Floral Design for the Holidays

For David Winston and Marc Hall, creative director of special events, the main goal in doing up this New England house for the holidays was to find atypical solutions that combined elegance and organics. In the dining room, looking beyond the polished first impression reveals some surprises, like a layer of berries tucked beneath the blown-glass antler candleholders. In the trio of bouquets, dogwood stems (Cornus alba ‘Kesselringii’) support a simple white-and-green palette of orchids, snowflakes, hellebores and ball-shaped flower heads of Brunia. The crowning glory of the room is the chandelier. The drum-shaped framework of aluminum and wire, 30 inches across and 38 inches tall, was created to fit over the existing light fixture. It took three people two days to meticulously attach its tiny “jewels” — pine needles, hemlock cones, Mylar snowflakes, faux gems and Hypericum berries.

It took three people two days to meticulously attach the chandelier's tiny “jewels” — pine needles, hemlock cones, Mylar snowflakes, faux gems and Hypericum berries.

Many holiday mantels might sport a greenery garland, stockings and a wreath, but David Winston wanted to do something different, seasonal but interesting beyond that. The bas-relief panel custom made for the recessed niche above this fireplace is like an aerial view of a landscape, with mosses and Mahonia forming hills and valleys. Sculptural Coulter pine cones become an unconventional garland. Hall wanted an artistic way to store plenty of wood for the fire and give the entire room an earthy feel, while still allowing light to filter in from the windows. He refers to the fireplace vignette as “a stylized woodland.”

Juxtaposing refinement with rusticity, Hall placed stacked orbs of rich scarlet ‘Forever Young’ roses in a Radica pot from O Living made of kabibe shells in the front entryway, then gave it a surprising woodsy carpet of brown pine needles. Says Hall, “I wanted a traditional red, but to show how it can be used in a sophisticated and unconventional way.” (Supporting the rose blossoms is a chicken-wire form over wet floral foam.)

The arrangement is a prime example of the high drama that is, literally, a trademark of Winston Flowers. Though conventional wisdom says if a vase measures 2 feet then the floral arrangement should be double that, says Winston, “We like to take a tall vessel and then put in something low to really accentuate the height.”

In the sunroom, seemingly typical holiday elements have a hidden twist. What looks like one big Christmas tree is really three smaller fir trees grouped together, two on pedestals. Hall’s thinking: While the base width is similar to a single tree of this mass, with three “peaks” you can enjoy more ornaments. To the right (again using low plants in tall vessels), poinsettias are given layered ruffs of juniper and pine cones, hiding the bases of the plants, which typically lose their leaves as the season progresses. And using two containers side by side (not flanking anything) is outside the usual design rule of odd numbers; as Hall says, “We love pairs.”

Instead of displaying paperwhite narcissus in bloom, here the bare bulbs are an “understory” for amaryllis planted in black raku vessels.

On the front porch, oversize terra-cotta pots painted red hold unadorned boxwoods informally shaped (tight meatballs would have been out of place for the natural look Winston and Hall wanted). Swags of conifer branches and rhododendron cascade down the walls to hug the container bases. An evergreen wreath topped with a red bow welcomes visitors without giving away the surprise in store just inside the door. Indoors, the next “wow” encounter is the mother-of-pearl pot crowned with red roses that invites a treasure hunt through the house.