April 26, 2023 • 41 mins
Martha admires interior designer Bunny Williams for many reasons: her design sensibility, her thriving home business, her beautiful books, and the can’t-miss garden and home benefit sale that Bunny created, Trade Secrets. You’ll be inspired by these lifestyle mavens as Martha asks Bunny about her path to becoming one of America’s most sought-after designers, how Bunny created her own beautiful home and garden, and their many shared passions.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are you going to do in a rum? What's
this room for? And you designed for that? And I
need a designer. Interior designer Bunny Williams has been called
a trailblazer and a tastemaker, known for her classic but
never predictable style she has developed or devoted following Over
(00:21):
the years. Bunny has received numerous accolades. Among them, she's
on El Decor's A List, the AD one hundred List,
and she's been inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame.
In two thousand and one, Bunny created Trade Secrets, the
annual fundraiser that supports Project Sage, a nonprofit domestic violence
(00:43):
agency serving Northwest Connecticut and the surrounding communities in New
York and Massachusetts. And I wouldn't Mistrade Secrets for anything
except this year my granddaughter's dance recital at Alvin Ailey.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No. Well, I actually am sort of glad because you
always get there ahead of me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm going to come to the garden tour the day before. Okay,
Today Bunny oversees a thriving design firm and beautiful retail
collections for home and garden. Joining me at Newstands Studios, right,
here in New York City's Rockefeller Center is Bunny Williams.
Welcome to my podcast. Thank you so much. It is
so nice of you to make time out of your
(01:25):
very busy schedule. Did you come in from Connecticut? No,
I've been in today. I come in Sunday nights. Thank good.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I hate to leave it with all the daffodils and
bloom and the magnolias.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Now, Ben Bunny lives in an idyllic home up in
northwest Connecticut, and I feel the same way. I hate
to lear farm right exactly, we are both farmers. Well,
I want to talk about several things because you have been,
as I said, a trailblazer designer. You've also created a
(01:56):
very nice retail business with your designs of furniture and
home furnishing and of course trade secrets, which is such
a huge and very kind of philanthropic effort on your part.
What was your path to becoming an insurier designer? People
love to know you know, I was. I grew up
in Virginia and Charlottesville, Virginia, and I.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Think University of Virginia, yes, where everybody in my family went,
and we lived on a we lived out in the
country on a country road, and everybody there were cousins
and friends, and everybody was all about their houses. I
always say that in those days you couldn't buy liquor
by the drinks, so there were no restaurants.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I mean, people didn't go out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
They enter time they weren't home, and everybody loved their homes.
I mean, I just have these wonderful memories of being
in homes. And my mother was sort of, I think,
a frustrated designer. She was always moving things around and
going to the curtain Lady and thinking about her own home.
And I was a teenager and I was very lucky
(02:59):
to be taken to the Greenbrier Hotel that Dorothy Draper
had decorated before before.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, it was really just been finished.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
When she did it was magic, and I learned what
an interior designer was, and I kind of thought that's
what I'd like to be. So it was sort of
planted in my head when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And you had Monticello to look at everything, the University
of Virginia.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And all those beautiful all those beautiful houses in architecture.
Me we went to look at it garden Week. I
mean it was what we did.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So then you came to New York.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I came to New York. Where'd you go to college?
I went to a junior college in Boston. I wanted
to go to Parsons, but my parents didn't understand that
I would be in New York City in a school
that had no dormitory or campus.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So I went.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I found a junior college in Boston that had an
interior design program, and I went there. And then I
came to New York, which is I was dying to
get to New York and we I got an apartment
with a friend, and I was twenty and I went
to work for as a receptionist in an antique shop
which is called Staring Company, which the best of the best.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The best of the best. So, oh, you know, in
my house in Maine, if I look on there are
labels on some of the furniture the company. So those
are good, right. I was great, very good, and it
was a great education.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And then after a couple of years, I went and
knocked on the door of the one design firm. I
wanted to work for Parish Hadley, sister Parish and Albert Hadley,
and I say to young people you know, if there's
something you want to do, go find the person you
admire the most in that field and see if you
can get it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I think that's the best advice. And you and if
you have to sweep the floor, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Right because I mean Kevin Sharkey came to me, you know,
and he was packing and unpacking boxes, and he came
from Albert and sister Perish too, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Exactly, and he and now he's head of the design. Yes, yes,
so you know it's and what was it like we
for sister Paris. Should you work on any houses on
Mount Dessert Island? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I did, But she's she's a character. They were so
different but wonderful in their own way. And she was
actually so when she was in her best mood was
when she was in Maine, and when she she had
a house in Dark Harbor. She'd grown up there practically,
and I always thought, if we get her to Maine,
she's always in a good mood.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
She did missus Astor's house. I remember sitting in that
house many times for dinner parties with David Rockefeller and
having looking around at everything that sister Perry sh had
done extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
She had a cutting garden, Missus Astor that was the
most beautiful. I've never seen anything like it in my life.
That was a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It was. Indeed, it's right on the shore of Mount
Dessert Island, looking right at on the some sound. Yeah,
it's so beautiful. But how did they influence your style?
Did they? Or they must? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think that what was great about Missus Paris and
Albert is that their sensibilities were very different. She was
very you know, cozy chintz, the kind of house that
you're many pictures on the pictures on the wall, dot
dog pictures, you know, very very sort of old fashioned
English inspired interiors. Albert was really a modernist, even though
(06:18):
he could do that beautifully.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, Albert was lines.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So I think that my sensibility is sort of an
amalgamation of both of them. I hear them in my brain. Actually,
I oh sure, Well, I mean I was there for
twenty years. Oh you were right, I forgot So you
hear them in your brain and sometimes we I fight
with myself because I'm fighting with them.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But how many how many years did it take for
them to give you your own project? Probably about ten years? Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Really, I would say. I literally started there when I
was twenty two. It was the shopper. I was the
assistant to them on these projects. And what happened is
to start to oh, you have to go to an installed,
you have to make all the beds and put the
lampshades on for sure, and anyway, what was happening is
that people started to recommend me. So I was able
(07:13):
to build a client base right.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
To break off too, from that fabulous job into Bunny William's, Inc.
It was that in New York City too. That's in
New York you're on sixty first Street.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was actually in My first office was on seventy
seventh Street, across from Missus Paris's apartment. She used to
drop in all the time. We remain very good friends,
both of them forever.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well. Albert was a jeer or two. He lived in Southport, Connecticut. Yes,
and he was very friendly and so very nice and
so respected in the design community. So you had the
best of the best at that time. I did. Yeah,
if you had to get a job, now, which designer
other than yourself, which designer would appeal to you the most?
(07:56):
Which designed Well, there's so many, actually, there are a
lot of good people. I mean a lot of the
graduates of I call it the Parish Hadley School all
have great design firms, you know, David Kleinberg, Brian McCarthy,
you know. But they were all there too. Yeah, we did.
We did a.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Wonderful book called The Tree of Life. And you can't
believe all the people who have design firms, top design
firms who came out of Parish Hady.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Wow, that's that sounds like a good book, a Tree
of Life. Remember that, everybody, and look at it if
you are inclined to go into this business, which is
I think is one of the best businesses. It's so
much fun. I have friends. I have you as a friend,
(08:43):
and I've known Bunny for a long long time. Stephen
sill is in my closest friend in bed back and
uh and I follow his I follow what he's doing
all the time. And I'm kind of jealous, actually, I
get I get envious of what you do because you're
looking at beautiful furniture, you are looking at the best fabrics.
You are installing in the most beautiful apartments and houses,
(09:06):
and I think, God, this is this is something I
would have liked to have done.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Have to say this, in all these years, there's never
been a day I didn't want to go to work,
even when they're problems, because you learn how to solve
the problem and you know it's not life or death
and you just have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
But it is an exciting career to have. It is
such an e and you traveled to all the time,
so you branched out on your own and was it
fun from day one? Yes? It was? Yes? How many
people worked with you? Well, I started in my apartment.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I had I took my coordinator and my assistant and
so there were three of us and that in my
own apartment. And of course I wasn't allowed to have
a business in the apartment, but I didn't have an office.
And then we needed to expand, so we got to
about seven fairly quickly, and I moved to seventy seventh Street,
and then we grew when we had people in the
(09:56):
closet and working everywhere, we moved to sixty first where
I've been really.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
For all beautiful offices, so they're fantastic office. So your
vision for your business what was it? What was the vision?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The vision was to do residential interior design that's what
I love to do. I'm not a commercial designer. I
really love to work with people on their homes. That's
my passion. I love the relationship with clients. And that
was the vision. And I always say that you know,
(10:29):
one thing leads to another. And as you know, I
was designing things I couldn't find. I say, I couldn't
find little drinks tables. I think everybody, when you sit
down in a chair, you need a little table next
to you to put your coffee or your glass of wine.
I hate being stranded without something, so I couldn't find
these little tables and I thought, well, I'm going to
start designing some.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And that was the beginning of Bunny Williams. H Right,
Buddy Williams Home. You go online and look at all
the beautiful designs. I have one of your chairs in
my summer house, the one with the automan. Yes, that
is such a beautiful chair and I like to sit
in it because I love putting my feet up and
I don't like to sit too much. You know that
I don't sit very much, but that chair is very
(11:13):
from The dogs love it, Oh, yes, they like they
one could be on the automan. The French cheese, and
one could be in the chair. So what do you
have three words that you can really describe your style?
Oh that's so hard, very hard. Also, the other thing
is interesting about what we do. I work on different things.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I mean I work on modern apartments, I work on
traditional houses. So I hope in a funny way, I
hate to say it, I would like somebody to not
think it that I had done it. A lot of
designers have one way. You walk in it, you know
who did it. I'd like I'd like people to walk
in and first say, oh, isn't this a nice house?
(11:53):
Or I like it or it feels good, and then
worry about who decorated it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So no three words. It's it's eclectic, it's beautiful, it's gracious,
it's comfortable. It's comfortable. Bunny loves comfort.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And also I like to make it work. I mean
houses have to work. Where do you watch television? Where
are you? What are you going to do in a room?
You have to start thinking about that, what's this room for?
And you designed for that? And I need a designer.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Still, I don't have a television except in my kitchen.
I sit on a stool. I was just with people.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
From a television company this morning, Bunny, and I said,
this is my only TV and it's up high in
my kitchen over my desk, and I sit on a
stool to watch basketball games whatever. And they said you
need to change.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yes, and it's not good for guests either, who want
to come in and watch the watch the Yankees play
or something. My husband loves all movies, so I finally,
my niece's husband, who moved into our guest house over COVID, said, Bunny,
like you, this is just archaic what you have. So
now we have a big television with surround sound. And
(13:04):
John is thrilled because he never has to go to
a movie house.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I bet he's thrilled. Do you find where's the furthest
that you have traveled to design a house? France and
France and many times or a couple several times. And
what about England? No houses? I've never done a house.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Oh really, and your style is so appropriate. They have
so many good designers. I mean they don't need to.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It's funny enough people say, oh, isn't that? Are you
working someplace? The hardest thing you have to do is
work in a place that you're not familiar with, because
you have to find the trades people, you have to
find the painters, you have to find the people to
make things, whereas if you know an area, you know
who they are. So half the time it's doing the
research to find the good people to do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
What.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
What's the largest house you ever worked on? Huge, huge,
where I'm doing one now in Palm Beach, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Big houses, big house Midwest big houses. What's the most
memorable house you ever did that really you still think
about in terms.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of funny what you did. Funnily enough, it was love
this story. It was it was a client.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It was people who were very good friends of good clients,
and they loved their house, and they asked me to
come and see their house and what I helped them
on their house And I went to what I have
to say was the ugliest house I'd ever seen in
my life. I mean, I can't even describe it. And
they had built this house when they were young. It
had a conversation pit in the middle of it. I
(14:40):
mean it was I just didn't know what to do
and I was speechless, and I really thought I'm the
wrong person for this house completely the wrong person of
this house, and I'm wandering around. They are the loveliest
people in the world. I adored them, but I just
couldn't get around this house. So I'm in a dining
room and there's a wall of concealed doors, and he
(15:02):
opened the concealed doors, and behind the concealed doors were
the most extraordinary sets of china I have ever seen.
He had a full dinner service of tobacco eighteenth century
tobacco leaf. He had another one that was just as beautiful,
and I thought, anybody who could buy this china and
love this.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Well, that's why they were talking to you, because they
loved their friend's house.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But they had to realize their house in my friend's house.
Was like, well they do think that's why they So anyway,
I finally I said, you're going to have to make
a few serious changes here. They gulped, and he did it,
and the house was actually very interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Oh nice. I had to really take a big step back.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
And so it's projects like that that are really really
interesting and that you have to reach deep down about
your creativity.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You have a favorite client, which client have you done
more ultiple projects?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We have done I have a lot of clients like that. Yeah,
now it's you know. I have one client that was
my first client when I started my business. I actually
had to show them the first scheme in my ambardment.
I mean, and they're still with me, so I have
you know, you have a relationship that's really.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I saw your Midwest client's house out in East Hampton, right,
and I love that house. You did such a beautiful
job on that house because it was like Spanish outside
but inside so beautiful. I love that. It's really nice
when you do walk into a room and you can
tell who designed it, and Bunny has a style that
because of the comfort, because of the beauty and the
(16:41):
nice placement of furniture, you kind of know it's Bunny
Williams and it's not. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I'm very fluid, you know. I like, as I say,
I always want a room that you can add something tomorrow.
You can bring a bouquet of flowers. If it's too severe,
you feel like you don't even want to be in it.
I love rooms that Chris. I'm a shopper like you are,
so I'm always Now are you still shopping? Of course
you are all the time. For yourself. Well, you know,
(17:09):
I shopped for the businesses. I stopped for my clients,
and I shop for Bunny Williams home and but you
know you can't not and what do you what do
you keep for yourself? I keep the things that I
just can't live without.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, I just went to a teg I go
to tag sales. Oh yes, and I just went to
a tag saale in Connecticut where I found right before Easter,
I saw on the floor a bunch of little bunny rabbits,
some wooden ones and some middle ones. But in the
middle of them was this green rabbit and it was jade,
and it weighed about fifty pounds. Ago hardly pick it up.
(17:45):
It looks like old Chinese. Wow. And I bought it,
you know, for nothing, and I had to keep it.
I had to. I had to have that for Easter.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, but I'm always finding things and that's the most
fun I think. Also, you train in your eye because
if you if you really know what you're looking at,
you will spot that. And people say, oh, I don't
know what to look at it. I said, there's always
something here, But you've got to train your eye.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do your customers shop with you do you go on
buying and buying. Yeah, see, I don't. I've never worked
with a decorator on my own. Of course, you know,
at in my company we've done so many projects, decorating projects.
And Kevin Kevin trained trained a sister Parish and talks
about it all the time. You really love that that job.
(18:31):
Everybody does. Everybody who worked there loves that. That woman
really character amazing. But but so so you know, I
know I've made terrible mistakes. And I know when design
your friends come into my house, I think, I think,
what's going on here? But but it's my home, you know,
And and I and I feel like, because I am
(18:51):
a lifestyle expert, I should know what I'm doing. But
I I know the problem. You know, what kind of
design challenge do you like the most? You know, what's fun? People?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Some some designers hate this. I think it's really interesting
when a client comes to you and they have a
lot of wonderful a lot of things, some good, some
not so good, because I think it makes the space
more interesting than if you just go out and buy
absolutely everything for a space. So sometimes I find that
kind of a challenge and fun.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Well, that reminds me of what Bunny Williams did at
the New York Armory and the Park have You Armory
For the New York Antique Show, Bunny Williams created a
booth that was extremely controversial.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Describe it well, I you know again, I like to
be out of the box, a surprise.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I like a surprise.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
And I thought the Winter at Teach Show, which I love,
is very serious and very you know, you walk through
it's a stay is it's a stay thing, and they
I and expensive. So I I was one of the
honorary chairs and along with Steven and Alex Propercustidi's and
they asked us to do a little vignette and I
(20:08):
thought my office sat me down. They said, I said, okay,
what are we going to do? And I went through
a lot of things in my brain and I don't
know what came up. And it was to me the
most opposite of the Winter Antique Show. And I said,
I want to make a barn. I want to get
old barn siding. I want straw hay bails and I
were hay bails to sit on and I said, I
(20:29):
want beautiful furniture scene in a different way, because I
mean in the middle of it was a you know
American recamye, just because I think you look at it,
and I can tell you everybody looked at that booth
did everything. So we sold a lot, but people just stopped.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And I loved it. I thought it was such a
nice juxtaposition to everything else that was at the show.
And I walked around and sometimes I buy things at
that show, and this year I bought the big eagle. Beautiful,
that beautiful eagle, which I'm going to put in the
center of my stable courtyard. Oh beautiful. And I had
to take out a big round mill millstone that my
(21:10):
contractor put there because it's curved and the eagle can't
sit on it, so I have to take that out.
I can use it someplace else. But it's so beautiful.
It's beautiful. And you see treasures at these shows, and
then to see bunnies treasures within a different, different context
was so interesting. Really, I thought it was great. And
(21:32):
so you also are in a phenomenal gardener yourself, and
you have built a pavilion at your beautiful swimming pool,
you have built gardens around it. They're your whole woodland
in Connecticut. Describe your Connecticut house. Well, the house is
a typical New England.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It was a federal Probably the earliest part of the
house is eighteenth century. The main part of the house
is about eighteen sixty and it sits up on a knoll.
It's right next to the little town of Falls Village.
And I bought it forty years ago.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And how much did it cost? One and ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I had no money and my husband I scraped together
as well. When I bought it, it had about ten
I now have twenty two because I've bought continuous pieces
of property.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And I bought it because I wanted a garden.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I mean, we were renting a wonderful house and I said,
I'm tired of putting something in somebody else's property.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I want a garden. Funny is very much like I am.
Just really loves the loves nature. And you have beautiful plants.
Oh my gosh. I love your lilacs and your hedges.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And it's it's a it's an addiction, you know, and
you it's a life again.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Like anything you do, it's a learning process.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I mean, I think of what I didn't know when
I started out, which was about probably nothing and I've
learned earned and you it's a wonderful.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Thing to be And funny isn't funny without John ROSELLI
too wonderful husband. Her wonderful husband who and they worked
together in triage, which was.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
A I knew John. I met John first when I
was about twenty four. I was working at Parish Hadley
and I went into a shop and.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It was a could triage then No.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
No, this was John ROSSELLI John, he had his own
business for years, and you know we were friends. I
would buy there and I always say our romance started
because one spring I went in and we were talking.
I said, you know, I've never been to the Chelsea
Flower Show and he said, well neither of I.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I was married at the time, which I probably shouldn't
stay on a podcast, but anyway, and John and I
went off to the Chelsea Flower Show and had I
just had the best time with this man, absolutely, And
that's where we got the idea to open the shop Trayage,
which was a garden shop and nobody in those days
had a garden show. Oh gosh, and I've I I
know they are wonderful supply. I loved that store so much,
(24:04):
and I too love garden antiques and objects that are
useful in the garden, and you found beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
The thing about.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Objects outside, don't you find it draws your eye to
something it does. And I always say it's the animate,
inanimate and the animate, And all of a sudden, anurn
or something draws your eye. And then you might say,
look at all the silla, look at the things blooming
around it, and it's just something to catch your eye.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Even structures too, beautiful perugolas and things that are very
important in the garden. I put two bird beds outside
my kitchen. They're not really they were bird bets, I guess,
but they're old painted galvanized bird bets. And I watch
birds drinking aliday. And it made such a difference in
that garden because life came.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I had loved for years, loved bird houses, and I
would buy them because nobody else wanted them, and I
just love them. And I had this collection, and so
I've taken the last piece of my property and I've
created birdhouse Village and I have about thirty bird houses
up on different different All the birdhouses are all different.
(25:14):
There no tour like, They're all antique ones, and I've
planted it with shrubs and things to attract the birds.
And finally last year I found the water features, so
they now have a big I found it at Artie Facts,
this big sort of industrial bowl so the birds can
have some water.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Oh it's that's see. That's such a nice use of
a piece of profit. It is so great. And how
did how did John influence your business? Did he did? He?
I mean, you both of you looking at stuff, but.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Weather we you know, we were John and I are
like book cands. I mean I influenced him, he influenced
He really actually doesn't like decorating. He likes things. He
loves the furniture, the accessories, the blue and white. And
when we've done our own homes, I would show him
things and he'd say, I hate it all.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well,
I really don't like decorating.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I like sizel carpet, white walls and all my pictures
and things.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Beautiful things. And while you've been decorating, you have also
written an extraordinary bunch of books, starting with Love Affairs
with Houses the first Yes, and that is a beautiful,
beautiful book. So those were some of your projects.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yes, well, A Love Affair with House was on my
house in the conkay It.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And then there have been books on the projects.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And now in the midst of writing, I never I swaw,
I wasn't going to write another book.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Oh yes, you have to.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So I'm doing another one. It's on the garden, it's
on entertaining, it's on history, a little bit of I
don't know. It's just a scrap book of lots of ideas.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So nice. And Bunny has also written a book called
A House by the Sea. Which house was that? That
was the house that we had in the Dominican Republic. Oh,
talk about that because I go there quite often. I
have a very good friend who house there, and I
go down there and people say, oh, yes, Bunny did this,
and Bunny did that. Well.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
We were very close friends of Oscar de Laurentis, and
when he bought this, he wanted to develop this property.
It's called Pootacana, and we used to go there when
there was nothing. There was no golf course, there was nothing,
and we loved it. I loved the kind of simplicity
of it. And we would go there once a year
and Oscar said, oh, well, you know, why don't you
(27:28):
buy property?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And it was funny.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
John had had a big house in New Jersey that
he'd inherited from his family and he was selling it
and he said, well, why don't we build a house
down here, and then I have a place to put
on my furniture. So anyway, it was great fun and
we built a beautiful house and created a garden.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Then Oscar join and then we sold it. We had
it for about sixteen years. And is it at all
down there? No?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
No, you know what I it was going to the
same place. I'm really not a resort person, and there
wasn't an enough to do. It wasn't They didn't make
a lot of things, and we were running a hotel.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Great for a week or two, but I agree with you,
it's it's hard to go to the same place. This
is Narrosis have a beautiful house. We just worked there
at her at her house life and and the beaches
are gorgeous and so many Bluehorn is my friend, she's
her father built that place, the first place.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They did the whole thing. Yeah, it was so and
I'd like to hear those stories. It's very extraordinary. Bunny
has also written Bunny Williams scrap Book for Living and
Bunny William's point of View and on garden styles. So
(28:45):
now you're doing another gardening oriented book, probably more gardens
tabletop And is there a style?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Is there a period and landscape architecture that appeals to
you more than any other? You know what's so interesting?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I think, again, like everything, it evolves, I'm certainly influenced
by English gardens. I when I first went to Sissinghurst,
I thought I died and gone to heaven, and I'm
I love the I love the sense of garden rooms.
I love the sense of the spaces that you create
because you can't you can't take it all in at
one time. But then you get pretty inspired by looking
(29:22):
at the new things of P.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Dudolf.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I mean, I just got his new book and I
was just an amazing dying. But again, it's a different
kind of property.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't know where he finds all those.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Plans, and I mean I just was overwhelmed by it.
But it's sort of like, Okay, how do I It's again,
like anything, I think, you have to examine what you
have to work with you.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
No, I haven't. He's prickly I heard that oh, he's prickly.
He was the speaker and in Mount Dessert Island two
years ago at my at my church where I have
an event for the Beatrix Friend of Society, and he
he was the speaker and he was fantastic, and then
I asked him a question and he was so prickly.
But but he's a genius incape. So you get you know,
(30:09):
you get inspired.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And I think we all think about our gardens in
a different way because of the environment. I mean, we
have no water. It's too hot. I mean, it's it's changing.
And anybody who doesn't want to deal with it go
out and garden for two years.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So how are you dealing with the drought we are
we're experiencing we are. I mean do you have irrigation?
We have irrigation.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I mean I have wells, and I'm trying to really examine.
I want to contain water that I can if it
would only rain. So I'm thinking of, you know, more troughs.
And I was even going to go down to tract
Or Supply and buy one of those.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Big things they're great, and just break them.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Out to save water because and I think we're going
to cut down on the amount of containers we have
because that takes a lot of water.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
And I'm letting very little lawn. Yeah, I'm trying to
get rid of all grasses in the modern way. And
except for one soccer lawn for MI, grants mean something
and and the rest of it. I really want to
just plant with things that will survive even even a
dry summer, because the spring has been so dry in
our area. And uh, and yet Bunny's garden is beautiful
(31:22):
and my garden is beautiful right now because because we
know sort of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But also you anticipate the future. This is what we
have to think about. And all these beautiful trees, I
mean they can't go without water, No, they cannot, the
big ones especially. Also we're having the you know, that's
why we have all the tent caterpillars and all of
the deforestation with with bugs and things.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Because there's ash tree, ash tree, green borer, the emerald borer.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
We had to cut down four well I did four hundred,
and now I have beautiful wood.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
I know, I know what if I got to do
with all that wood, but it is it's really something.
But what talk about your pool house? Because that broke
all rules. That is one of the most beautiful structures
and probably one of the most copied things that you've built.
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
We John and I were in We were shopping for
trayage in South France and we didn't have a swimming pool,
and John said, I'd love to have a swimming pool.
You know, in Connecticut you swim for maybe two and
a half months. So I did not want the swimming
pool next to my house because I didn't want to
look at a big empty pool. So we were shopping
and we found these beautiful stones that had come from
(32:39):
a bath saw and I put it up on the
hill and apt past.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The apple orchard. So you sent them all over from France.
So stones, oh, the beautiful The coping around Bunny's pool
is memorable. But anyway, I put it up on the hill.
But I needed a bathroom and a little kitchen because
it's far from the house, right, and a place and say,
because I don't like to sit in the sun. And
I started thinking about it. In Falls village has a
(33:05):
lot of Greek Revival architecture. We own a guesthouse. It's
got beautiful columns.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
On it and because it you know it's right adjacent
to the woods. I thought, wouldn't it be great if
it looked like the logs came out and made a temple,
made a Greek revival building. And that's what it looks like,
because it's and I had a friend give me the
proportions of classical Greek temple, and so we built it.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it worked. And the columns are tree trunks.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yes, the old thing is tree. Oh yes, it's and
then freezes pine cones.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Very yeah, it's very, very beautiful. So Bunny works at
home as well as on other people's properties. But I think,
I think you'll always do that. You'll always keep evolving
and and building.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
And I don't do landscape for other people. Oh you don't, okay,
just for yourself. No, I said this too. Carpet never
gets mildew, the chairs don't die. So I'll just doing
it for myself.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So on another subject, your philanthropy, because that Trade Secrets
is a show that is held every year in May
where all the great great plant growers come together and
antique dealers come together and set up somewhere. For years,
it was at that beautiful farm. In our first two
(34:24):
years were at our house, I didn't know about it.
I started it with Naomi Bluementhal and Debbie Munson who
were working in my garden with me, and I always say,
it was a long cold winter and I said, we
have all these plants. We should have a plant sale.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And I said, why don't we have a nice sale.
Then we thought, well we'll add the antiques to it.
And then we thought well we'll do this, this and
the other. And Naomi was on the in those days,
WES which was what it was really called, which was
Women's Support Service literally just had a hotline. And I said, well,
let's just give the money to them. I mean, we
(35:02):
never thought this would be a success. And the first
year we had about three hundred and fifty people. The
second year still on my property, we had almost six hundred.
It snowed on May sixteen, it snowed and people were stuck.
We don't have parking, and I said, we've outgrown this property.
(35:23):
So then we moved to another place.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And then Elaine Laroche, Oh, yes, the LaRouche property in Sharon. Yes,
up on a hill, a giant farm where how many
several thousand people?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
We now last year, last year we had to move
it Elaine died. Unfortunately, I didn't know that they died.
And I adored her and she had been so generous,
but the girls didn't. They're running it as a wedding
center and they her daughter, and they really was And
Elaine had said to me before she passed away that
(35:57):
it was really the last year at Lion Rock.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So we had to move. But Hillside Nursery, I mean,
I you and I fight overes. We do. We want
the species p and ees and we want the epi
mediums and the epi medium lady. I know.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh, but you know that's the thing that's amazing about
trade secrets.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
This is twenty one years later.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Last year we had, you know, eighteen hundred people come,
and we've moved to Lime Rock Racetrack, which is actually better.
They have hard parking for the cars. You won't get
stuck in the mud. They have you know, I hate
to say bathroom facilities. I mean they're set up. No, no, really,
and really we are making a big effort to make
(36:38):
it beautiful.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And there's a lunch tint where you can have a
delicious lunch or coffee in the morning. And I try
to get there at five eight and so that really
first in line. And actually I'm going to try to
come this year. I don't know what time my granddaughter's
recital is yet, but I hate to miss that because
and those of you who are interested in plants, really
(37:01):
beautiful rare plants four your garden, you will find them
in one place at Trade Secrets. And I'm always astonished
at the at the variety of plants that one can
buy from house plants like orchids, incredible orchids, the tropical plants,
orchids topiaris. Oh and the people from the people from
(37:21):
a Great Bearing showing with their beautiful shrubberies, and it's
amazing rare things. And then you have our pot man,
the man who makes our beautiful pots for us for this.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
And you have fabulous antique dealers, I mean Whittington World,
Wells Artie Facts. They all come and we have new
dealers this year. The other thing about Trade Secrets that
I think is a phenomenal. The only reason it's been
a success all of these years is the volunteers. They
have over two hundred and fifty people who sign up
(37:58):
to volunteer to cart your things to your car.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Now you buy, you let me describe how you buy,
because you buy your plants and you pay for them,
and they put them in a little grouping on the
on the grass, and they put a ribbon around yours
and your number. If you start with zero zero and.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You go all the way up to one thousand, I'm
number one in Martha's number two, right and then uh,
then those volunteers lug all that stuff in wheelbarrows and
carts over to the parking area where they're put in
big groupings.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
My grouping is really big. I have to have because
I buy so much stuff. It is. It's an incredible operation.
And uh, and I do, I do, I do applaud
those volunteers.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You all have tried to do it and they can't
because they've never been able to. I said, it takes
two hundred people to put this on, and and you
can't pay for that. You can't hire an event planner
to dote.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
And they are the community is dedicated to So how
much funny you do? Did you raise for the charity?
A lot? A lot? Okay, well, and it looks like it.
It looks like a lot. And I have bought so
much stuff at that show. You know what's interesting too?
I feel lucky that I've had a few good ideas,
(39:17):
that being one. And my other thing that is growing
that I'm very excited about is charity for our local
animal shelter. And you know of dogs and cats as
much as I do.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And we have a dog show that I started in
New York kidt Hawks and I came up with this
idea and it's called the Great Country Much Show and
it's only it's only for me and we have my
favorite class is the best lap dog over forty pounds
and we have a chair and the dog has to
jump in the lap. But it's growing too and hopefully
(39:51):
what is that I have kids in June.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I'll get you. It's hysterical because I love dogs.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
You have very fancy dogs. No they're not there chow chousies,
but they are very friendly. I will not bring them
because they will they will jump in that chair there,
So okay, well you should bring one.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
We had a cat that came to our barn and
then just stayed, no, stayed, and then just disappeared. And
that's heartbreaking because I want to well, we Blackie came
to our barn, our greenhouse, and Blackie has stayed.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
He's now been there for at least six years. So
you see, Bunny and I can talk and talk and
talk and talk. We have so many incredible, great experience
that that are comfortable and in a funny way. But
to find out more about Bunny Williams, you can visit
her website at Bunny Williams home dot com and of
course follow her on Instagram at Bunny's Underscore I. And
(40:48):
to learn more about Trade Secrets, please visit the website
Trade Secrets Capital ch teacpitalt dot com. Bunny, thank you
so much for making time out of your very busy
schedule to come in and talk to all our listeners.
I'm sure they're going to enjoy this so very much. Well.
I love talking to you, Martha. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It's always we could go on for hours and hours. Yes,
and I'm sort of glad that your aunt granddaughter is
having her recital because I won't miss I hope I'll
get some more plans.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Oh stop, there are gonna be plenty of yes, exactly
What are you going to do in a rum? What's
this room for? And you designed for that? And I
need a designer. Interior designer Bunny Williams has been called
a trailblazer and a tastemaker, known for her classic but
never predictable style she has developed or devoted following Over
(00:21):
the years. Bunny has received numerous accolades. Among them, she's
on El Decor's A List, the AD one hundred List,
and she's been inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame.
In two thousand and one, Bunny created Trade Secrets, the
annual fundraiser that supports Project Sage, a nonprofit domestic violence
(00:43):
agency serving Northwest Connecticut and the surrounding communities in New
York and Massachusetts. And I wouldn't Mistrade Secrets for anything
except this year my granddaughter's dance recital at Alvin Ailey.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
No. Well, I actually am sort of glad because you
always get there ahead of me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm going to come to the garden tour the day before. Okay,
Today Bunny oversees a thriving design firm and beautiful retail
collections for home and garden. Joining me at Newstands Studios, right,
here in New York City's Rockefeller Center is Bunny Williams.
Welcome to my podcast. Thank you so much. It is
so nice of you to make time out of your
(01:25):
very busy schedule. Did you come in from Connecticut? No,
I've been in today. I come in Sunday nights. Thank good.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I hate to leave it with all the daffodils and
bloom and the magnolias.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Now, Ben Bunny lives in an idyllic home up in
northwest Connecticut, and I feel the same way. I hate
to lear farm right exactly, we are both farmers. Well,
I want to talk about several things because you have been,
as I said, a trailblazer designer. You've also created a
(01:56):
very nice retail business with your designs of furniture and
home furnishing and of course trade secrets, which is such
a huge and very kind of philanthropic effort on your part.
What was your path to becoming an insurier designer? People
love to know you know, I was. I grew up
in Virginia and Charlottesville, Virginia, and I.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Think University of Virginia, yes, where everybody in my family went,
and we lived on a we lived out in the
country on a country road, and everybody there were cousins
and friends, and everybody was all about their houses. I
always say that in those days you couldn't buy liquor
by the drinks, so there were no restaurants.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I mean, people didn't go out.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
They enter time they weren't home, and everybody loved their homes.
I mean, I just have these wonderful memories of being
in homes. And my mother was sort of, I think,
a frustrated designer. She was always moving things around and
going to the curtain Lady and thinking about her own home.
And I was a teenager and I was very lucky
(02:59):
to be taken to the Greenbrier Hotel that Dorothy Draper
had decorated before before.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, it was really just been finished.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
When she did it was magic, and I learned what
an interior designer was, and I kind of thought that's
what I'd like to be. So it was sort of
planted in my head when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
And you had Monticello to look at everything, the University
of Virginia.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And all those beautiful all those beautiful houses in architecture.
Me we went to look at it garden Week. I
mean it was what we did.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So then you came to New York.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I came to New York. Where'd you go to college?
I went to a junior college in Boston. I wanted
to go to Parsons, but my parents didn't understand that
I would be in New York City in a school
that had no dormitory or campus.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So I went.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I found a junior college in Boston that had an
interior design program, and I went there. And then I
came to New York, which is I was dying to
get to New York and we I got an apartment
with a friend, and I was twenty and I went
to work for as a receptionist in an antique shop
which is called Staring Company, which the best of the best.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The best of the best. So, oh, you know, in
my house in Maine, if I look on there are
labels on some of the furniture the company. So those
are good, right. I was great, very good, and it
was a great education.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And then after a couple of years, I went and
knocked on the door of the one design firm. I
wanted to work for Parish Hadley, sister Parish and Albert Hadley,
and I say to young people you know, if there's
something you want to do, go find the person you
admire the most in that field and see if you
can get it.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I think that's the best advice. And you and if
you have to sweep the floor, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Right because I mean Kevin Sharkey came to me, you know,
and he was packing and unpacking boxes, and he came
from Albert and sister Perish too, exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Exactly, and he and now he's head of the design. Yes, yes,
so you know it's and what was it like we
for sister Paris. Should you work on any houses on
Mount Dessert Island? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I did, But she's she's a character. They were so
different but wonderful in their own way. And she was
actually so when she was in her best mood was
when she was in Maine, and when she she had
a house in Dark Harbor. She'd grown up there practically,
and I always thought, if we get her to Maine,
she's always in a good mood.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
She did missus Astor's house. I remember sitting in that
house many times for dinner parties with David Rockefeller and
having looking around at everything that sister Perry sh had
done extraordinary.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
She had a cutting garden, Missus Astor that was the
most beautiful. I've never seen anything like it in my life.
That was a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It was. Indeed, it's right on the shore of Mount
Dessert Island, looking right at on the some sound. Yeah,
it's so beautiful. But how did they influence your style?
Did they? Or they must? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think that what was great about Missus Paris and
Albert is that their sensibilities were very different. She was
very you know, cozy chintz, the kind of house that
you're many pictures on the pictures on the wall, dot
dog pictures, you know, very very sort of old fashioned
English inspired interiors. Albert was really a modernist, even though
(06:18):
he could do that beautifully.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, Albert was lines.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So I think that my sensibility is sort of an
amalgamation of both of them. I hear them in my brain. Actually,
I oh sure, Well, I mean I was there for
twenty years. Oh you were right, I forgot So you
hear them in your brain and sometimes we I fight
with myself because I'm fighting with them.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But how many how many years did it take for
them to give you your own project? Probably about ten years? Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Really, I would say. I literally started there when I
was twenty two. It was the shopper. I was the
assistant to them on these projects. And what happened is
to start to oh, you have to go to an installed,
you have to make all the beds and put the
lampshades on for sure, and anyway, what was happening is
that people started to recommend me. So I was able
(07:13):
to build a client base right.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
To break off too, from that fabulous job into Bunny William's, Inc.
It was that in New York City too. That's in
New York you're on sixty first Street.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I was actually in My first office was on seventy
seventh Street, across from Missus Paris's apartment. She used to
drop in all the time. We remain very good friends,
both of them forever.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well. Albert was a jeer or two. He lived in Southport, Connecticut. Yes,
and he was very friendly and so very nice and
so respected in the design community. So you had the
best of the best at that time. I did. Yeah,
if you had to get a job, now, which designer
other than yourself, which designer would appeal to you the most?
(07:56):
Which designed Well, there's so many, actually, there are a
lot of good people. I mean a lot of the
graduates of I call it the Parish Hadley School all
have great design firms, you know, David Kleinberg, Brian McCarthy,
you know. But they were all there too. Yeah, we did.
We did a.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Wonderful book called The Tree of Life. And you can't
believe all the people who have design firms, top design
firms who came out of Parish Hady.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Wow, that's that sounds like a good book, a Tree
of Life. Remember that, everybody, and look at it if
you are inclined to go into this business, which is
I think is one of the best businesses. It's so
much fun. I have friends. I have you as a friend,
(08:43):
and I've known Bunny for a long long time. Stephen
sill is in my closest friend in bed back and
uh and I follow his I follow what he's doing
all the time. And I'm kind of jealous, actually, I
get I get envious of what you do because you're
looking at beautiful furniture, you are looking at the best fabrics.
You are installing in the most beautiful apartments and houses,
(09:06):
and I think, God, this is this is something I
would have liked to have done.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Have to say this, in all these years, there's never
been a day I didn't want to go to work,
even when they're problems, because you learn how to solve
the problem and you know it's not life or death
and you just have to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
But it is an exciting career to have. It is
such an e and you traveled to all the time,
so you branched out on your own and was it
fun from day one? Yes? It was? Yes? How many
people worked with you? Well, I started in my apartment.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I had I took my coordinator and my assistant and
so there were three of us and that in my
own apartment. And of course I wasn't allowed to have
a business in the apartment, but I didn't have an office.
And then we needed to expand, so we got to
about seven fairly quickly, and I moved to seventy seventh Street,
and then we grew when we had people in the
(09:56):
closet and working everywhere, we moved to sixty first where
I've been really.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
For all beautiful offices, so they're fantastic office. So your
vision for your business what was it? What was the vision?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The vision was to do residential interior design that's what
I love to do. I'm not a commercial designer. I
really love to work with people on their homes. That's
my passion. I love the relationship with clients. And that
was the vision. And I always say that you know,
(10:29):
one thing leads to another. And as you know, I
was designing things I couldn't find. I say, I couldn't
find little drinks tables. I think everybody, when you sit
down in a chair, you need a little table next
to you to put your coffee or your glass of wine.
I hate being stranded without something, so I couldn't find
these little tables and I thought, well, I'm going to
start designing some.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And that was the beginning of Bunny Williams. H Right,
Buddy Williams Home. You go online and look at all
the beautiful designs. I have one of your chairs in
my summer house, the one with the automan. Yes, that
is such a beautiful chair and I like to sit
in it because I love putting my feet up and
I don't like to sit too much. You know that
I don't sit very much, but that chair is very
(11:13):
from The dogs love it, Oh, yes, they like they
one could be on the automan. The French cheese, and
one could be in the chair. So what do you
have three words that you can really describe your style?
Oh that's so hard, very hard. Also, the other thing
is interesting about what we do. I work on different things.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I mean I work on modern apartments, I work on
traditional houses. So I hope in a funny way, I
hate to say it, I would like somebody to not
think it that I had done it. A lot of
designers have one way. You walk in it, you know
who did it. I'd like I'd like people to walk
in and first say, oh, isn't this a nice house?
(11:53):
Or I like it or it feels good, and then
worry about who decorated it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
So no three words. It's it's eclectic, it's beautiful, it's gracious,
it's comfortable. It's comfortable. Bunny loves comfort.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
And also I like to make it work. I mean
houses have to work. Where do you watch television? Where
are you? What are you going to do in a room?
You have to start thinking about that, what's this room for?
And you designed for that? And I need a designer.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Still, I don't have a television except in my kitchen.
I sit on a stool. I was just with people.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
From a television company this morning, Bunny, and I said,
this is my only TV and it's up high in
my kitchen over my desk, and I sit on a
stool to watch basketball games whatever. And they said you
need to change.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yes, and it's not good for guests either, who want
to come in and watch the watch the Yankees play
or something. My husband loves all movies, so I finally,
my niece's husband, who moved into our guest house over COVID, said, Bunny,
like you, this is just archaic what you have. So
now we have a big television with surround sound. And
(13:04):
John is thrilled because he never has to go to
a movie house.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I bet he's thrilled. Do you find where's the furthest
that you have traveled to design a house? France and
France and many times or a couple several times. And
what about England? No houses? I've never done a house.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Oh really, and your style is so appropriate. They have
so many good designers. I mean they don't need to.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
It's funny enough people say, oh, isn't that? Are you
working someplace? The hardest thing you have to do is
work in a place that you're not familiar with, because
you have to find the trades people, you have to
find the painters, you have to find the people to
make things, whereas if you know an area, you know
who they are. So half the time it's doing the
research to find the good people to do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
What.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
What's the largest house you ever worked on? Huge, huge,
where I'm doing one now in Palm Beach, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Big houses, big house Midwest big houses. What's the most
memorable house you ever did that really you still think
about in terms.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Of funny what you did. Funnily enough, it was love
this story. It was it was a client.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It was people who were very good friends of good clients,
and they loved their house, and they asked me to
come and see their house and what I helped them
on their house And I went to what I have
to say was the ugliest house I'd ever seen in
my life. I mean, I can't even describe it. And
they had built this house when they were young. It
had a conversation pit in the middle of it. I
(14:40):
mean it was I just didn't know what to do
and I was speechless, and I really thought I'm the
wrong person for this house completely the wrong person of
this house, and I'm wandering around. They are the loveliest
people in the world. I adored them, but I just
couldn't get around this house. So I'm in a dining
room and there's a wall of concealed doors, and he
(15:02):
opened the concealed doors, and behind the concealed doors were
the most extraordinary sets of china I have ever seen.
He had a full dinner service of tobacco eighteenth century
tobacco leaf. He had another one that was just as beautiful,
and I thought, anybody who could buy this china and
love this.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Well, that's why they were talking to you, because they
loved their friend's house.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But they had to realize their house in my friend's house.
Was like, well they do think that's why they So anyway,
I finally I said, you're going to have to make
a few serious changes here. They gulped, and he did it,
and the house was actually very interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Oh nice. I had to really take a big step back.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
And so it's projects like that that are really really
interesting and that you have to reach deep down about
your creativity.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You have a favorite client, which client have you done
more ultiple projects?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We have done I have a lot of clients like that. Yeah,
now it's you know. I have one client that was
my first client when I started my business. I actually
had to show them the first scheme in my ambardment.
I mean, and they're still with me, so I have
you know, you have a relationship that's really.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I saw your Midwest client's house out in East Hampton, right,
and I love that house. You did such a beautiful
job on that house because it was like Spanish outside
but inside so beautiful. I love that. It's really nice
when you do walk into a room and you can
tell who designed it, and Bunny has a style that
because of the comfort, because of the beauty and the
(16:41):
nice placement of furniture, you kind of know it's Bunny
Williams and it's not. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I'm very fluid, you know. I like, as I say,
I always want a room that you can add something tomorrow.
You can bring a bouquet of flowers. If it's too severe,
you feel like you don't even want to be in it.
I love rooms that Chris. I'm a shopper like you are,
so I'm always Now are you still shopping? Of course
you are all the time. For yourself. Well, you know,
(17:09):
I shopped for the businesses. I stopped for my clients,
and I shop for Bunny Williams home and but you
know you can't not and what do you what do
you keep for yourself? I keep the things that I
just can't live without.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, I just went to a teg I go
to tag sales. Oh yes, and I just went to
a tag saale in Connecticut where I found right before Easter,
I saw on the floor a bunch of little bunny rabbits,
some wooden ones and some middle ones. But in the
middle of them was this green rabbit and it was jade,
and it weighed about fifty pounds. Ago hardly pick it up.
(17:45):
It looks like old Chinese. Wow. And I bought it,
you know, for nothing, and I had to keep it.
I had to. I had to have that for Easter.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, but I'm always finding things and that's the most
fun I think. Also, you train in your eye because
if you if you really know what you're looking at,
you will spot that. And people say, oh, I don't
know what to look at it. I said, there's always
something here, But you've got to train your eye.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Do your customers shop with you do you go on
buying and buying. Yeah, see, I don't. I've never worked
with a decorator on my own. Of course, you know,
at in my company we've done so many projects, decorating projects.
And Kevin Kevin trained trained a sister Parish and talks
about it all the time. You really love that that job.
(18:31):
Everybody does. Everybody who worked there loves that. That woman
really character amazing. But but so so you know, I
know I've made terrible mistakes. And I know when design
your friends come into my house, I think, I think,
what's going on here? But but it's my home, you know,
And and I and I feel like, because I am
(18:51):
a lifestyle expert, I should know what I'm doing. But
I I know the problem. You know, what kind of
design challenge do you like the most? You know, what's fun? People?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Some some designers hate this. I think it's really interesting
when a client comes to you and they have a
lot of wonderful a lot of things, some good, some
not so good, because I think it makes the space
more interesting than if you just go out and buy
absolutely everything for a space. So sometimes I find that
kind of a challenge and fun.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Well, that reminds me of what Bunny Williams did at
the New York Armory and the Park have You Armory
For the New York Antique Show, Bunny Williams created a
booth that was extremely controversial.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Describe it well, I you know again, I like to
be out of the box, a surprise.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I like a surprise.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
And I thought the Winter at Teach Show, which I love,
is very serious and very you know, you walk through
it's a stay is it's a stay thing, and they
I and expensive. So I I was one of the
honorary chairs and along with Steven and Alex Propercustidi's and
they asked us to do a little vignette and I
(20:08):
thought my office sat me down. They said, I said, okay,
what are we going to do? And I went through
a lot of things in my brain and I don't
know what came up. And it was to me the
most opposite of the Winter Antique Show. And I said,
I want to make a barn. I want to get
old barn siding. I want straw hay bails and I
were hay bails to sit on and I said, I
(20:29):
want beautiful furniture scene in a different way, because I
mean in the middle of it was a you know
American recamye, just because I think you look at it,
and I can tell you everybody looked at that booth
did everything. So we sold a lot, but people just stopped.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And I loved it. I thought it was such a
nice juxtaposition to everything else that was at the show.
And I walked around and sometimes I buy things at
that show, and this year I bought the big eagle. Beautiful,
that beautiful eagle, which I'm going to put in the
center of my stable courtyard. Oh beautiful. And I had
to take out a big round mill millstone that my
(21:10):
contractor put there because it's curved and the eagle can't
sit on it, so I have to take that out.
I can use it someplace else. But it's so beautiful.
It's beautiful. And you see treasures at these shows, and
then to see bunnies treasures within a different, different context
was so interesting. Really, I thought it was great. And
(21:32):
so you also are in a phenomenal gardener yourself, and
you have built a pavilion at your beautiful swimming pool,
you have built gardens around it. They're your whole woodland
in Connecticut. Describe your Connecticut house. Well, the house is
a typical New England.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It was a federal Probably the earliest part of the
house is eighteenth century. The main part of the house
is about eighteen sixty and it sits up on a knoll.
It's right next to the little town of Falls Village.
And I bought it forty years ago.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And how much did it cost? One and ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I had no money and my husband I scraped together
as well. When I bought it, it had about ten
I now have twenty two because I've bought continuous pieces
of property.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And I bought it because I wanted a garden.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I mean, we were renting a wonderful house and I said,
I'm tired of putting something in somebody else's property.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
I want a garden. Funny is very much like I am.
Just really loves the loves nature. And you have beautiful plants.
Oh my gosh. I love your lilacs and your hedges.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
And it's it's a it's an addiction, you know, and
you it's a life again.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Like anything you do, it's a learning process.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I mean, I think of what I didn't know when
I started out, which was about probably nothing and I've
learned earned and you it's a wonderful.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Thing to be And funny isn't funny without John ROSELLI
too wonderful husband. Her wonderful husband who and they worked
together in triage, which was.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
A I knew John. I met John first when I
was about twenty four. I was working at Parish Hadley
and I went into a shop and.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It was a could triage then No.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
No, this was John ROSSELLI John, he had his own
business for years, and you know we were friends. I
would buy there and I always say our romance started
because one spring I went in and we were talking.
I said, you know, I've never been to the Chelsea
Flower Show and he said, well neither of I.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I was married at the time, which I probably shouldn't
stay on a podcast, but anyway, and John and I
went off to the Chelsea Flower Show and had I
just had the best time with this man, absolutely, And
that's where we got the idea to open the shop Trayage,
which was a garden shop and nobody in those days
had a garden show. Oh gosh, and I've I I
know they are wonderful supply. I loved that store so much,
(24:04):
and I too love garden antiques and objects that are
useful in the garden, and you found beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
The thing about.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Objects outside, don't you find it draws your eye to
something it does. And I always say it's the animate,
inanimate and the animate, And all of a sudden, anurn
or something draws your eye. And then you might say,
look at all the silla, look at the things blooming
around it, and it's just something to catch your eye.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Even structures too, beautiful perugolas and things that are very
important in the garden. I put two bird beds outside
my kitchen. They're not really they were bird bets, I guess,
but they're old painted galvanized bird bets. And I watch
birds drinking aliday. And it made such a difference in
that garden because life came.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I had loved for years, loved bird houses, and I
would buy them because nobody else wanted them, and I
just love them. And I had this collection, and so
I've taken the last piece of my property and I've
created birdhouse Village and I have about thirty bird houses
up on different different All the birdhouses are all different.
(25:14):
There no tour like, They're all antique ones, and I've
planted it with shrubs and things to attract the birds.
And finally last year I found the water features, so
they now have a big I found it at Artie Facts,
this big sort of industrial bowl so the birds can
have some water.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Oh it's that's see. That's such a nice use of
a piece of profit. It is so great. And how
did how did John influence your business? Did he did? He?
I mean, you both of you looking at stuff, but.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Weather we you know, we were John and I are
like book cands. I mean I influenced him, he influenced
He really actually doesn't like decorating. He likes things. He
loves the furniture, the accessories, the blue and white. And
when we've done our own homes, I would show him
things and he'd say, I hate it all.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well,
I really don't like decorating.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I like sizel carpet, white walls and all my pictures
and things.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Beautiful things. And while you've been decorating, you have also
written an extraordinary bunch of books, starting with Love Affairs
with Houses the first Yes, and that is a beautiful,
beautiful book. So those were some of your projects.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yes, well, A Love Affair with House was on my
house in the conkay It.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And then there have been books on the projects.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And now in the midst of writing, I never I swaw,
I wasn't going to write another book.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Oh yes, you have to.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So I'm doing another one. It's on the garden, it's
on entertaining, it's on history, a little bit of I
don't know. It's just a scrap book of lots of ideas.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
So nice. And Bunny has also written a book called
A House by the Sea. Which house was that? That
was the house that we had in the Dominican Republic. Oh,
talk about that because I go there quite often. I
have a very good friend who house there, and I
go down there and people say, oh, yes, Bunny did this,
and Bunny did that. Well.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
We were very close friends of Oscar de Laurentis, and
when he bought this, he wanted to develop this property.
It's called Pootacana, and we used to go there when
there was nothing. There was no golf course, there was nothing,
and we loved it. I loved the kind of simplicity
of it. And we would go there once a year
and Oscar said, oh, well, you know, why don't you
(27:28):
buy property?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And it was funny.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
John had had a big house in New Jersey that
he'd inherited from his family and he was selling it
and he said, well, why don't we build a house
down here, and then I have a place to put
on my furniture. So anyway, it was great fun and
we built a beautiful house and created a garden.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Then Oscar join and then we sold it. We had
it for about sixteen years. And is it at all
down there? No?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
No, you know what I it was going to the
same place. I'm really not a resort person, and there
wasn't an enough to do. It wasn't They didn't make
a lot of things, and we were running a hotel.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Great for a week or two, but I agree with you,
it's it's hard to go to the same place. This
is Narrosis have a beautiful house. We just worked there
at her at her house life and and the beaches
are gorgeous and so many Bluehorn is my friend, she's
her father built that place, the first place.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
They did the whole thing. Yeah, it was so and
I'd like to hear those stories. It's very extraordinary. Bunny
has also written Bunny Williams scrap Book for Living and
Bunny William's point of View and on garden styles. So
(28:45):
now you're doing another gardening oriented book, probably more gardens
tabletop And is there a style?
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Is there a period and landscape architecture that appeals to
you more than any other? You know what's so interesting?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I think, again, like everything, it evolves, I'm certainly influenced
by English gardens. I when I first went to Sissinghurst,
I thought I died and gone to heaven, and I'm
I love the I love the sense of garden rooms.
I love the sense of the spaces that you create
because you can't you can't take it all in at
one time. But then you get pretty inspired by looking
(29:22):
at the new things of P.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Dudolf.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I mean, I just got his new book and I
was just an amazing dying. But again, it's a different
kind of property.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't know where he finds all those.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Plans, and I mean I just was overwhelmed by it.
But it's sort of like, Okay, how do I It's again,
like anything, I think, you have to examine what you
have to work with you.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
No, I haven't. He's prickly I heard that oh, he's prickly.
He was the speaker and in Mount Dessert Island two
years ago at my at my church where I have
an event for the Beatrix Friend of Society, and he
he was the speaker and he was fantastic, and then
I asked him a question and he was so prickly.
But but he's a genius incape. So you get you know,
(30:09):
you get inspired.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And I think we all think about our gardens in
a different way because of the environment. I mean, we
have no water. It's too hot. I mean, it's it's changing.
And anybody who doesn't want to deal with it go
out and garden for two years.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So how are you dealing with the drought we are
we're experiencing we are. I mean do you have irrigation?
We have irrigation.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I mean I have wells, and I'm trying to really examine.
I want to contain water that I can if it
would only rain. So I'm thinking of, you know, more troughs.
And I was even going to go down to tract
Or Supply and buy one of those.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Big things they're great, and just break them.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Out to save water because and I think we're going
to cut down on the amount of containers we have
because that takes a lot of water.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
And I'm letting very little lawn. Yeah, I'm trying to
get rid of all grasses in the modern way. And
except for one soccer lawn for MI, grants mean something
and and the rest of it. I really want to
just plant with things that will survive even even a
dry summer, because the spring has been so dry in
our area. And uh, and yet Bunny's garden is beautiful
(31:22):
and my garden is beautiful right now because because we
know sort of what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But also you anticipate the future. This is what we
have to think about. And all these beautiful trees, I
mean they can't go without water, No, they cannot, the
big ones especially. Also we're having the you know, that's
why we have all the tent caterpillars and all of
the deforestation with with bugs and things.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Because there's ash tree, ash tree, green borer, the emerald borer.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
We had to cut down four well I did four hundred,
and now I have beautiful wood.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
I know, I know what if I got to do
with all that wood, but it is it's really something.
But what talk about your pool house? Because that broke
all rules. That is one of the most beautiful structures
and probably one of the most copied things that you've built.
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
We John and I were in We were shopping for
trayage in South France and we didn't have a swimming pool,
and John said, I'd love to have a swimming pool.
You know, in Connecticut you swim for maybe two and
a half months. So I did not want the swimming
pool next to my house because I didn't want to
look at a big empty pool. So we were shopping
and we found these beautiful stones that had come from
(32:39):
a bath saw and I put it up on the
hill and apt past.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
The apple orchard. So you sent them all over from France.
So stones, oh, the beautiful The coping around Bunny's pool
is memorable. But anyway, I put it up on the hill.
But I needed a bathroom and a little kitchen because
it's far from the house, right, and a place and say,
because I don't like to sit in the sun. And
I started thinking about it. In Falls village has a
(33:05):
lot of Greek Revival architecture. We own a guesthouse. It's
got beautiful columns.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
On it and because it you know it's right adjacent
to the woods. I thought, wouldn't it be great if
it looked like the logs came out and made a temple,
made a Greek revival building. And that's what it looks like,
because it's and I had a friend give me the
proportions of classical Greek temple, and so we built it.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it worked. And the columns are tree trunks.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yes, the old thing is tree. Oh yes, it's and
then freezes pine cones.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Very yeah, it's very, very beautiful. So Bunny works at
home as well as on other people's properties. But I think,
I think you'll always do that. You'll always keep evolving
and and building.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
And I don't do landscape for other people. Oh you don't, okay,
just for yourself. No, I said this too. Carpet never
gets mildew, the chairs don't die. So I'll just doing
it for myself.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
So on another subject, your philanthropy, because that Trade Secrets
is a show that is held every year in May
where all the great great plant growers come together and
antique dealers come together and set up somewhere. For years,
it was at that beautiful farm. In our first two
(34:24):
years were at our house, I didn't know about it.
I started it with Naomi Bluementhal and Debbie Munson who
were working in my garden with me, and I always say,
it was a long cold winter and I said, we
have all these plants. We should have a plant sale.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
And I said, why don't we have a nice sale.
Then we thought, well we'll add the antiques to it.
And then we thought well we'll do this, this and
the other. And Naomi was on the in those days,
WES which was what it was really called, which was
Women's Support Service literally just had a hotline. And I said, well,
let's just give the money to them. I mean, we
(35:02):
never thought this would be a success. And the first
year we had about three hundred and fifty people. The
second year still on my property, we had almost six hundred.
It snowed on May sixteen, it snowed and people were stuck.
We don't have parking, and I said, we've outgrown this property.
(35:23):
So then we moved to another place.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And then Elaine Laroche, Oh, yes, the LaRouche property in Sharon. Yes,
up on a hill, a giant farm where how many
several thousand people?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
We now last year, last year we had to move
it Elaine died. Unfortunately, I didn't know that they died.
And I adored her and she had been so generous,
but the girls didn't. They're running it as a wedding
center and they her daughter, and they really was And
Elaine had said to me before she passed away that
(35:57):
it was really the last year at Lion Rock.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So we had to move. But Hillside Nursery, I mean,
I you and I fight overes. We do. We want
the species p and ees and we want the epi
mediums and the epi medium lady. I know.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh, but you know that's the thing that's amazing about
trade secrets.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
This is twenty one years later.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Last year we had, you know, eighteen hundred people come,
and we've moved to Lime Rock Racetrack, which is actually better.
They have hard parking for the cars. You won't get
stuck in the mud. They have you know, I hate
to say bathroom facilities. I mean they're set up. No, no, really,
and really we are making a big effort to make
(36:38):
it beautiful.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And there's a lunch tint where you can have a
delicious lunch or coffee in the morning. And I try
to get there at five eight and so that really
first in line. And actually I'm going to try to
come this year. I don't know what time my granddaughter's
recital is yet, but I hate to miss that because
and those of you who are interested in plants, really
(37:01):
beautiful rare plants four your garden, you will find them
in one place at Trade Secrets. And I'm always astonished
at the at the variety of plants that one can
buy from house plants like orchids, incredible orchids, the tropical plants,
orchids topiaris. Oh and the people from the people from
(37:21):
a Great Bearing showing with their beautiful shrubberies, and it's
amazing rare things. And then you have our pot man,
the man who makes our beautiful pots for us for this.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
And you have fabulous antique dealers, I mean Whittington World,
Wells Artie Facts. They all come and we have new
dealers this year. The other thing about Trade Secrets that
I think is a phenomenal. The only reason it's been
a success all of these years is the volunteers. They
have over two hundred and fifty people who sign up
(37:58):
to volunteer to cart your things to your car.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Now you buy, you let me describe how you buy,
because you buy your plants and you pay for them,
and they put them in a little grouping on the
on the grass, and they put a ribbon around yours
and your number. If you start with zero zero and.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
You go all the way up to one thousand, I'm
number one in Martha's number two, right and then uh,
then those volunteers lug all that stuff in wheelbarrows and
carts over to the parking area where they're put in
big groupings.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
My grouping is really big. I have to have because
I buy so much stuff. It is. It's an incredible operation.
And uh, and I do, I do, I do applaud
those volunteers.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You all have tried to do it and they can't
because they've never been able to. I said, it takes
two hundred people to put this on, and and you
can't pay for that. You can't hire an event planner
to dote.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
And they are the community is dedicated to So how
much funny you do? Did you raise for the charity?
A lot? A lot? Okay, well, and it looks like it.
It looks like a lot. And I have bought so
much stuff at that show. You know what's interesting too?
I feel lucky that I've had a few good ideas,
(39:17):
that being one. And my other thing that is growing
that I'm very excited about is charity for our local
animal shelter. And you know of dogs and cats as
much as I do.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
And we have a dog show that I started in
New York kidt Hawks and I came up with this
idea and it's called the Great Country Much Show and
it's only it's only for me and we have my
favorite class is the best lap dog over forty pounds
and we have a chair and the dog has to
jump in the lap. But it's growing too and hopefully
(39:51):
what is that I have kids in June.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
I'll get you. It's hysterical because I love dogs.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
You have very fancy dogs. No they're not there chow chousies,
but they are very friendly. I will not bring them
because they will they will jump in that chair there,
So okay, well you should bring one.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
We had a cat that came to our barn and
then just stayed, no, stayed, and then just disappeared. And
that's heartbreaking because I want to well, we Blackie came
to our barn, our greenhouse, and Blackie has stayed.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
He's now been there for at least six years. So
you see, Bunny and I can talk and talk and
talk and talk. We have so many incredible, great experience
that that are comfortable and in a funny way. But
to find out more about Bunny Williams, you can visit
her website at Bunny Williams home dot com and of
course follow her on Instagram at Bunny's Underscore I. And
(40:48):
to learn more about Trade Secrets, please visit the website
Trade Secrets Capital ch teacpitalt dot com. Bunny, thank you
so much for making time out of your very busy
schedule to come in and talk to all our listeners.
I'm sure they're going to enjoy this so very much. Well.
I love talking to you, Martha. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It's always we could go on for hours and hours. Yes,
and I'm sort of glad that your aunt granddaughter is
having her recital because I won't miss I hope I'll
get some more plans.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Oh stop, there are gonna be plenty of yes, exactly
Host
Martha Stewart
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