Snowy Campbell’s watercolor of the Gothic Room in the Mellons’ home at Oak Spring Farm in Upperville, Fauquier County (Painting by Alison ‘Snowy’ Campbell courtesy Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville)
Rachel Lambert “Bunny” Mellon was a true Renaissance woman. A socialite, philanthropist and creative spirit, Mellon famously patronized and mentored artists whose talents she admired. She designed her clothing with Givenchy and Balenciaga, and her jewelry with Jean Schlumberger. A self-taught horticulturalist and gardener, she created a design for the Rose Garden at the White House and a garden at the Tuileries in Paris, in addition to landscaping her many properties. Mellon also oversaw every detail of the interior design of her homes.
Through the years, she worked with legendary decorators such as John Fowler, principal of Colefax & Fowler of London, and Billy Baldwin of New York to achieve her visions. And while the decor of each home was tailored to its location, they were all classic Bunny: meticulously crafted, understated, warm and welcoming.
As heirs to the Lambert and Mellon fortunes, Mellon and her husband, Paul, enjoyed an extraordinarily privileged lifestyle. Her interiors deftly showcased their art and antique collections; in any given home, one might find masterpieces by John Singer Sargent, Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, Cézanne or Bonnard casually displayed on a mantel, the back staircase or even a bathroom wall.
In 1965, a broken leg brought Mellon to the New York office of orthopedic surgeon Dr. Rolla Campbell, where she discovered a group of watercolor paintings created by his daughter, Snowy. Enchanted, Mellon immediately engaged the artist to capture the interiors of her homes, says actor Frank Langella, a close friend of the Mellons. Langella shares the story of their meeting in “The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon: Paintings by Snowy Campbell,” a new coffee-table book by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation featuring Campbell’s paintings of the Mellons’ homes in New York and Washington, D.C., as well as their Oak Spring Farm estate in Upperville, Fauquier County.
Campbell painted hundreds of images over a period of about seven years, capturing the essence of the rooms, vignettes and objets d’art. She didn’t want just a photographic record, says Sir Peter Crane, president of Oak Spring Garden Foundation. “I think the paintings are sort of more evocative of the spirit of the place, and I think that’s what attracted Mrs. Mellon to Snowy as an artist. It wasn’t just a sterile record.”
“For me, the word that defines the charm of Oak Spring is ‘harmony,’ which was undoubtedly the secret of Bunny Mellon’s genius,” says the 12th Earl of Drogheda, former husband of the Mellons’ daughter, Eliza. “Outside, the house looked like a modest country cottage that had been slowly enlarged over the years.” This simplicity, he says, was deceptive, achieved by a combination of taste and wealth.
“I think it was Mrs. Mellon’s aspiration to eventually publish [the paintings] as a book,” Crane says. “She had an idea of the format. She got an idea of what she wanted to include, but the text never materialized.”
Renowned interior designer, author and Richmond native Charlotte Moss, he says, helped bring the book to fruition. James Reginato’s eloquent text weaves together Campbell’s enchanting watercolors with memories collected from individuals who share what they remember most about being in Mellon’s remarkable homes.
Seven years in the making, “The Enchanting Interiors of Bunny Mellon: Paintings by Snowy Campbell” also features a meticulously researched index identifying where the paintings, objects and furniture depicted in each watercolor are housed today.
