Nesmith House in Lowell - An Historic and Intimate Venue

Just perfect for a small wedding, bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, or party


I visited the historic, 22-room Nesmith House in Lowell for the first time this spring. What a splendid place it is. Like all old homes, it has its stories, and an irresistible sense of romance and mystery.

This Greek Revival 1850’s mansion sits atop a hill in the Bellevidere district overlooking downtown Lowell and the Lowell Mills. What more fitting vista for its original owner, the industrialist and politically engaged John Nesmith.

The house, long neglected, was restored to vivid life in the mid 1990s when interior designers redid it, room by room – each to his or her own taste. If it’s a bit of a mélange of styles –ranging from period pieces, a few ornate ones original to the house, to art deco, with a lot of Victoriana along the way, somehow it all flows. In short, the house, like any beauty with good bones, wears its plumage well. From its graceful winding staircase and stained glass dome, to its overstuffed sofas and chairs, ornate rugs, wallpapers, paintings, and endless smaller treasures– the details and opulence beckon and delight. In addition, they urge: sit down, stay a while, have a sip of something cool or hot, depending on the weather, and enjoy the company.

The Nesmith House definitely deserves a visit and more than a passing thought as a venue for intimate occasions. Fifty guests can sit in comfort and style at small tables in the charming round dining room; for stand up affairs, the house can handle eighty. It has a large contemporary kitchen, incidentally – a caterer’s dream; and a way of making things look grand. While old-fashioned flowers like hydrangea and lilies, delphinium, stock, snapdragons, and roses fit right in, a clean arrangement of callas in dashing yellow, for example, or a sheaf of white gladiolas would make an attention-grabbing counterpoint. The flowers should simply make a statement in themselves.

What brought me to the Nesmith House? A late April shower for a June bride. The bride’s colors were pink and white with a soupcon of lime green; the look, to go with the house (and the bride’s favorite flowers): feminine and romantic.

For the entrance hall I used approximately two dozen pink Canterbury bells mingled with lime green viburnum and narrow ferns in a clear glass cylinder. The hall is elegant but not overpowering, and although Canterbury bells are delicate, en masse they stood up to some background busyness

For the bride’s table, a low arrangement of massive white hydrangea, a dozen light Orlando (pale pink) roses, French tulips (white with dark pink edges) and more viburnum created a cool, frothy focus. The colors echoed those of the room. Ferns lined the vase, a six-inch cylinder, to hide the flower stems and add another, watery texture. And for the buffet table, stargazer lilies, the bride’s favorite, along with roses and tulips in another tall cylinder.

What will bring me back for a second look? – Oh, the sheer pleasure of stepping across the threshold into another age. And a happy feeling about the place. The staff at Nesmith House appear to love this glorious building, the caterers that day, Two Chefs Are Better Than One, seemed at home, and the house, owned and used for visitors’ accommodations (it has some 11 bedrooms) by Middlesex Community College Foundation, had the well-kept feeling of a living museum.

Spring Beauties

Flowers Redolent of Romance and Charm

No wonder, brides opt for spring nuptials! The season packs its own velvet-gloved punch. In the fleeting beauty of the next few weeks, we will see a plethora of sweet-scented flowers redolent of romance. The parade includes peonies, Canterbury bells, lily-of-the-valley, lilac, blossoming apple, cherry, peach, pear, quince, and plum, grape hyacinth, sweetpea, mock orange, daffodil, lilac, tulips, iris, and more wild flowers than space allows to name.

It’s that time of year the medieval Unicorn Tapestries (www.metmuseum.org/explore/unicorn/unicorn_splash.htm)

celebrate – that season of rich abundance, of nature naturing (Lat: natura naturans)

Colors, too, take on new allure. Only with great rigor can one escape the seductive pinks, lavenders, whites, and infinite shades of green. Not to mention the yellows and piquant oranges of daffodils, narcissus, and tulips springing up in gardens and lawns. Add ferns and pussy willow to a cluster of daffodils, and a touch of blue scilla, grape hyacinth, or iris to complement the sunny colors.

Twist of Lime

Speaking of making things pop - try mixing lime green hydrangea or viburnum, or delicate frothy lady’s mantle with a range of pinks and whites. Silvery seeded eucalyptus whose tiny berry clusters have a pink blush add a softer note. And just a week or two from now, use plump green amaranthus spilling from tall vases and urns to evoke Italy’s hanging gardens – a look that goes well in an outdoor weddng venue such as Fruitlands in Harvard, with its stone fountain and statuary, or the courtyard of the Fogg Museum in Cambridge. Green puts a jazzy spin on blue and white arrangements, too. A spiral or twist or several mesh balls of thin silver wire steps up the tempo.

Chocolate

A dash of chocolate or espresso, if you prefer, lends depth to pinks, lavenders, whites, and greens. Where to find such notes in nature? Look to fiddlehead fern, which resembles a monkey’s tail (only ask for the brown as opposed to the green fiddle), and has a charm and wit all its own. Or be literal: One bride asked me to stand the votive candles knee deep in coffee beans.

Just a reminder to have fun with flowers and flower décor, to take things a step further, and to remember the playful nature of art. Or do I mean playful art of nature?

Seeing Red - Flowers of Late Winter

As the New England landscape grows monotonously drab in mid-winter, it’s only in the Boston Flower Exchange and floral shops that we find good clear reds and tangerines and pinks in living vibrancy, not to mention blue delphiniums, yellow tulips, purple and lime orchids while amaryllis, in softer, paler shades, lingers on. Hunger for color this season makes me think big and bold. I find myself gazing at interior design books and magazines, as much for the flowers arrangements on desk, table, and kitchen counter as for the furnishings and artwork. I have a yearning for warmth and beauty.

For bold statements, it’s good to think mono-floral in February, to consider amaryllis, gerbera daisies, orchids, lilies, and less expensive gladiolas and tulips. Roses, of course, are always with us, particularly as Valentine’s Day approaches. But miracle of miracles, while the world is still swathed in white, or bringing sleet and high winds, tulips, pussy willows, daffodils, and pale pink quince blossoms are making their first appearance at the Boston Flower Exchange.

Just today, I watched a sheaf of red hypericum berries, silvery green seeded eucalyptus, and pinky brown pepper berries being wrapped and readied for a foray out into the cold.

Yes, the season has definitely turned away from the reds and greens and whites of December, and yet Valentine’s Day presses upon us. I urge you to consider flowers other than red roses, whose price zings up with the demand. A bunch of red tulips even – who can resist their sleek heads? (Cut them extra short to start with, as the tulip, like one's nose, keeps growing. ) Delphinium in seriously delicious shades of blue (from pale to midnight) are regal and long lasting. There are two kinds to consider, the hybrid with their dense flowers, and the Belladona delphs with their dancing airier blooms. The former really can stand alone; the latter goes well with pussy willow, or green amaranthus spilling over the side of the vase. Or consider lime green cymbidium orchids in a low square Asian vase, with jade roses. Now there's a Valentine vase your beloved will remember.

Pass the (organic) roses please

Borage for courage, a friend once said, handing me an iced tea into which she slipped a silvery-green leaved sprig of the herb, its blue flower balanced on the rim of the glass. Now that particular friendship has melted away, but the memory of a warm June afternoon spent overlooking White Pond, in Concord, MA, will remain, I suspect, forever.

If you’ve caught scent of the happy fusion of flowers and food lately, in restaurants, upscale markets, and organic farm stands, you are clearly on the path to all that’s current, chic, and aesthetically pleasing about the food revolution. Flowers have regained their place at table, and I don't mean as centerpieces to admire, but as integral ingredients in soups, rice and pasta dishes, salads, omelets, and desserts. Petals not only look pretty, they taste good – crunchy, peppery, sweet, fresh, redolent of field and forest.

In truth, food and flowers have long kept company. Only, now, as the boundaries blur between so many things formerly thought opposing (fiction and nonfiction for example), imaginative chefs and organic gardeners unite old world practices with new world taste buds and aesthetics to bring flowers to meals in novel ways. (Yes, flowers as decorative and tasty curatives have been around forever. Indeed, there are certain ancient cures we may not care to try. Who will rise to the challenge of a 16th-century cure for insanity involving daisies steeped in wine with sage and southernwood, for example?)

Chosen well -- use organic only, please! and when added to simple dishes that will not overwhelm their delicacy, flower petals bring elegance, color, flavor, texture, wit, and famed curative powers to many a dish.

Try It
We’ve all put nasturtium leaves (for their peppery flavor) and flowers (for their vibrant red-orange-yellow dash of color) in salads, but what about rose or peony petals, violets, violas, and gladiolas tossed between the radicchio and endive? Or tulip petals with the crunch of cucumbers? Or tender white sweet pea blossoms? Apple blossoms (in moderation, please, they are cyanide precursors ) add flavor to fruit compotes, as do garlic flowers to salad dressing, marigold petals (known as Poor Man’s Saffron) to soups, pasta, rice dishes, herb butters, and salads. Carnation petals steeped in wine or other drinks add a faint sweetness and are said to be calming, chrysanthemum petals have a slight peppery taste, bee balm tastes like oregano, and daylilies (cut away from the bitter white base) make marvelous desserts, I hear.

In Mexico, hibiscus flowers are used in jamaico, a cool drink infusion, as well for making ice cream and sorbet. In Asia and North Africa, a cup of mint or jasmine tea may reach your hand afloat with orange blossoms. In Asia, too, daylilies find their way into salads and hot and sour soup.

Five marigold petals floating in a bowl of pale green spinach soup, just seems timeless, does it not? Like goldfish in a Zen water garden.

The Peony Plays Hard to Get

Common Name: Peony
Botanical Name: Paeonia

A few weeks ago, I was aghast to see peonies beside the amaryllis and snow berry at the Boston Flower Exchange. Irony of ironies! The one flower in the Chinese Empress’s palace garden that refused to bloom on command one winter night, and honored forever by the Chinese for its unyielding nature; that very peony or its South American cousin suddenly available year round? Go see for yourself.

The peony blooms in New England from late May to late June. Sought after by brides and designers for its luxuriant large blossom and divine scent, it has a short, charmed life.

Emerson may have said, Beauty is its own excuse for being, but take note, the peony has more than looks to recommend it. Its ancient history, mythic origins, variety, longevity, luscious fragrance, and curative powers, account for its magnetism. (Even ants find the bud’s nectar irresistible; they crawl all over it, some say helping it unfurl its dense confection of petals.)

Growers across the country have caught the peony fever. “We’re just mad about peonies,” writes Kasha Furman, owner of Cricket Hill Garden, in Thomaston, CT. Other cultivators from New Hampshire to Washington State sound equally enthralled.

Like most goddesses, the peony appears in many narratives world wide. A constant muse, it has inspired Chinese painting, poetry, and legend. Its name Sho Yo means most beautiful and it is considered the flower of prosperity. The symbol of healing in ancient Greece, the peony takes its Latinate name from the physician Paeon. In 77 AD, the Greek naturalist Pliny the Elder first described the peony’s rare medicinal gifts – it is said the root cures convulsions and high blood pressure. Charlemagne called the spring flower “the friend of physicians and the praise of cooks.”

What more to recommend it?

In Japan the peony promises a happy marriage and virility. In Germany it is known as the Pfingstrose, or Spirit Rose, as it blooms at the time of Pentecost.

Superstition follows the peony. It is said that under a full moon peony petals possess a soft radiance, that a woodpecker will peck out the eyes of anyone who disturbs its roots (As gardeners know, the peony plant, famous for lasting a century or more, likes to stay put.) According to Feng Shui, the red peony symbolizes good fortune associated with women and romance. It is believed to keep passion and love alive; and evil from the door.

Several years ago, I was booked to design flowers for a late June wedding. The bride, just out of law school, wanted among other flowers, pale pink peonies. I cheered her on. But when three weeks before her wedding, she opted for the more vibrant and dashing burgundy peony, I started to quake. A promise-her-anything-but give-her-Arpege tactic kicked in. But of course, I said, and suffered several sleepless nights full of courtroom dramas related to flowers.

Why? Because, dear reader, late June is pushing it for peonies, especially the darker ones. I needed a sure source of crimson peonies at a time when peonies play hard to get.
None of the vendors at the Boston Flower Exchange could promise dark peonies for June 25. Local gardeners said the same thing. Everything depends on the weather. A cool June would keep the peonies blooming; a hot month would hasten their demise. The days were heating up, and so was my anxiety.

It all came together in the end: I found armfuls of burgundy peonies, quite enough for every vase and bouquet, in exactly the proportion the bride wanted. I didn’t learn until much later, a chemist named Saunders developed a hardy hybrid crimson peony in the 1920s.

So where are autumn and winter peonies coming from? South America, my friends, like so many cultivated flowers these days. It’s just a shock, that’s all - a pale face in autumn’s panoply of apricots, sages, and rusts. I’m going to pretend it’s not there, and hold out for peonies in season and true to nature.

The pedigree of a classical beauty:

Peonies are among the oldest plants cultivated for their flowers and the healing properties of their tuberous roots and shiny dark seeds. In China, where records mentioning peonies date back to 600 B.C., it was known as "the King of Flowers," and often portrayed with the phoenix, a symbol of life arising triumphant from the ashes. The genus includes about 30 species, but the two chief divisions are the herbaceous peonies, those soft-stemmed plants that die back in winter, and "tree" peonies, shrubs that have a persistent woody framework.

Peonies range in color from white to lemon white to white with splashes of pink, from pale to rich pink to burgundy to salmon to lime; from single- to multi-petaled. Their blooms can grow up to 8 inches across, and their names, particularly those of the Chinese tree peonies, read like the names of Bodhisattvas from an ancient Buddhist sutra: Taoist Stove Filled with the Pills of Immortality, Necklace with Precious Pearls, Palace Dress, Compassionate, and so on.

Known and valued in Europe since the middle ages, the heavy-headed lush lactiflora hybrid peony first appeared in America on the cut flower market in 1884. Beginning in the 1920s the chemist A.P. Saunders, started on his thirty-year quest to develop a hybrid peony by crossing the Chinese peony (lactiflora) with the European P. officinalis. He succeeded.
Working in his lab in Clinton, NY, Saunders created a lighter-headed peony that flourished in the garden, where the old world top heavy peony had a habit of falling on its face. Among Saunders’s hybrids are Athena, a creamy pink centered flower, White Innocence, a tall late-blooming single, Echo, a pale single-petal lavender, and the burgundy Early Bird.

The Pre-Raphaelite William Morris said things should be either beautiful or useful; the peony succeeds in both.

Peony growers in New England:
· Cricket Hill Garden, in Thomaston, CT (1-860-283-1042
· Maple Ridge Peony Farm in Conway, MA 01341.