I buy many books the minute they are published but I don’t always get around to reading them right away. I also feel like our tech obsessed world has given me social media induced ADD. It’s hard not to scroll through Instagram at night instead of reading but I’m trying to remedy this issue. I’ve started powering down, or at least trying, at 10 o’clock so I can have time to read before bed. I’ve read two books so far and I’m not a third of the way through Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend right now. It’s been interesting to learn more about her upbringing and all the people she knew early in her life. I had no idea she went to school with interior designer Sister Parish or knew Syrie Maugham and Nancy Lancaster, among others.

Bunny Mellon’s gardening gets all the attention but she helped to design and decorate many of her houses including this guesthouse on her Oak Spring Farm property that was intended for her friend Jacqueline Kennedy. It was just featured on Clever from Architectural Digest last week in a bit of serendipitous timing. The entire Oak Spring Farm property did not sell so it was broken into 12 parcels, one of which was this property. The small log cabin style house was designed with built-ins and compartments like those on a ship and featured her signature blue diamond patterned floor in the kitchen.

I was able to attend the Sotheby’s auction previews of her estate and have the catalogs which come to life reading her life story. I’m only up to 1963 in the book and Bunny Mellon lived until 2014 so I can’t wait to read about more. I also look forward to the release of The Gardens of Bunny Mellon on October 30, 2018.