Veranda Magazine – Sept-Oct 2015

Interior Design by Susan Lovelace
Architecture by Thomas Christ
Antiques and Maison by Tara Shaw
Photography by Erica George Dines
Produced by Lynn Nesmith
Written by Mimi Read

Fresh Start – Veranda Magazine / Easy Living

Fresh Start: Chef Emeril Lagassee and his family trade the hustle and bustle of Manhattan for the easygoing charm of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

BAM! Kick it up a notch! Feel the love! Such are the indelible catchphrases that helped make chef Emeril Lagasse one of the Food Network’s brightest stars. These days, he’s a perpetual motion machine as well. The owner of 13 far-flung restaurants, he also has 18 cookbooks, an empire of licensed kitchen and food products, and new TV programming in the works. If he’s not boarding a plane or disembarking from one, he’s usually racing to keep up with a wild calendar.

In his case, home is not only where the heart is, it’s where his sanity lies. So whenever he can, the über-chef flies home to this elegant house near Destin, Florida, to bask in its soft coastal aura. “It’s my sanctuary, where we catch up, cook, and do fun things,” he says of the spacious refuge he shares with his wife, Alden, and their two children. Built in 1988 by Florida architect Thomas Christ, the beach mansion has been the Lagasses’ home base for the past four years, ever since they left Manhattan in the aftermath of a particularly brutal winter. Destin, a dormer fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico that has grown into a posh resort community, is still quiet. And it’s just he right speed for Emeril’s grocery-shopping jaunts in a golf cart.

He and Alden acquired the house in a family barter. The Destin-based decorator Susan Lovelace, who happens to be Alden’s cousin and design idol, owned it but wanted to downsize. Lovelace and her husband swapped it for the Lagasses’ smaller Destin house. Then Lovelace got on board as their decorator. “It was unbelievable,” she says. “I got to do all the things I’d always dreamed of doing to this house, for people I just adore.”

As for the furnishings, Lovelace edited down the contents of the two large houses that the Lagasses had moved out of — the new York place and a home in New Orleans — and pulled everything together on a relaxed yet glamorous statement.

Each room holds the story of Emeril and Alden’s romance. The painted French and Italian antiques, bejeweled Empire chandeliers, and old china and silver are simply things they love and have collected together. Accessories, such as the great white vellum books that have been pressed into service as pedestals and side tables, are emblems charting the course of a whirlwind courtship (she’d been his landlord) and a 15-year marriage.

Those who consider the formal American dining room to be a moribund convention might want to listen up: Bam! This one’s alive and kicking. “We entertain constantly,” Alden says. “Besides meals for family and friends, we sell a lot of dinner at charity auctions. Emerald will cook here for six or more couples: elaborate seven-course meals with wine paintings. I’m the tabletop dresser an dishwasher. It’s a lot of work, but we have a great time.”

Antiques and Maison products from New Orleans and Manhattan homes designed and curated by Tara Shaw.