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Left: Catherine Nguyen takes a photo of the Rose family inside their renovated historic home (pg. 64). Right: Photographer Keith Isaacs and Sara Mingote capture Sepi Saidi and Jim Lumsden inside their Frank Harmon-designed home (pg. 54).

Something about this issue keeps conjuring the word alchemy. Part science, part magic. Part logic, part luck. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that our annual Home & Garden Issue falls in the same month as Halloween. Over the past few months, many of us have seen how our rooms contract, expand and mutate: living rooms and bedrooms converted into offices and schoolrooms, outdoor spaces into our own restaurants and bars. Just as we transform ourselves with a costume, our homes change to suit our needs.

It’s not just good bones, or smart rearranging. It requires both magic and logic, a creative mind and can-do attitude.

It was interior designer Kay Jordan, who helped Sepi Saidi pull together her home (pg. 54), who suggested the concept when she said to me: “We just had this magic group of people that worked well together—there was an alchemy that lent to the great success of the project.” In my interviews with Jordan and Saidi, as well as architect Frank Harmon and Saidi’s husband Jim Lumsden, each mentioned how wonderful everyone else was, that there was something special about this project. Talent, chemistry… or magic?

And how else to explain that the secret ingredients to Cafe Carolina’s mouthwatering sweet potato biscuits (pg. 35) are all right on the grocery store shelf? Experimentation, luck or… something else?

Or that special brew of personality and topic that’s led to the 35-year success of the Weekend Gardener (pg. 52)?

The Holy Rose knows magic—at least, it offers wares to those who do (pg. 44).

And anyone who lives on London Drive and Eton Road knows that magic is all around, because gnomes keep popping up in their yards (pg. 98).

We hope that as you head through fall and on into winter, this issue encourages you to recognize these forces in your own life, at home and with friends and family—and to appreciate the special blend of luck, hard work and magic that makes our community so special.

Ayn-Monique Klahre Editor

EDITORIAL

Editor AYN-MONIQUE KLAHRE

Creative Director LAURA PETRIDES WALL

Associate Editor ADDIE LADNER

Contributing Writers

MELISSA HOWSAM, SUSANNA KLINGENBERG COURTNEY NAPIER, KATIE PATE, SHELBI POLK, JESSIE AMMONS RUMBLEY, LORI D.R. WIGGINS

Contributing Copy Editor

ANNA BRANNIN

Contributing Photographers

LIZ CONDO, KEITH ISAACS, BOB KARP, JULI LEONARD, TAYLOR MCDONALD, KATE MEDLEY, S.P. MURRAY, CATHERINE NGUYEN, EAMON QUEENEY, JOSHUA STEADMAN PUBLISHING

President ROBYN TOMLIN

Advertising Sales Manager JULIE NICKENS Senior Account Executive & Operations CRISTINA HURLEY

WALTER Events KAIT GORMAN

Interns VICTORIA MOORE ALICIA THOMAS

Circulation JERRY RITTER BRIAN HINTON VOLUME IX, ISSUE 2 OCTOBER 2020

Published 10 times a year by The News & Observer Publishing Co. A McClatchy Company WALTER is available by paid subscriptions for $25 a year in the United States, as well as select rack and advertiser locations throughout the Triangle. Subscribe online at waltermagazine.com/subscribe For customer service inquiries, please email us at customerservice@waltermagazine.com or call 919-836-5613.

Address all correspondence to: WALTER Magazine, 421 Fayetteville Street, Suite 104 Raleigh, N.C. 27601 WALTER does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Please contact Ayn-Monique Klahre at ayn-monique@waltermagazine.com for freelance guidelines. © The News & Observer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the copyright owner.

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