Bunny Mania

Bunny Mania

By Vicky Moon

When Bunny Mellon mania hit the Washington Antiques Show in midJanuary, Desiree Lee jumped into the thick of it full throttle.

Lee, who lives in Lovettsville, worked for the garden guru from 2004-2008. She said she received a random call asking her to some table arrangements and a piece for an entrance table at the Katzen Art Center at American University.

As an ode to Mrs. Mellon’s legacy, the Upperville research complex known as the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, there was a display at the event that included the conservatory Trompe l’oeil by Fernand Reynard. There were subtle touches such as topiary, cyclamen and plant stands from the legendary greenhouse.

“She loved green flowers,” Lee said, and many of them have been seen in her gardens. They included Lady’s Mantle, Olive foliage, scented geraniums, peonies, Hellebore, Dianthus, and Parrot tulips.

Desiree Lee is a garden specialist with her Hunt Country Gardens.

Photo by Marissa Hasser

“She also loved white sweetheart roses,” Lee added, “which were on her breakfast tray each morning.”

Lee grew up on her grandparents 300-acre beef cattle and grain home base at Armarc Farms in Loudoun County. Her father’s family owned Southern Electric. She went on to study forestry at West Virginia University and “fell in love with horticulture.”

Desiree Lee’s preliminary sketch for Bunny Mellon inspired arrangement.

Looking back at her time working for Mrs. Mellon, she said, “It shaped my style. Her greatest strength was restraint. Very simple.”

Lee now has her own business, Hunt Country Gardens, and she travels the countryside doing a range of horticulture services and restorative/ annual pruning services for private estates in the area. They include St. Brides, Cleremont, Huntland, Farmer’s Delight and others.

“I adjust to different sets of expectations on each property based on the clients and property aesthetic,” she noted. “From perennial borders, native plantings and kitchen garden cultivation.”

Final artwork of Desiree Lee’s Bunny Mellon inspired floral baskets for the Washington Antiques Show.

And, then there’s this…Mac Griswold has written a new book: I’ll Build A Stairway

To Heaven: A Life of Bunny Mellon.

Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux has defined it as “The story of Bunny Mellon, the great landscape and interior designer, becomes a revelatory exploration of extreme wealth in the American century.”

Revelatory, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, the book includes a review of this stylish woman’s gardening accomplishments—the White House Rose Garden, the landscape design for the Kennedy grave site at Arlington National Cemetery, and her studious restraint in the Upperville gardens at the home she shared with husband Paul Mellon at Oak Spring Farm, now the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Add to this gardens and grounds in Nantucket, Antigua and beyond.

However, aspects of this book are the insider material following Griswold’s time as a Foxcroft school mate and friend of Bunny’s only daughter Eliza, who died after an accident which left her lingering for years. Yes, the writer was granted access to family archives, but who knew that boarding school conversations and antics would later be published?

Heaven help all of us. After reading that Eliza was gay. Not to mention that Bunny and her daughter did not speak for many years. Said one recent reader, “There should be more respect.”