A YEAR OF ENTERTAINING ❖ A Spirited SUMMER Cottage Escape Where Jenna Bush Hager Gathers with Friends INTERIOR DESIGN BY Traci White PHOTOGRAPHY BY Tara Donne PRODUCED BY Rachael Burrow STYLING BY Frances Bailey WRITTEN BY Ellen McGauley Bush Hager (opposite, in her family room) sets an enchanting poolside scene, layering block-printed table linens (Amanda Lindroth) The Today show star and mother of three over vintage iron garden happily adopts the poolside party traditions furniture. Glassware, Juliska of her weekend retreat, instilling warmth and CASTORINO. B. LAURA BY STYLING HAIR KAHLER; MARY BY STYLING MAKEUP MIMI; DE FLEURS BY STYLING FLORAL welcome with effortless, heirloom style. VERANDA 111 Sapphire velvet upholstery (Donghia) and tassel fringe (Samuel & Sons) refresh a classic sofa in the Bush Hager’s 1980s living room. Armchair fabric, Morris Henry Hager Pontiac station wagon & Co. Vintage coffee table, Baker. with daughter is similar to one her Egret painting, George W. Bush Mila (6) parents drove when she was a child. architect in a different life—and we both love to look at JENNA BUSH HAGER A fireclay apron-front a space and imagine what it might be. She always says ushers her girls across the gravel lot of a farm stand sink (Rohl), glazed tile when you visit any house, there’s a feeling you get.” (Waterworks), and brass on Long Island’s woodsy North Shore, one they’ve fixtures (Ferguson) update For Bush Hager, it was familiarity. The driveway visited a hundred times before. The girls clutch but- the midcentury kitchen. is a slim, brush-lined path that takes its time. “There ter cookies (treats from the owner) as they climb back Paint, Wedgewood Gray was something about it that reminded me of Texas, by Benjamin Moore into their 1980s Pontiac station wagon. Bush Hager’s of being outside. Even this close to the city, there was carrying sweet corn and buratta, Sequoia Alpine a remoteness to it,” she says. Then there were the tomatoes and just-baked bread—anything that looks birdhouses, which were everywhere. “I come from a fresh for an easy summer supper with neighbors. JENNA LIKES THINGS WITH CHARACTER long line of birders. My parents bird for fun, and my Some of these gatherings are planned, the poolside AND A HISTORY SHE CAN TRACE. IT’S grandmother Jenna was a naturalist. She would teach table set. Others spring up like afternoon rainstorms, NEVER ABOUT ‘NEW, NEW, NEW.’ ” my sister, Barbara, and me about birds, rocks, every as day slides into evening and a crowded pool means constellation in the sky.” everyone is staying for dinner. —TRACI WHITE, DESIGNER The backyard was big. She imagined her kids run- It’s a routine the Today show cohost and former ning barefoot across it, the vegetable garden they’d First Daughter has on delightful repeat in her world plant, heading back down that long drive every after- A vintage collection of outside Manhattan, where she and her husband, iron seating (a welcome noon in the summer. Less hustle, more puttering. Henry Hager, purchased a home for their growing gift from the previous The next day, she brought Henry to see the family (Mila, 6; Poppy, 4; and son, Hal, who was born owners) is outfitted in four-bedroom cottage, which had been inhabited Perennials fabric. in August). They’d spent five or six summers renting by just one owner (the couple who built it lived there in the area and had fallen in love with the North until they passed away). They walked the long entry Shore’s two-second hamlets and mellow villages, “its hall stretching from a bedroom wing to the kitchen mom-and-pop stores and coffee shops where every- and family room and stood in the sunny great room one knows each other,” says Bush Hager. Plus, it’s an that connected it all. They marveled at an open-air easy drive to the city, where they both work. poolhouse, with its charming latticework climbing They weren’t in the market to buy—not until a cot- the walls, all original to the home. tage tucked behind a thick stand of tall red cedars, “You’re right,” Henry told her. “This feels like us.” dogwoods, and ferns went up for sale and beckoned Afterwards, the two talked it over at a local cafe, and with two magic words: open house. an older gentleman approached their table. “He said “I inherited this habit from my mother: We go to he’d been friends with my grandpa,” she recalls. “We open houses for fun,” says Bush Hager. “She has an mentioned the house, and he knew it well. ‘They get incredibly strong sense for design—I think she was an the best birds,’ he told us. It felt so serendipitous.” 112 VERANDA VERANDA 113 FAR LEFT: Mila (6) and Poppy (4) help them- selves to sweet bar-cart offerings like lemonade THE IMPORTANCE OF DRAWING OFF OF THE and grapefruit juice. LOCAL LANDSCAPE IS SOMETHING OUR LEFT: A pair of inquisitive owls painted by Bush Hager’s father graces a MOTHER TAUGHT US FROM A YOUNG AGE.” wall alongside a tall —JENNA BUSH HAGER wingback chair, recov- ered in an Indian embroi- dery (Zoffany), from Hager’s mother. Drapery fabric, Lisa Fine Textiles BELOW: Bush Hager encircled the pool with wicker lanterns (Amanda Lindroth) to illuminate suppers after sundown. In some ways, it had to, or it never would have gone further than that open house. “Jenna inherited her mother’s eye for design and is drawn to things with character and a history she can trace,” says Dal- las-based designer Traci White, whose own history has intertwined with Bush Hager’s for nearly two decades. The two were college roommates at the University of Texas, and they’ve since collaborated on a number of projects, including outfitting the cottage. They began by combing through pieces from both the Bush and Hager families: In came a late-20th- century sofa from Bush Hager’s side, which they modernized in blue velvet upholstery and pretty tassel fringe. A pair of wingbacks recovered in an Indian embroidery fabric came from Hager’s family, along with a mahogany sideboard. The president’s paintings—textural landscapes of Maine’s rocky coast and statuesque birds—brighten the walls, as do nature prints that once hung in the White House. They were part of a series Mrs. Bush commissioned while her husband was in office, depicting animal and plant A Foolproof Rain Plan life found at Camp David. When the couple bought AND MORE WAYS JENNA BUSH HAGER ENSURES EACH the house, Mrs. Bush went through and pulled those WEEKEND GATHERING IS AS GOOD AS THE LAST sharing native commonalities with Long Island. The house, too, had gifts to bestow: In the base- 1 2 3 ment, the couple found a pair of fanciful painted SHE SIMPLIFIES SHE SERVES A MIX- SHE IGNORES chairs that now resides in the entry hall and a beauti- THE SEATING PLAN. AND-MINGLE MENU. THE FORECAST. “It’s hard for anything “If you’re having fun, “You don’t know ful cache of iron outdoor furniture. to feel pretentious everyone else will. how many times this “Jenna and her mother enjoy considering pieces outdoors. With so We serve things that poolhouse has saved individually, in finding beauty in what’s there,” notes much beauty around don’t trap me inside— us. It’s our rain plan, us, we often throw tap- grilled fish tacos, so we never have to White. “It’s never about ‘new, new, new.’ ” estries on the ground, Texas casseroles like worry about whether The front door opens to a broad entry hall The couple did, however, overhaul the kitchen, pull chairs out, and migas, or even just a it’s a good day to connecting two wings of the cottage. The we’re ready for guests.” good cheese plate.” invite friends or not.” walls are covered in an abundant woodland replacing appliances, cabinetry, and fixtures, and print (Scalamandré), and the floors are giving it a greater sense of openness. “There’s some- painted a fresh blue-green (Riverway by Sherwin-Williams) with a sage border VERANDA (Saybrook114 VERANDA Sage by Benjamin Moore). 115 THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PLACE—MAYBE ITS FARM STANDS CLOSE BY—THAT MAKES ME WANT TO COOK MORE, ENTERTAIN MORE.” —JENNA BUSH HAGER thing about this place—maybe its farm stands close LEFT: Henry by—that makes me want to cook more, entertain refreshes glasses of rosé for friends more,” says Bush Hager. around the table. This sense of ease plays out nearly every weekend in the summer and, in many ways, picks up where TOP: Fresh seasonal dishes like black the former owners left off. Older locals tell of the sea bass tacos, countless pool and cocktail parties they attended corn and avocado there, likely seated in the same iron furniture or salad, and pavlovas with Youngs Farm mingling in the poolhouse. Its lofty vaulted ceiling strawberries are is today home to, of course, a family of birds. Their served buffet-style nests peek out from the painted beams, and when in the poolhouse, where charming the rain pours in the summer, Bush Hager and her LEFT: Portraits by ABOVE: Bush Hager original latticework Texas native Natalie sets the table with family join them. “There’s something magnificent climbs the Erwin hang over the a favorite collection of about sitting under there with your friends and kids interior walls. girls’ twin beds, each earthenware, a set of watching the rain,” she says. “You’re outdoors and dressed in linens by pink Bordallo Pinheiro another Longhorn cabbage plates.