Martha Stewart on Her Love of Birds and Gardening in Every Season
Christopher Spitzmiller and I have a lot in common. We both love to entertain, gathering friends and colleagues in our homes to enjoy the bounty of our gardens and the dishes we create in our kitchens. We both love good food and cooking, amassing the perfect recipes for salad dressings, soufflés, pies, tarts, and bread. We both love restoration, renovation, and building from scratch.
We both love birds of all types—chickens, pigeons, turkeys, geese, peafowl—and we often meet at poultry shows, where we purchase the rare and beautiful birds that occupy our dovecotes and henhouses.
We both garden in every season, collecting plants and trees and shrubs from here, there, and everywhere, filling our cars and trucks with specimens to plant in our ever expanding landscapes. And we both center our businesses on the home, which we love and cherish, for ourselves and our customers, but especially for our friends.
When Chris moved full-time to Clove Brook Farm, lovingly captured in his new book [which is featured here exclusively and from which this excerpt is adapted], he knew our Hudson Valley friends would appreciate a watering hole to share, and we do. The delightful pool house is one part Bunny Williams (another neighbor and friend), one part the Temple of Pan at Osterley Park, one part Arundel Castle, and one part Chris. We gather for meals overlooking his sumptuous garden or stretch out on his chaise longues poolside. It’s the kind of place where you start to relax immediately, without the need for a cocktail—though of course that never hurts.
Follow House Beautiful on Instagram.
You Might Also Like
