by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Aster oblongifolius – “Fanny” – and I go way back. Back to 1992, when I learned about it through Ruth Knopf, the antique rose expert at South Carolina’s Boone Hall Plantation near Charleston….
by P. Gaye Tapp photographs by Catherine Nguyen Clarendon Hall, built in Caswell County in 1842, was described by historian Katherine Kendall as “a rich man’s house.” Today it could be described as a house rich in art. Ben and…
by Ilina D. Ewen photographs by Catherine Nguyen They said it couldn’t be saved. From the sidewalk, the stately house at 304 E. Park Drive was proof of the adage that looks can be deceiving. Off came the rose-colored glasses once…
by Tony Avent When most folks decide to grow a fig, they opt for something like brown turkey fig, or at least something relatively edible. Me, I’m more interested in the ornamental figs – all members of the plant genus…
by Jesma Reynolds photographs by Catherine Nguyen A self-professed serial renovator, Carole Marcotte has breathed life into her family’s Spanish Colonial in Hayes Barton. Carole Marcotte gets a thrill out of solving design problems. With the precision of a mathematician…
Walter asked seven Triangle-area interior designers and architects with varied design sensibilities to share some of their favorite things. Your design philosophy? “My philosophy is to keep things classic, simple, and timeless.” –Rodolfo Gonzales of Rodolfo Gonzales Interior Design in…
photographs by Nick Pironio When North Carolina Museum of Art director Larry Wheeler told Walter last winter how excited he was about the latest renovation on his ’60s-era modernist house in Chapel Hill, the work had barely begun. A visit…
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson It’s not until you come face-to-face – or perhaps I should say nose-to-nose – with a pig butt arum that you realize it isn’t a grand horticultural April Fool’s prank. Indeed, I…
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Since just before the war between the States, crinum lilies have been a popular staple in rural gardens throughout the deep Southeast – a far distance from their mostly native African origins….
The hospital’s second floor – which once housed patients, a delivery room, and a nurses’ station – became home. by Liza Roberts photographs by Catherine Nguyen It takes a visionary to dream up things that don’t exist and make them real. It…
by Gibbons Ruark We walked the balmy path decades ago That now we walk again this afternoon. Too soon to say the spring is gone, too soon. The Carolina Wren says this is so.
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson I’ve long been fascinated with the genus Aralia, beginning with my love of house plants as a young child. A few years later, I met the native “devil’s walking stick,” Aralia spinosa, in…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio Donna and Jim Belt believe in wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept of beauty that celebrates imperfection. When the former Tokyo residents moved into a downtown Raleigh condo, they combined earthiness with refinement, symmetry with…
by Jessie Ammons photographs by Lissa Gotwals Summertime childhood memories for me are all about the lake. Growing up just north of Raleigh, as soon as the weekend rolled around, we were off to Lake Gaston, an hour away but a…