If the holidays make you crave simpler times, the Victorian-era Christmas celebrations at Nashville’s most historic mansion are just the ticket.
Month: December 2018
In 1973, local businesses founded the Nantucket Christmas Stroll in an effort to prevent islanders from fleeing to Cape Cod to do their holiday shopping. Now, 45 years later, the annual event acts as a draw for tourists from all over the Northeast. Held the first weekend in December, hundreds of decorated seven-foot Christmas trees are illuminated while carolers sing familiar holiday tunes and merchants offer special deals and refreshments to customers.
This one-of-a-kind 1928 Marion Sims Wyeth–designed landmark home, located in the coveted Estate Section of Palm Beach, recently hit the market. The estate sits on a 38,943-square-foot lot and is conveniently located within steps of the beach. According to listing agents Liza Pulitzer and Whitney McGurk, both Palm Beach natives, “This location is sought after for its larger properties, stately homes, and proximity to town. The deeded beach access in this part of town gives way to a private and more secluded beach.”
Nobody decked the halls like the Gilded Age’s 400. At the Newport Mansions, grandeur lives on at The Breakers, The Elms, and Marble House with newly imagined holiday décor on display through January 1. Thanks to dozens of volunteers who spent a month preparing, the historic homes are ornamented with 25 large Christmas trees, countless garlands, wreaths, and hundreds of live flowers (like poinsettias, lilies, azaleas, paperwhites, and mini-evergreens), on a scale of which the Vanderbilts and Berwinds would approve. New this year, professional event designers have created contemporary tablescapes at all three estates, so visitors can draw inspiration for decorating their own holiday tables.
Long decades ago—first when I was an investment banker and then when I embarked on what seemed at the time a promising writing life, and both my fiscal and physical state were in more robust condition than now—I used to go to London regularly. Those were the palmy days, the early 1970s through the 1980s, before Mammon took over the world. My London life centered on Mayfair and Knightsbridge: after a few hours of city or publishing business, I would look in at Heywood Hill bookshop, then run by my lifetime friend, the incomparable John Saumarez Smith. Time would be found for consultations with my tailor at Anderson & Sheppard, where the cost of a suit back then didn’t require floating a bond issue, and my shirt man at Bowring Arundel, that wonderful shop now just a memory. There were bookstores and art galleries to visit. I had kind of a rounded London life.
With the holiday season in full swing, Debbie Fisher, Broker-In-Charge of acclaimed real estate firm Handsome Properties and active community member, tells us more about this festive and culturally diverse time of year in Charleston, South Carolina.
Recently opened in SoHo, the CFDA + Lexus Fashion Initiative Circular Capsule Collection (C3) is on view at at INTERSECT by Lexus in NYC.