 13 @ 8PM

CLARK CONSTRUCTION COMEDY SERIES

The Dan Band

Saturday, May 17 @ 8PM

A cult hit that has garnered rave reviews from The New York Times, The L.A. Times, and Rolling Stone and prompted Entertainment Weekly to name it "One of the hottest tickets in Hollywood."

Dana Carvey

The ultimate tribute show to Johnny Cash featuring the music and stories of Cash’s life with over 30 classic songs including “Folsom Prison Blues”, “I Walk The Line”, “Ring of Fire” and more!

The English Beat

Wednesday, June 18 @ 8PM

Don’t miss their only area performance!

A great night with Ska legends performing “Mirror in the Bathroom,” & “Save It For Later”.

Blue Öyster Cult

Saturday, June 21 @ 8PM

With Special Guest Doug Wahlberg Band

Best known for "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Burnin' for You" and "Godzilla".

Thursday, June 19 @ 8PM

Don’t miss this amazing night of stand up with one of the greatest comedians of all time!

Jim Breuer

Saturday, June 28 @ 8PM

Jim Breuer remains one of today’s top entertainers and continues to win over audiences with his off the-wall humor and lovable personality.

Nick DiPaolo

Saturday, August 2 @ 8PM

He’s a comics comic! He’s a regular on the Comedy Central Roasts, Howard Stern Show, Opie and Anthony, and was in the film “Beer League.”

when

& where SATURDAY, MAY 17

“The SPENCERS: Theatre of Illusion” – Not the usual hocus-pocus.

As the masters of a new type of magic theater, The Spencers have been named Performing Arts Entertainers of the Year six consecutive times for their feats of illusion, 8 p.m., Westchester Community College, Academic Arts Theatre, 75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla; 914-606-6262, sunywcc.edu/ smartarts.

The ninth annual Westchester/Rockland Walk4Hearing – Food, entertainment, children’s activities and educational and vendor information will be available.

Registration/check-in and pre-walk activities begin at 10 a.m., with walk at 11. FDR State Park, 2957 Crompond Road, Yorktown Heights; 914-960-4692, walk4hearing.org.

SATURDAY, MAY 17 - SUNDAY MAY 18

Humaines, viola da gamba duo, and Matthias Maute, recorder. Works by Telemann, J.S. Bach, Buffardin, Couperin and Sainte-Colombe. A fully catered Mother’s Day Champagne reception with the artists follows, 4 p.m., Bedford Presbyterian Church, Village Green (routes 72 and 122), Bedford; 914-734-9537, rebelbaroque.com.

TUESDAY, MAY 13

The American Cancer Society Westchester Invitational Golf Tournament – The day starts with brunch for all golfers, followed by a round of golf. After play, there will be a dinner buffet and cocktails, as well as a silent auction. $1,250 per golfer or $5,000 per foursome. Hudson National Golf Club, 40 Arrowcrest Drive, Hudson; 845-440-2521, westchesterinvitationalgolf.org.

The annual New York City Fashion Ball, a signature event of the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB), raises funds while celebrating extraordinary people in the fashion industry. Cocktails, silent auction, dinner and awards, 6 p.m., The Plaza Hotel, 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; 212-244-1470, blindness.org.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14

He did it his way… the chairman of the Board, Francis Albert Sinatra, died on this day in 1998 at the age of 82.

Camera Club at the Mount Kisco Library – Professional photographers visit and offer monthly critiques. Bring a photo you love, your camera and the user manual. No experience is needed, free program open to all, 4 p.m., 100 E. Main St.; 914-666-8041, mountkiscolibrary.org.

THURSDAY, MAY 15

On this day in 1973, California Angels ace and future Hall of Famer, Nolan Ryan pitched his first of seven no-hitters, this one against the Kansas City Royals. (That’s 12 strikeouts and three walks.)

“BOOKED for the Evening: Nile Rodgers at the Westport Library” – Grammy award-winning musician, producer, composer, arranger, philanthropist and writer will receive the Westport Library Award at the annual gala, 7 p.m., 20 Jesup Road, Westport; 203-291-4824, westportlibrary.org.

Grammy Award-winning rock legend Boz Scaggs showcases both original songs and choice covers along with selections from his new album, “Memphis,” 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203-438-6517, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

FRIDAY, MAY 16

The 15th annual ARTSBASH – Featuring artistic and culinary offerings from local artists and restaurants, the event previews ArtsWestchester’s new exhibit, “STE(A)M.” With open artist studios.

Tickets: $75, 6 p.m., 31 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains; 914428-4220, artsw.org/artsbash.

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The Bruce Museum’s Outdoor Crafts Festival – More than 80 juried exhibitors specializing in ceramics, jewelry, wood, wearable and decorative fiber, metalwork, leather, paper arts and glass will exhibit and sell their work. With children’s activities, international cuisine and live musical performances on both days. Admission: $8 for adults; free for members and children under 5, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, 203-869-0376, brucemuseum.org.

SUNDAY, MAY 18

On this day 2012, Facebook raises $16 billion in the largest IPO in history.

“The Wailers – 30th Anniversary of Legend Tour With Special Guest Makua” – Featuring former bandmates of reggae icon Bob Marley, the Wailers continues its worldwide campaign of promoting peace, love and equality through the message of reggae and Rastafari. 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203438-6517, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

Join WAG editor Georgette Gouveia at The Lionheart Gallery for a light brunch, book-signing and reading from her new novel, “Water Music,” 12:30 to 5 p.m., 27 Westchester Ave.,Pound Ridge; 914-764-8689, thelionheartgallery.com.

The Clear View School’s first 5K Run/Walk for Kids – Race time 9 a.m., rain or shine. Special guest events announcer will be Tom Furci from WHUD (100.7FM). Joseph G. Caputo Community Center, 95 Broadway, Ossining; 914-941-4653, ClearviewSchool5K.com.

MONDAY, MAY 19

On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded in the Tower of London for alleged adultery, incest and witchcraft.

United Way’s “Day of Golf” Outing and Dinner – Enjoy a day of golf, dining, prizes and an auction. Proceeds will help United Way of Westchester and Putnam. Individual golfer: $400. Foursome: $1,350. Starts at noon, Westchester Hills Golf Club, 401 Ridgeway, White Plains; 914-997-6700, ext. 732, uwwp.org/golf.

“Books and Cooks, A Literary Feast” – The Greenburgh Public Library Foundation presents a literary tour of the library and an opportunity to meet local authors, purchase their books and sample food prepared by chefs from local restaurants, 6 p.m., Greenburgh Public Library, 300 E. Main St., Elmsford; 914-266-0624, greenburghlibraryfoundation.org.

TUESDAY, MAY 20

On this day in 1927, Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island on the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. He lands in Paris 33.5 hours later (with some serious jet lag).

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21

On this day in Washington, D.C. in 1881, the American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons, bringing comfort and hope to millions ever since.

Wine, WAG and Wilton’s “Woman of Steel” — The Delamar Greenwich Harbor welcomes equestrian sculptor Marcia Spivak for a solo show, 6 to 8 p.m., 500 Steamboat Road, Greenwich; reserve by May 15th to Djevarjian@thedelamar.com.

THURSDAY, MAY 22

Elementary my dear Watson: On this day in 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, is born in Scotland.

National Theatre Live in HD: “King Lear”– Academy Awardwinner Sam Mendes directs Shakespeare’s tragedy of misguided love. 6:30 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203-4386517, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

FRIDAY, MAY 23

On this day in 1934, wanted outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (aka Bonnie and Clyde) are shot to death by police officers as they attempt to escape in a stolen 1934 Ford Deluxe near Bienville Parish, La.

SATURDAY, MAY 24

In 1883, after 14 years of construction and 27 deaths in the process, the Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn for the first time.

SUNDAY, MAY 25

May the Force be with you: On this day in 1977, the film “Star Wars” opens to cosmic success in a galaxy far, far away.

Hike to the top of Bald Mountain and back from Teatown Lake Reservation. Look for emerging signs of spring along the way. Bring lunch, water and wear appropriate footwear for a moderate hike with one steep climb. Adults only. Pre-registration required. 9:30 a.m., 1600 Spring Valley Road, Ossining; 914-762-2912, ext. 110, teatown.org.

MONDAY, MAY 26

On this day in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula crawled out of his coffin and onto the shelves of London bookshops. The undead haven’t been the same since.

It’s the national observance of Memorial Day (which is actually May 30). The unofficial start of summer is a time to remember the servicemen and women who gave their lives for this country.

TUESDAY, MAY 27

I left my heart in San Francisco or maybe in Marin County: The Golden Gate Bridge opened on this day in 1937.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28

Much to delight of Beetle lovers everywhere, the Volkswagen company is formed in Germany on this day in 1937. Fahrvergnügen!

THURSDAY, MAY 29

“The Diamond Gala – Passport to Hope Gala” – The American Cancer Society Diamond Gala brings business and philanthropic leaders across Westchester together for an evening to raise funds for cancer research and patient services. Event features casino games, cocktails, a sit-down dinner, a silent auction and more, 6 p.m., Brae Burn Country Club, 39 Brae Burn Drive, Purchase; 845-4402521, diamondgala.org.

FRIDAY, MAY 30

Joan of Arc, who drove the English from French soil, is burned at the stake for alleged heresy on this day in 1431 in France.

“How Alfo Learned to Love Women” – A staged reading of a play about love, life and death, 6:30 p.m., Westchester Italian Cultural Center, 1 Generoso Pope Place, Tuckahoe; 914-771-8700, wiccny.org.

SATURDAY, MAY 31

Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen’s Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament, Palace of Westminster, London, for the first time on this day in 1859.

PATTI LUPONE & MANDY PATINKIN © Brigitte Lacombe

BRANFORD MARSALIS © Ryan Anderson

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY © Paul B. Goode

Create-Your-Own and Fixed Series Subscriptions are now on sale.

Subscribe today and save up to 20%!

KEITH LOCKHART/ BBC ORCHESTRA © Stu Rosner

2014 • 2015 ORCHESTRAS The Czech Philharmonic • 11/15 • 8pm Orpheus Chamber Orchestra • 11/30 • 3pm The Knights with Béla Fleck • 1/31• 8pm Academy of St Martin in the Fields 3/26 • 8pm BBC Concert Orchestra • 4/25 • 8pm GREAT PERFORMERS Edgar Meyer, double bass • 12/14 • 3pm Cameron Carpenter, organ • 1/24 • 8pm Midori, violin • 2/14 • 8pm

DAVID SEDARIS © Hugh Hamrick

CHAMBER MUSIC CMS of Lincoln Center • 10/25 • 5pm CMS of Lincoln Center • 11/22 • 5pm CMS of Lincoln Center • 12/6 • 5pm Decoda • 2/15 • 3pm JACK Quartet • 4/12 • 3pm Conservatory Chamber Players • 5/10 • 3pm

MIDORI © Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

SELECTED SINGLES Branford Marsalis • 9/27 • 8pm Mike Birbiglia • 10/2 • 8pm An Afternoon with David Sedaris • 10/12 • 3pm Preservation Hall Jazz Band • 10/24 • 8pm Suzanne Vega• 11/7 • 8pm Rob Mathes Holiday Show• 12/19 & 12/20• 8pm Handel’s Messiah • 12/20 • 2pm Danú • 3/7 • 8pm Natalie Merchant and The PSO • 3/20 • 8pm The Klezmatics • 3/22 • 3pm Sing-A-Long Sound Of Music • 4/18 • 8pm Patti Lupone & Mandy Patinkin • 5/2 • 8pm

THEATRE Martha Clarke’s Chéri • 9/28 • 3pm* Basetrack • 11/22 • 8pm Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre • 2/3 • 8pm FAMILY Black Violin • 10/19 • 3pm Compagnie Käfig • 3/21 • 8pm* Sing-A-Long Sound Of Music • 4/19 • 3pm DANCE Suzanne Farrell Ballet • 12/7 • 3pm Paul Taylor Dance Company • 2/28 • 8pm Rioult Dance NY• 5/3 • 3pm *also part of the Dance Series COMPAGNIE KÄFIG © Michel Cavalca

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w’reel deal

Plucking the summer movies

By Sam Barron

I

t’s that time of the year. Where we get three months of sequels, reboots and a lot of stuff blowing up. Some movies will be smash hits and there will be one big flop that we all get to point and laugh at. Here’s what’s coming:

May:

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”: (Editor’s note: Sam is contractually obligated to talk about Andrew Garfield in his column.)

“The Amazing Spider-Man” was fun, albeit completely unnecessary. In the Sam Raimi series, “Spider-Man 2” was the best of the series, so here is hoping for the same with “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” Sony better hope this is a hit: The company already has “The Amazing Spider-Man 4” scheduled!

“Godzilla”: I will confess that 14-yearold Sam loved the “Godzilla” with Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria. Fourteen-year-old Sam was an idiot, though the soundtrack (which I proudly own) is awesome. There is hope for this version of “Godzilla,” however. It’s directed by Gareth Edwards, who did “Monsters,” a fun low-budget sci-fi movie and this has a killer cast highlighted by Elizabeth Olsen and Bryan Cranston. We just have to find a Led Zeppelin song for Puff Daddy to sample.

“X-Men: Days Of Future Past”: This movie is basically the characters everyone liked in the original “X-Men” series with the characters everyone liked in the “XMen” prequel. Confused? I am, too, so don’t worry. But the X-Mansion is located in North Salem, which is amazing. When I saw “X-Men: First Class,” I freaked. Jennifer Lawrence is in this. I would say Jennifer Lawrence makes everything better, but I don’t want this to come off like an article for BuzzFeed.

June:

“22 Jump Street”: Now we’re talking!

“21 Jump Street” was a lot of fun, one of my favorite movies of 2012, and part of The Year of Channing Tatum. He was in six movies in the span of a year. I saw all of them. I don’t know what that means. This movie also stars two-time Oscar nominee Jonah Hill, which still doesn’t make sense.

“How to Train Your Dragon 2”: More sequels that might not suck! What made the first one great was how differ92

Scarlett Johansson in “Lucy” is sure to heat up the dog days of August. Photograph courtesy Universal.

ent it was compared with other DreamWorks Animation movies. While it was funny and featured the usual talking animals, the movie had genuine heart and you actually cared about the characters.

While I enjoy DreamWorks’ movies, it’s a shame the company hasn’t been able to reach those heights since. I look forward to seeing what DreamWorks can do with “Dragon 2.”

“Jersey Boys”: I am required by law to see every Clint Eastwood movie, but I don’t like musicals. So now I’m torn.

“Transformers 4: Age Of Extinction”: I hate the “Transformers” movies.

They are loud, incomprehensible, stupid and every other negative adjective you can think of. Swapping out Shia LaBeouf for Mark Wahlberg isn’t going to change all that. Don’t see this, please.

July

“Dawn of The Planet of the Apes”: So many sequels. “Rise of The Planet of the Apes” ended up being a big sleeper hit in 2011, so I’m excited to see what they come up with for the second one. I’m disappointed Rupert Wyatt, who directed “Rise,” will not be returning, as he did an excellent job. Matt Reeves takes over, having directed “Let Me In,” which was inexplicably ignored in 2010. I have faith he’ll do a good job.

“Jupiter Ascending”: More Channing Tatum. Does this guy ever take a vacation?

This is directed by the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana), who did “The Matrix” and “Cloud Atlas,” which I thought was underrated. Their films may not always be good, but they will give you something original and visually spectacular. Plus, it’s an honest to God original summer 2014 flick.

August

“Guardians of the Galaxy”: Guardians is the latest Marvel superhero movie.

It’s also the only movie to feature Zoe Saldana, Benicio Del Toro, Dave Bautista and Bradley Cooper voicing a raccoon. It’s directed by James Gunn, whose career I’ve been following since “Slither” came out.

He used to be married to Jenna Fischer (Pam from “The Office”) at the height of my “Office” obsession and back when MySpace was a thing, he would regularly blog and interact with fans. So it’s really cool to see him hit it so big, even if he and Pam are divorced.

“Lucy”: Luc Besson is one of my favorites – a French writer/director/producer who releases fun, dumb action movies.

He’s the man behind the “Transporter” series and “Taken.” He should have a statue built in his honor.

Now he’s doing one of these movies with Scarlett Johansson in the lead role? Oh, I’m

so there. I’m the guy who liked “Colombiana” (another Luc Besson movie).

“The Expendables 3”: Fun fact: Over the past year, I’ve seen nine movies starring people from “The Expendables.”

Like I said, turn-off-your-brain shoot ’em ups are my ultimate guilty pleasure.

“The Expendables 3” somehow stars every person on the planet. Besides the usual suspects like Sly, Arnold and Statham, this adds Mel Gibson, Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes. Plus, Kelsey Grammer? I don’t know, when I think of an action hero, Frasier Crane doesn’t come to mind.

“The Giver”: “The Giver” is one of my favorite books of all time, I still remember our teacher reading it to us in sixth grade.

Please don’t screw this up guys!

“Sin City: A Dame To Kill For”: The original “Sin City” was one of my favorite movies when it was released in 2005.

It was around the height of my Quentin Tarantino obsession (he directed one scene) and I loved how stylishly nasty the movie was. I was eagerly anticipating a sequel.

That was nine years ago. Now? I’ll see this, but I’ll never understand why Hollywood would even bother. Robert Rodriguez hasn’t really done anything in years. I should’ve been discussing this in my 2007 Summer Movie Preview. n

Since 1975

PRUTTING & COMPANY CUSTOM BUILDERS, LLC 70 Pine Street, New Canaan CT

Whether it is Remodeling or New Construction...

Call Us for Your Special Projects

P 203.972.1028

F 203.966.8471

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Pet of the Month Earl’s a pearl.

This gem of a pure-bred Miniature Pinscher, weighing in at just about 10 pounds, is a nice, low-key dog – a very mellow fellow as he is about 10 years old. All he wants is a warm, cozy place to call home. He loves just sitting on your lap and being petted, a true couch potato.

Still, Earl enjoys a garden romp now and then, as this pic (thank you, Millwood Garden Center and Nursery) attests. He’d be a great addition to any type of family looking for a lowmaintenance dog.

To meet Earl, visit the SPCA of Westchester at 590 N. State Road in Briarcliff Manor.

Please note: The SPCA does not accept deposits, make appointments or reserve animals for adoption even if it has spoken about a particular dog or cat with you. It’s always firstcome, first-served among applicants, pending approval. The SPCA is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m.

Sundays. To learn more, call 914-941-2896 or visit spca914.org. n

Pet Portraits

Jenet and Nicholas Ferris share their Peekskill home with Mooch, a lab and pitbull mix who hails from Puerto Rico. Jenet says they didn’t rescue him, “He rescued us!”

Mooch, who turns 4 years old July 20, is known for his lovable attitude that he serves up with innumerable kisses.

If you would like to share a family pet portrait with us, please send it to dee@westfairinc.com.

Please include names and pertinent information.

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Elegance and Modern Luxury

This home, one of Westchester's majestic manors, is a retreat of solitude and beauty with spectacular distant views of the country side. The shingle style Colonial residence is offered on 15+ acres, and is surrounded by additional 150 acres of nature conservancy, making it one of the most private properties in the area.

6,800 square feet include custom designed interiors amidst the highest standard of aesthetics and craftsmanship. A beautifully appointed first floor master suite is only one of the many features that makes this home the ultimate environment for gracious living and entertaining.

For more information about this South Salem, NY masterpiece,please call Lia Grasso at 914-584-8440 or email her at lia@liagrasso.com

watch Author, author!

It was a special night for WAG as editor Georgette Gouveia celebrated the launch of her novel “Water Music” as part of “A Night of Beauty” at Bloomingdale’s in White Plains.

Guests enjoyed shopping for makeup; bubbly; nibbles from 42 the Restaurant, also a White Plains fixture; a reading from the book; a DJ spinning its “soundtrack;” and a raffle in which Joan Carra – psychic-in-residence at Wainwright House in Rye – won a copy (naturally).

Photographs by Bill Fallon.

1. Arif Boysan and Cappy Devlin 2. Carol Stevens 3. Sarah Bracey White 4. Georgette Gouveia 5. Joan Carra

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Yum @ the YMCA

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The White Plains branch of the YMCA hosted its annual “Westchester Culinary Experience” at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains. Some 275 people attended the event, which netted more than $33,000 for the YMCA’s annual campaign. The evening featured specialty dishes from some of the area’s best restaurants, paired with wines specially selected by Zachys in Scarsdale.

Photographs by Gail Simring.

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6. Bill Macintosh 7. Debbie Duncan and Kathy DeSilva 8. Eric Hammermeister, Margaret Chase and Cindy Rubino 9. Mike Shaw and Peter Kelly 8

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All identifications are from left unless otherwise noted.

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Saucy Realtor

Jackie Ruby – a leading Raveis Realtor whose culinary skills were featured in WAG’s February “Female Power” issue – showed why she’s the hostess with the mostest at a recent dinner at her home in Waccabuc. Guests, including WAG publisher Dee DelBello and her husband, Al, were treated to an incredible array of appetizers, including almond-stuffed mushrooms steamed in herbed-beef wine broth and Tuscan-poached shrimp with fennel. Crumbled sausage with white wine sauce over cavatelli and vodkainfused herb-crusted filet mignon complemented the fresh chopped tomato, onion and avocado salad. Homemade lemoncella topped off a fun night of food and friendship.

Photographs by Douglas Ruby.

1. Alex Goldman 2. Bob Pargament, Linda Wolfe, Maritza Hunter, Frank Schneiger 3. Dee DelBello and Jackie Ruby 4. Doug Ruby, Valentino and Kris Ruby 5. Al DelBello 6. Place setting 7. Avocado and watermelon radish salad 8. Mozzarella, basil and Pinot Grigio salami 9. Poached shrimp with fennel 10. Walnut stuffed mushrooms

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watch What’s up, docs?

John K. Castle and John J. Connolly, hosted the ninth annual National Physician of the Year Awards at a ceremony held at The Pierre hotel in Manhattan. The National Physician of the Year Awards recognize both physicians and leaders in health care who have improved the lives of people throughout the world.

Photographs by Patrick McMullan.

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1. John Connolly, Victor Fazio, Susan Bressman, Mehmet and Lisa Oz, Michael Saag, Catherine deVries, Hagop Kantarjian and John K. Castle 2. David Bressman 3. Carolyn Fazio 4. Bruce Katz and Sherrell Aston 5. Patrizia and Steve Salvatore 6. Alma Kombargi 7. Amy and Michael Saag 8. Scott Lucas 9. Ingrid Connolly and Jordan Josephson 2

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Leaning in

More than 30 women – and a few men – were all ears as WAG’s Dr. Erika Schwartz talked about bioidentical hormones – made from soy and yam extracts to replace low or missing sex hormones. In a lively Q&A, Dr. Erika discussed the role these play in her Manhattan practice, in anti-aging, in preventive medicine and in overall wellness.

Photograph by Robin Costello.

10. Patricia Meller, Katy Coppinger and Dr. Erika Schwartz

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Hats off…

To the Village of Ossining Public Art Project, Hannah and Walter Shmerler, The New Choral Society, the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, the Music Therapy Institute of the Music Conservatory of Westchester and the Yorktown High School Dance Company – who were honored at ArtsWestchester’s recent 2014 Arts Awards luncheon. It was a delightful event at the Marriott Westchester in Tarrytown for which most of the 350 guests donned hats, tipping those chapeaus to the arts organization’s “HATtitude” exhibit.

CBS 2 correspondent Tony Aiello emceed the festivities, which brought a touch of Derby Day millinery to Westchester.

Photographs by Lesley Smith.

1. Back row: Karin Meyers, Sandy Mehl, Judith Schwartz, Harriet Rader, Barbara Elliot. Front row: Judy Chriss, Jacqueline Walker, Lee Katz 2. Maureen Hanagan, Jeff Haydon and Victor Marrow 3. Back row: Richard Leins, Thomas Warren, Mark Sarazen, Mark Sadan, Christina Papes. Front row: Valerie Monastra, Dale Ferreira, Lori Lee Dickson 4. Janet Langsam 5. Lisa Shaub

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Photographs by Robin Costello.

6. Kathleen Reckling 7. Fani Miller-Beard 8. Jerome and Lois Harris Parmet 9. Seth Soloway and Shaunice Jordan 10. Tony Aiello 11. Elaine Klausman and Jamie Shenkman 12. Andrea StewartCousins

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watch A moveable feast

More than 350 guests turned out at the Westchester Country Club for the 29th annual “Great Chefs” event, in support of Community Health at Greenwich Hospital.

The event honored three accomplished young chefs – Rui Correia of Douro, Christian Petroni of Fortina and Adam Truelove of Napa & Co. Participants from more than 50 eating, catering and beverage establishments in WAG country provided samplings of their delicious products.

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1. Christian Petroni, Frank and Maura Corvino, Adam Truelove, Mary Jane DaPuzzo, Rui Correia and Peter DaPuzzo 2. Deanne and Habib Jamal 3. Dana Marnane and Bruce Savage 4. Johnny Steverson and Jason Richter 5. Amanda Smith and Federico Perez 6. Monique Boamah, Caitlin See and Tamber Weiersheuser 7. Herb Lindstrom, Melissa Iscaro, Carol Chang and Chris Baldasaro

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A spring thing

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Community Answers (a Greenwich United Way program) hosted its 10th annual “Swing into Spring” fashion show and silent auction at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich. More than 60 children and adults took a turn on the runway to model spring clothes graciously provided by local merchants. A silent auction raised funds for the organization, which helps those in need in the community.

8. Kristina Harrison-Lee 9. Olivia and Sophia Holm 10. Radhika Patel and Meera Ayyampully 11. Sonal Khichadia and Chitra Shanbhogue

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Celebrating business women

It was standing room only at 1133 Westchester Ave. atrium in White Plains for the Women Making an Impact event April 3 hosted by the Westchester County Business Journal. More than 40 women representing all sorts of businesses selected by Business Journal readers, and six top execs, selected by the Business Journal editors received awards. The keynote speaker was Nancy Armstrong, a producer of the documentary “Makers: Women Who Make America.”

Photographs by Bob Rozycki 1. Carol Bauer, Holly DeBartolo and George Bauer 2. Robin Ely, Marion Roth and Valerie Jensen 3. Linda Jamieson and Jill Ratner 4. Connie, Susan, Gina and Barbara Cappelli 5. Nancy Armstrong 6. Allyson Spellman and Benay Rubin 7. Joanie Dinowitz and Daryll Moss 8. Alexandra Schembri and Sofia Blair 9. Francesca Pereira, Carolyn Clemenza and Christine Tolli 10. Sonia Young and Christina Rae 11. Dr. Sabrina Magid-Katz and Kris Ruby 12. Craig Thomas and James McLoughlin 13. Bonnie and Karl Hagen 14. Suzie Scanlon, Lisa Barrett, Allison Stockel, Lauren DiNardo, Julie Paltauf and Christine O’Leary 15. Karen Fischer and Cynthia Shea

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Mah Jong anyone?

White Plains Hospital recently hosted “Mah Jong & Martinis” in The Sky Lounge at The Ritz-Carlton, Westchester in White Plains. Wendy Berk of Scarsdale chaired the event and Susan Fox, president of the hospital, spoke to the attendees about its growth in recent years and the many changes happening in health care.

4. Annette Cappucci, Wendy Berk , Susan Fox and Susan Yubas 5. Gail Wisenfeld, Geralyn Della Cava, Nancy Clarvit and Judy Gilberg

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KMA loves the USA

The crowds at Katonah Museum of Art were bursting with patriotic pride – of the most aesthetic kind – at the “First Look” party for “Jasper Johns & John Lund: Masters in the Print Studio.” KMA celebrated with a curated tasting of wines, beers and spirits all made in the USA. Photographs by Margaret Fox. 1. Tara Coniaris, Buddy Mantia, Barbara Feldon, Marilyn Glass and Darsie Alexander 2. Pamela Salvatore, Vanessa Smith and Leslie Needham 3. Mary Dinallo and Andrew and Julie Meikle

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Woman power

The Greenwich Chamber of Commerce hosted its “Women Who Matter” luncheon recently at Barcelona Restaurant, celebrating successful businesswomen who contribute to the community. About 70 people attended the networking event, which featured guest speaker Kendra Farn, the Emmy Award-winning former CBS News correspondent.

6. Dr. Paul Lowe, Marcia O’Kane and Kendra Farn

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Psyched up

More than 30 members of the Westfield chapter of Meetings Planners International gathered at the Crowne Plaza in White Plains to hear clinical and sports psychologist John F. Murray discuss key principles to having a successful career.

The author of “Smart Tennis” showed the group how to apply techniques he has used with athletes to the business model.

7. Jacqueline Tornell and Kevin O’Connor 8. Heather Hansen O’Neill, John F. Murray, Laura Zap and Mozelle Goodwin

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Cocktails for a cause

The Fairfield/Westchester Chapter of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation held its annual “Cocktails for the Cause” fundraiser atThe Ritz-Carlton, Westchester in White Plains. Jenna Wolfe of NBC’s “Weekend Today” show was mistress of ceremonies.

The event, honoring Greenwich’s Marilyn Chinitz, raised more than $600,000.

9. Jenna Wolfe, Marilyn Chinitz and Karen Rosenthal

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A Rolando bouquet

Rolando Santana may have branched out into bridal and eveningwear. But it was the daywear that has made him a fashion darling that was on display during his recent trunk show at Neiman Marcus, The Westchester in White Plains. Asymmetrical dresses in orchid, the Pantone color of the year; bright yellow creations; lacy white affairs that belied the sculpted Santana style; and ladylike, sleeveless creations with splashes of blue (giving orchid a run for its money this season) – all spoke of the designer’s flirty, feminine, fun signature. Best of all, 10 percent of the sales during the show went to the Simon Youth Foundation.

Photographs by Bob Rozycki.

1. Models show off Rolando Santana’s latest fashions.

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Major achievers

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Some 150 persons gathered at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown for the Junior Achievement of the Hudson Valley Inc. Spirit of Achievement Awards Dinner. Board member and Verizon executive Christopher Levendos was emcee. James F.X. Steets, who retired in January as spokesman for Entergy, the parent company of the Indian Point nuclear facility, was honored as the Business Journal’s Overachiever of the Year. Business Journal editor Bill Fallon wrote and recited a poem titled “Lights, Please” in his honor.

2. Tom Heaney, June Welsh, Sharon Gorman, Patti Ianuzzi, Shakima Marshall and Stefanie Mayo 3. Marie and Jim Steets 4. Jim Fosina and wife Marina DiDomenico with colleagues 5. Davis John Abraham and Linda Abraham

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Want to be in Watch? Send event photos, captions (identifying subjects from left to right) and a paragraph describing the event to rcostello@westfairinc.com.

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wit wonders: How do you stop to smell the roses?

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“We like to take time to stop and smell the “I go for long runs. I spend time with loved roses – and orchids – every spring with a visit ones, and I like to go out for dinner.” to The New York Botanical Garden. And we’re – Brooke Jaffe, delighted that our rough-and-tumble 11-yearoperating vice president old twins love to visit NYBG as well.” and fashion director, Bloomingdale’s, – Tony Aiello, New York City resident CBS 2 correspondent, New Rochelle resident “I relate that to art. I do multimedia 3-D collages. I gather many fine materials to create “I’m the fashion fan of my circle of friends, so one-of-a-kind pieces.”

I love to see what’s new in the fashion world.

– Fani Miller-Beard, I get my release through fashion. I’m always FAMB Collage Art, interested in what they’re coming out with.

Mount Vernon resident – Megan Cook, auditor, OdysseyRe, “To be honest with you, I love my work so White Plains resident much that I’m busy helping people take time to smell the roses. You have to learn to relax “Going up to SUNY Purchase to hear classical within your work. But you’re right: You have concerts.” to take a break, too. I like to get away, take – Barbara Dannenberg, time to go to Disney with the kids or watch a Purchase resident movie.”

– John F. Murray, “Sit outside with a cup of tea on the deck, clinical and sports psychologist, looking at the flowers.”

Palm Beach, Fla., resident – Stephanie Dolan, co-op assistant, MAXX Properties, “I make sure to do it on a daily basis. We all need Croton-on-Hudson resident to recharge our batteries. I add play and get outside and exercise, turn on some music and dance.

It doesn’t hurt that I have three energetic boys who are there to help me smell the roses.”

– Heather Hansen O’Neill, director of education, Meetings Planners International, Danbury resident

“It’s because we’re in retirement and we find ourselves busier than ever that we forget to stop and smell the roses – except for brief vacations.”

– Lois Harris Parmet, Scarsdale resident “I like to take a walk. … Just to go outside and smell the roses literally and find a green space.”

– Kathleen Reckling, gallery director, ArtsWestchester, White Plains resident “I try to find one hour a day to set aside. I go for a walk around the hotel, one block. It kind of relaxes me.”

– Jennifer Vincent, catering manager, Hyatt Regency Greenwich “I make a hat. It’s my favorite thing to do. With every season there’s a new hat to be made. …

Hats bring a smile to people’s faces.”

– Barbara Volker, Barbara J. Volker Millinery, Manhattan resident

Compiled by Georgette Gouveia. Contact her at ggouveia@westfairinc.com.

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Legend of the

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