French lavender for home
Mar. 7—She calls it "a petit French lavender farm." Lisa Fontanarosa, who has been styling and sourcing collections for interior designers since 1997, has a new line featuring her home-grown Grosso and Provence lavender.
Her "squishy lavender linen bags" can go in a closet, in the dryer, or just function as décor.
"I got the idea from a trip to France," she said. "It's so nice, especially in the dead of winter, if you find one of these tucked into the corner of a sofa or hidden behind a pillow and squeeze it and get that beautiful smell of lavender."
The new product from Jo's Farms (she named the enterprise after her mother, Josephine) is available in Santa Fe at Array, 322 S. Guadalupe Street.
Fontanarosa and her husband, Joe Ornelas, bought their property on Rio Grande Boulevard in Albuquerque in 2017. She found it with an internet search for the phrase "meandering gardens."
"The previous owners had donkeys and alpacas and horses that compacted the soil with their hooves so we had to find someone to level everything before prepping it for planting," she said in a mid-February interview. "We put in a lavender farm on our property and we harvested the first lavender in 2019.
"Our soil is the perfect pH and climate for lavender. We did lose some in one of the storms, but we'll be planting again in April."
She has adapted an A-frame that the previous owner built for his daughter's playhouse to hang and dry the lavender. A casita on the property will be her farm store.
"Since France is such a huge part of my work [she represents several French artists in her Lisa Fontanarosa Collection] and because I can't go to France right now, I thought, why can't I just create that feeling of being in France right here in my garden and farm shop?"
She's hoping to be finished with the store this month. "I had hoped to open by Valentine's Day but COVID has slowed it all down; it's the same for everybody. I just want to get in there and start decorating with all the fabuous items I've been working with for years. It's all unfolding in my mind; I can't wait to get there and get it done."
She's also doing lavender wands, bath salts, and lavender-infused sugar for cooking and baking. Besides the prepared products, she will sell fresh bundles of lavender in late spring, and dried bundles at other times of the year. Also in the shop will be the beautiful wire constructions by Marie Christophe that she has sold for years; these include chandeliers, bird cages and sculptures of bicycles, angels, chickens, and fantastic birds. Then there are the dyed velvet appliqué pillows by Adam and Viktoria of Sweden and Bonita Ahuja's hand-dyed, handwoven textiles from India.
"It's a farm shop with a chic twist, with summer vegetables and eggs and sunflowers and the lavender and a lot of items from Europe, kitchen and garden décor," Fontanarosa said.
For more information, see josfarms.com and lisafontanarosa.com. The farm is located at 2017 Rio Grande Blvd NW. People can visit by appointment; call 505-710-2074 or email info@josfarms or hello@lisafontanarosa.com.
