The Gardens of Bunny Mellon

The first study of the gardens and landscapes of Bunny Mellon, written by a leading specialist, illustrated with both new and archival photography.

“ . . . The Gardens of Bunny Mellon is a tome to treasure.” —Architectural Digest

Throughout her long and storied life, Rachel “Bunny” Mellon’s greatest passion was garden design. She and her husband, Paul Mellon, one of the wealthiest men in America, maintained homes in New York, Cape Cod, Nantucket, Antigua, and Upperville, Virginia, and she designed the gardens at all of them. She also designed gardens for some of her dearest friends, including the Rose Garden and the East Garden at the White House, at the request of President Kennedy, and the gardens at both the Paris home and the château of couturier Hubert de Givenchy.

All of these gardens are featured in The Gardens of Bunny Mellon, illustrated with Mellon’s own garden plans, sketches, and watercolors. Much like one of Mellon’s landscapes, The Gardens of Bunny Mellon slowly matured over several years, allowing the gifted landscape photographer Roger Foley to record Oak Spring, her cherished Virginia home, in all four seasons. The book also features vintage photographs by Horst, Aarons, and others of Mellon’s gardens for her homes in Cape Cod, Antigua, and New York. Author Linda Jane Holden’s text is based on extensive interviews with Mellon before Mellon’s death at age 103 in 2014.

“The Gardens of Bunny Mellon is part guide—with gorgeous photographs by Roger Foley that could make even the least inclined to go hunting for a trowel—part biography, and part social history. Mellon’s passion is apparent throughout.” —Vogue.com