LAKE RABUN & BRIDESHEAD REVISITED

I fell in love with College Boy. Watching Brideshead Revisited with Emma Thompson I learned more. I fell in love with College Boy, the charms of his family and this house, owned by his grandmother, Miss Louise.

Built on land in the shape of Florida, the house faces the lake on both sides.

Built in the teens the house had servant quarters, a delightful carriage house with storage for hay, 2 docks, boathouse, guest house, stone tunnel, a boiler in the attic, badminton court, extensive gardens & a summer house.

Spring water, still soft & sweet, for the house came from land Miss Louise owned further up the mountain.

We honeymooned here. Living in the big house by day, sleeping in the guest house by night. Much later I realized every picture from my honeymoon is of plants.

Stones for the house & fireplaces, 13 total, came from nearby.

Dining room, below, still has this furniture. Pics from the 1920's.

The chair, above, missing a spindle, now at the desk in my bay window. It's an American windsor dated 1897 on the bottom.

The big house is 1 room deep with 19 pair of French doors.

Lake Rabun from the back terrace.

Family dinners, birthdays, anniversaries, being with my dogs, reading, or lunch alone thru the years on the terrace, above, fill my spiritual well.

Jenny, my mother-in-law, at right, dead of breast cancer at age 57.

So many hours boating. I can hear the motor of these boats.

After Miss Louise died Jenny had the chairs, below, in her garden. They are now in my garden.

The best view of any lake house. Hidden in the trees.

My competitive Texas tennis days never translated into being a good waterskier.

I spent hours gardening at Lake Rabun. Its landscape designed by a professional. Slowly, intuitively, understanding its paths, evergreen hedges, stone walls, cut-fill, axis, and more. How each room interacts with the outside. How a person's life interacts with a house & its landscape.

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Miss Louise gardened here, her sister, Aunt Tillie gardened here, her daughter, Aunt Mary, gardened here. Jenny played. She taught me about picnics, music, books, nature, cooking, Peter Pan decadence, photography, films, bleak chic, dressing-up a cat, hiking and ultimately how to be myself.

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Marrying College Boy was fate's way of placing 4 mentors in my life, Miss Louise, Aunt Tillie, Aunt Mary and Jenny. And Lake Rabun.

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Lake Rabun is in every landscape I design.

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Brideshead Revisted doesn't miss a topic I've experienced at Lake Rabun. Separating from the charms of others, or a place, is never easy. You don't know what's on the other side. With age you learn it's freedom.

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Garden & Be Well XO Tara

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Family pics