At one such house, floral designer Sybil Sylvester has been embellishing its low-key beauty with festive holiday greenery and flowers for a dozen years. The house was once owned by the wife’s uncle and then passed through other owners until the couple brought it back into the family and installed the antiques and artwork that suggest an uninterrupted residency. Designer Jane Hawkins Hoke worked with the owners to refresh fabrics and update finishes, and she especially loves the holiday additions to the house this time of year. “It smells so good once Sybil has done her decorating,” she says.
In the family room, Sylvester interspersed oversize pinecones amid mixed-green garland on the mantel. Ilex berries with red amaryllis in antique brass buckets provide tall accents. A traditional tree filled with collected ornaments presides over the bay window. Sylvester swagged the wrought iron chandelier with garland for an unexpected spot of cheer.
Fragrant greenery is the foundation of Sylvester’s design plan, and she works closely with a California grower to procure unusual plant materials such as acacia for her arrangements. She also goes to great lengths to have her favorite plant materials on hand, including the rose hips she buys in November and keeps in water until she decorates her clients’ homes for the holidays. Even the large pinecones she uses on mantels are special-ordered from Colorado.
“This client likes to keep it pretty much the same from year to year,” Sylvester says of the homeowner. “By now, it almost feels like decorating my own house for the holidays, getting out all the wonderful containers and doing familiar treatments in the same spots in each room.” And because the holidays often bring out the sentimental side in us, any attempt to deviate from previous years won’t go unnoticed. “We decided to skip the greenery on the family room chandelier one year, and the wife called me to say her husband had asked where it was,” laughs Sylvester. “We had to decorate it after all.”
In the entry hall, the floral designer pays tribute to the still life painting hanging over a chest by creating an arrangement of amaryllis, apples, and acacia. “It’s an art-in-bloom treatment,” she says of echoing the painting in floral design. In the kitchen and breakfast area, boxwood wreaths tied with broad satin ribbons hang in the windows and add a festive touch alongside a collection of nutcrackers. The family room gets the most attention, with a garland on the mantel, greenery on the chandelier, pots full of red amaryllis and poinsettias, and the resplendent Christmas tree. The living room, with its softer palette, displays more delicate touches such as pink satin ribbon that binds clusters of greenery, as well as pastel ranunculus in small arrangements around the room.
The home’s graceful exterior receives its share of Sylvester’s talents as well. Those stockpiled rose hips come into play in a front door wreath surrounded by mixed greenery. Even an existing smilax vine gets dressed up with garlands attached with big red bows around the door frame. From the front entry to the kitchen sink, it’s clear that Sylvester combines the right amount of holiday cheer and tradition in this classic house.
See more of this beautiful design in our November/December of Southern Home magazine.
