BUNNY MELLON STYLE

BUNNY MELLON STYLE

Bunny in her Sunday kitchen, an informal setting where she cooked and enjoyed views of her garden.

Thomas Lloyd © 2021

Bunny Mellon Style is an intimate story of one of the most unintentionally influential women of twentieth-century design. It reveals how her style developed with a look inside the family homes she designed and offers the flavor of her collaborations with French designers of fashion and jewelry, and infinite and extensive inspiration on the world of design. Written by her grandson Thomas Lloyd along with interior designer Bryan Huffman with contributions from Linda Holden, this captivating book published by Gibbs Smith includes Mrs. Mellon’s personal writings, correspondences and interviews with people who knew her, who were employed by her, and who spent time in her homes and gardens.

© 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Used with permission of Isabelle Rey

From Thomas Lloyd, Mrs. Mellon’s grandson, and Bryan Huffman, her close friend for over a decade, comes an inside perspective, with personal insight into Bunny’s rarified world. Never short on entertaining stories of life with Bunny, they share details that cannot be found from mere research and interviews. They reveal the real Bunny Mellon and her original approach to true style.

One of the many fascinating aspects of the book, is the following tribute reprinted from the book with permission by Thomas Lloyd: “Memories of Grandbunny.”

I BEGAN THE EXPLORATION OF MY GRANDMOTHER’S LIFE BY ASKING MYSELF A SIMPLE QUESTION: Is it possible to improve a relationship with my grandmother after her death?

My earliest memories of Granbunny, as I called her, were as a timid little boy observing her from a distance. I would see her working in her beautiful gardens in Cape Cod, pruning her beloved apple trees while wearing that blue hat and skirt. I came to understand that she was a creative force in everything she did, be it flowers, art, pruning or design work, and I longed to know her better. Even as an adult I had no idea how to forge a more intimate connection with her. But that dynamic changed in the last eight years of her life with the births of my two chil- dren, Teddy and Fiona, her great-grandchildren. Their collective fearlessness, which I certainly lacked as a child, brought joy and laughter to my grandmother as she embraced their energy.

The children would run into her living room in Oak Spring, shouting her name and eating Lay’s potato chips out of a white plastic cylindrical container she kept them in. She would always sit in her corner spot on the sofa and top off her Clamato Bloody Mary with that secret little bottle of Stoli. My daughter took her first steps in that room, and they weren’t to me but to Granbunny. Sometimes, the children would run up to her bedroom to greet her and would knock over an enormous collection of treasured mementos she always surrounded herself with. It was then that I discovered my grandmother was a pack rat. I grew to appreciate this tendency in her, and it provided even greater insight into who she was as a person. She saved a vast collection of letters, drawings, postcards and other forms of correspondence as part of her Oak Spring Garden Library collection; it was a seemingly infinite personal timeline of her amazing life outlined through thousands of ink strokes carefully laid to her signature Granbunnyblue stationery.

It was this initial dive I took individually into her writings that began the spark for initiating discussions about this book concept with Bryan Huffman, my dear friend and a friend of my grandmother, and Linda Jane Holden, author of The Gardens of Bunny Mellon. Linda’s various discussions about her own book underscored the question so many people had about my grandmother: Who was she really? Through the past year, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of learning more about my grandmother and what led her to become the public persona so few people actually knew.

The collective but distinctly different roles that her father, Gerard B. Lambert, and grandfather Arthur Lowe played in establishing her love for the natural world, gardening design, and space planning laid the groundwork for understanding her formative personality. In their own ways, both men fostered the self-confidence that would ignite her creative genius and unquestionable work ethic. Arthur Lowe was a supporter of her whimsical childhood visions of fairy tales and animals—something that developed in her own style with gardens and jewelry.

Gerard Lambert introduced her as a child to the Olmsted brothers’ team, unearthing a resource from which she squeezed every ounce of information for her first garden project at Albemarle, her father’s house in New Jersey.

I came to understand how Granbunny’s early gardening experiences enabled her to mastermind greater projects in years to come, such as her house and garden at Oak Spring in Virginia. The two important men in her young life, who she loved dearly, gave her the platform to develop garden skills and self-assurance that ensured her success as a woman in a male-dominated world. Realizing this was a good starting point for me.

Granbunny’s consistent drive for creative perfection—explored through the prism of colors, animals, and space design—paired well with her uncanny ability to seek out and partner with some of the greatest emerging designers of the time, specifically Jean Schlumberger and Hubert de Givenchy. They developed wonderfully symbiotic friendships and together created some of the most iconic personal clothing and jewelry collections of the twentieth century.

The greatest discovery about Granbunny’s character came, however, through insights of the various people who surrounded her daily. The most poignant aspect of her personality was her generous nature toward others. She exhibited unquestioned loyalty and support to so many people around her— most notably her loyal employee base, which at one point in time had an average annual tenure of over twenty years. Although this kind of personal employ was foreign to me—and, indeed, to most anyone else—it became her most endearing trait as I began to interview and talk with so many people who worked for or knew her for many years.

She also shared this generosity with the many guests and dear friends she hosted through the years at her various properties around the world. Granbunny created spaces that were not only beautiful but that appealed uniquely to each of her guests. She never looked for credit; simply the joy of knowing that these wonderful spaces brought her guests true happiness was all she needed. Now, looking back at my time spent at her houses and the amazing memories they left me, I realize this was her gift to me—and for Granbunny, I now realize, the greatest sign of love she could show someone.

I have a greater appreciation for Granbunny because of the process of co-creating this book, and delving into her life and legacy is a journey that I will continue. My hope is that every reader experiences a bit of the joy and special feeling she gave to those of us who were lucky enough to feel it firsthand.

I miss you, Granbunny.

Bunny Mellon Style is available at Second Chapter Books in Middleburg-secondchapterbooks@gmail.com, 540-687-7016 and online from your preferred online bookseller.