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Interiors By Design: Consider The Garden Stool

The hordes descended upon Pier 94 for the annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show. Last week, a mishmosh stew of appliance dealers, carpet hawkers, builder suppliers, gimmicky artists, hipster Brooklyn furniture makers, glass blowers and fuzzy craftspeople plunked their wares down in an un-unified, unedited jambalaya. Added to the confusion was a noisy stream of “celebrity” chefs, designers and architects, and self-proclaimed style makers spicing up this tilt-a-wheel carnival with cheesy proclamations booming over crackling cheap loudspeakers. I couldn’t escape soon enough.

Albeit, not without observing that every other furniture booth displayed some iteration of the ancient Chinese garden stool—a ubiquitous furniture accessory appearing in every catalogue, shelter magazine, blog, sitcom and home décor store. The garden stool has wormed its way into the hearts of “decoristas” by way of its flexibility, practicality and sculptural potential. Besides its versatility, it is relatively inexpensive, easy to clean and works outdoors as well as indoors.

Garden stools appeared as early as 960 A.D. in Chinese gardens formalizing the Buddhist act of sitting on a tree stump and contemplating “oneness” in the garden. Originally developed for use in the typical Chinese ancestral home, which was built around a courtyard, the garden stool was first conceived in a barrel shape with rounded nails pounded into metal rings that held the wooden staves. These barrels stored herbs, seeds, bulbs and flower cultivars as well, but fabricated in wood, these lidded barrels rotted outdoors and soon lost their essential purpose—that of a strong seat on which to rest one’s weary back after planting. Chinese artisans began creating garden stools in sculpted rock, glazed stoneware and porcelain. Even now, the barrel shape with rings or nail head detailing (evoking the drum as well) is still extant on the porcelain garden stools one finds available today.

Still to be found in specialty Chinese antique shops are the wonderful elmwood or calamander wooden garden stools, carved with fretwork, dragons, lotus blossoms, and painted in polychrome, red and often gilded. But because these had to be brought indoors during weather fluctuations, they were abandoned for the more durable stone and porcelain varieties.

By the early 17th century (Ming Dynasty), garden stools were popular across China and, as is the Chinese wont, the stools were elaborately decorated with images of peacocks, dragons, phoenix, lotus blossoms and peonies as well as scenes of domestic life. These garden stools were exported to the West for almost 300 years, though their popularity has risen only since the mid-20th century, and of course, they have been enjoying a raucous revival in the last few years.

With the current delight in outdoor living, garden stools fit the niche as a decorative, solid side table that won’t blow away in the wind or rot in the rain. The porcelain stools act as a shimmery counterpoint to the dry matte surfaces of teak furniture. But they also add weight and grounding to a furniture grouping consisting of primarily spindly iron furniture. Do not, however, expect your porcelain or earthenware stools to survive the winter outside or you will find, as I did, a heap of cracked shards awaiting you after the snowdrifts melt.

Due to their popularity, the garden seats have run the gamut from the more traditional barrel drum shapes to rectangular cubes, to modified hourglasses and simple cylinders. Sculpted in undulating waves or sharp zig-zags, there exists a garden seat design for every design proclivity, be it modern or traditional. Colorful or subdued, black or white, lushly glazed or roughly textured, they can fit into nearly any setting.

Typically featured as a side table or a drinks table, the garden stool can also lend weight indoors to spindly 18th-century or ‘50s Sputnik furniture. Pulled up as a pair under a parsons-style console, it adds a chic touch to an entry hall and also provides slide-out seating. Though relatively hard to sit on, these stools function well in a pinch when an overflow of guests need a place to sit.

Because garden stools are solid and sturdy, I find them perfect for side tables edging into the high traffic areas, where a child or eager Labrador can easily knock over a leggy cigarette table. As cocktail tables next to my outdoor chaise lounges, I find them irreplaceably functional, holding up to wind, rain, over-served guests, spilled cocktails and greasy suntan lotions. And as the weather-beaten garden can benefit from the finish, finesse, shine and apparent luxury of porcelain, garden stools can zest up the terrace with decorative thunder.

Getting back to the AD Design Show, where the garden stool was interpreted in glass, copper, gilded wood, enamelware, wool and upholstery, I found this simple object catapulted to the foreground of home design. Carried to the level of abstract painting, RS Ceramics of Long Island City, in particular, showcased a dynamic explosive rendering of garden stools worthy of placement at LongHouse, Madoo or trailing alongside our marvelous Parrish Art Museum. Brought indoors, they could hold their own in the sleekest of contemporary lofts.

Though short in stature, the garden stool has found its place in the sun and designers, artists, homemakers and style setters are reveling in its versatile practical charm.

It’s hard to showcase landscape garden design

While working at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire, William Kent must have
influenced the great Capability Brown, who was, at that time, the young head
gardener there. Rousham House in Oxfordshire set another precedent in
landscape design. Our beautiful countryside was to become part of the
landscape designer’s palette.

Top historic gardens to visit in the Berkshires

OLD GARDENS that survive their owners are quite rare in this country, but the Berkshires — a wealthy summer colony for so long that it’s been called “the inland Newport” — has one of the nation’s most significant collections, mostly clustered around Stockbridge. If you’re heading west, I think you can do no better than The Mount and Naumkeag, products of creative geniuses with very different visions.

Between 1901 and 1911, Edith Wharton modeled THE MOUNT (413-551-5100, edithwharton.org) on the classical European gardens and architecture she wrote about in her influential design books, while landscape architect Fletcher Steele molded NAUMKEAG (413-298-3239, thetrustees.org/naumkeag) into one of America’s first modernist landscapes between 1926 and 1955. Happily, both are in great shape and facing positive futures thanks to careful stewardship.

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Of course, Wharton also wrote novels, penning Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth in her bedroom overlooking the garden in Lenox. Her friend and fellow novelist Henry James called The Mount “a delicate French chateau reflected in a Massachusetts pond.” If you like tons of pretty flowers, as I do, the French Garden at the sunny end of the Lime Walk is a knockout, with thousands of period and modern blooms throughout the season, which begins May 3. The walled, shady Italian Garden at the other end of the Lime Walk is a more staid design statement, with hundreds of white flowered begonias, astilbes, and hostas planted in patterns. 

Michael Flower

The Blue Steps at Naumkeag in Stockbridge feature fountains and white paper birch trees.

Wharton was noted as an arbiter of taste in garden and home design before she was recognized as a novelist. She once wrote that The Mount was a better garden than The House of Mirth was a novel. In 1911, Wharton fled to Europe for good after the collapse of her unhappy marriage and a disastrous affair with a journalist. The abandoned garden suffered without its passionate creator. Yet it was the growing public appreciation for Wharton’s novels that brought the garden back to life almost a century after her departure, with old photos aiding in the reconstruction. Just when the garden restoration was finished in 2007, financial problems put the property’s future in jeopardy again. But a successful, ongoing fund-raising campaign seems to have made things right. The Mount has more comfortable finances, looks stunning, and attracted almost 40,000 visitors last year, many of them fans of the British soap opera Downton Abbey, which has engendered warm, fuzzy feelings about the upper classes at the turn of the 20th century. (Downton writer Julian Fellowes cites Wharton as an influence.)

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Like The Mount, Naumkeag in Stockbridge is composed of numerous smaller gardens, but its international fame rests on a single image, the Art Deco Blue Steps, which are rivaled only by Isabella Stewart Gardner’s nasturtium-draped courtyard as an icon of American garden design. A grove of white paper birch trees on a steep hillside frames a series of four demi-lune blue fountains with horizontal sweeping white railings. A million-dollar gift from an anonymous donor helped sponsor the replanting, repainting, and repair of the Blue Steps and several other garden features last year. Fund-raising and other restorations continue, so more iconic garden rooms will be wearing a fresh face when Naumkeag opens for the season May 26.

But Naumkeag’s garden did not need to be re-created like The Mount’s, because it was never lost. Unlike most of Fletcher Steele’s over 500 other mid-century gardens that have vanished like snowflakes, Naumkeag has always been well cared for, thanks to its previous owner, Mabel Choate. For 30 years, she engaged the pioneering modernist to develop an 8-acre sequence of landscaped garden rooms, and upon her death in 1958 she endowed and bequeathed the resulting masterpiece to the Trustees of Reservations, which also received 30 years of Steele’s documentation for it.

***

S. Shepphard

Pretty plantings can be found at Stockbridge’s Mission House, worth a stop if you’re visiting Naumkeag nearby.

MY NUMBER THREE must-see garden, after Naumkeag and The Mount, is the august BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN (413-298-3926, berkshirebotanical.org) in Stockbridge. It opens for the season on May 1 and is very user-friendly, thanks to education programs run by Elisabeth Cary. But in addition to her chicken coops and vegetable plots for children, the garden has truly inspiring mixed borders. There’s even a Martha Stewart Garden, complete with a little building and wattle fencing woven from willows. It’s impossible for true gardeners to leave without some ideas they want to try at home.

The Trustees of Reservations are the owners and preservers of several other Berkshire period gardens, including another designed by Fletcher Steele. The MISSION HOUSE (413-298-3239, thetrustees.org/missionhouse) in Stockbridge was built near the present location of Naumkeag around 1742 for a minister sent to convert the local Mohican Native Americans. It was moved to its current spot by Mabel Choate, who also restored it and contributed period furniture. She then hired Steele to create his idea of an 18th-century New England farmscape on the surrounding half acre in 1927 before donating it to the Trustees. Steele added a barn-like building, cobbler-shop replica, grape arbor, and pretty front-yard garden. It’s easy to drop by after viewing Naumkeag around the corner, and you are free to walk the grounds any time, though you need a ticket to tour the house interior.

The Trustees’ newest Berkshire property is the 120-acre ASHINTULLY GARDENS (413-298-3239, thetrustees.org/ashintully) at the southern end of the Tyringham Valley. At the foot of the hill is a modern garden built around a steep rushing mountain stream by contemporary composer John McLennan as a creative parallel to his musical work. But the best thing is the hike up the wooded trail to the ruin of McLennan’s 35-room childhood summer home — once the largest mansion in the Berkshires. Called the Marble Palace by locals, it caught fire one day in 1952. All that’s left is a stone foundation the size of a municipal courthouse and four 30-foot-tall white columns framing an unspoiled view. It’s now the ultimate garden folly. If I were going to pop a marriage proposal, I’d do it here. For a gentler grade, take the overgrown roadbed back down. It is lined with mossy cobblestone retaining walls that add to the romantic sense of a lost world. The property opens for the season on June 4; it’s free to visit the gardens and trails.

If you find yourself in the Berkshires in early spring, visit the wildflowers of BARTHOLOMEW’S COBBLE (413-229-8600, thetrustees.org/bartscobble), a rare geological outcropping of marble and quartzite in Sheffield. Most wildflowers will be in bloom mid-April through May. A Trustees property, the Cobble also has a natural history museum that’s open year-round and natural history tours that you reserve in advance.

A great Trustees property to stay at during a Berkshires ramble is the GUEST HOUSE AT FIELD FARM (413-458-3135, thetrustees.org/field-farm) in Williamstown. A favorite with fans of the International style and reopening on April 4, it is furnished with very fine studio furniture, as well as American art and sculpture from the postwar period, when it was home to collectors Lawrence and Eleanor Bloedel. Each guest room is like a little museum gallery with write-ups on the furnishings. (Ours included a chair with seating woven from recycled World War II parachutes.) The surrounding garden (and 4 miles of hiking trails) is open free to the public. Do check out the Folly, a remarkable guest cottage designed by Ulrich Franzen in 1965.

As modern sculpture has gotten more insistently monumental, the rolling lawns and woodland walks of many Berkshire estate gardens have become outdoor galleries. We saw great examples displayed at The Mount and at CHESTERWOOD (413-298-3579, chesterwood.org), summer home of Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the Concord Minute Man and put Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. Now that’s monumental sculpture. Chesterwood in Stockbridge contains French’s house, studio, and a turn-of-the-last-century garden designed by French himself, with perennial borders, a fountain, marble exedra, and a long vista walk leading to woodland paths. Owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it opens for the season May 24.

***

If you need a palate cleanser after such rich fare, visit the HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE (413-443-0188, hancockshakervillage.org) on the outskirts of Pittsfield. A utopian religious community from 1791 to 1960, it is now operated as an outdoor living history museum and opens April 12 to showcase the animals recently born on the farm. The Shakers were dedicated to utility and simplicity, everything the Gilded Age wasn’t. Though they are most remembered for their furniture, they were primarily farmers. Their many innovations include putting seeds in paper packets for sale. They also sold medicinal herbs for every ill, and their production fields are lovingly reproduced here. This beautiful farmscape has a calming and uplifting effect on all who find the time to stay awhile.

Carol Stocker writes regularly about gardens. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

Hennepin County master gardeners show kids how a garden grows

Some people garden for the mental escape. Others want inexpensive access to quality vegetables. Braden Uhlmann does it for the dirt.

“It’s fun to get your hands messy,” the fourth-grader said while working in his school’s greenhouse this past week.

Braden and his classmates at Champlin-Brooklyn Park Academy for Math and Environmental Science were scooping soil from large bins and gingerly — sometimes not so gingerly — transferring the dirt to small plastic pots.

Then they sprinkled in seeds.

“We’re burying them alive,” 10-year-old Alex Novak yelled as he doused his container with a healthy serving of Alyssum seeds.

This innovative gardening program at the Anoka-Hennepin magnet school partners students with Hennepin County master gardeners to teach them about plant life, nutrition and basic food production.

Students work to plant tomato seeds in the greenhouse at Anoka-Hennepins Champlin-Brooklyn Park Academy during a class led by a master gardener from

It’s the only one of its type in the state, according to Denise Schnabel, curriculum integration coordinator at the school.

“A lot of our students don’t live in locations where they could even be exposed to gardening,” Schnabel said. “This exposes them to nature and how the world works in ways they might not get anywhere else.”

The program intensifies in fourth and fifth grade, when teachers blend gardening lessons in with the rest of the curriculum. Students learn about fractions by plotting out a garden design, for example. A science class focuses on soil testing.

They also spend an hour a month getting their tiny green thumbs dirty.

Students officially are certified “junior master gardeners” after completing the program in fifth grade.

A volunteer gardener held up a poster during the past week’s lesson on germination before breaking the children into small groups so they could do some planting.

“I didn’t know the soil went in first and then the seeds,” Braden said after dusting two tiny pots with winter squash and sweet corn seeds.

Alex gave his basil seeds a “medium chance” of survival.

Next month, the students will thin out their most successful seedlings and eventually transplant them to one of the school’s 11 raised beds, where they do routine watering and weeding before school let’s out in May.

Volunteers pick up where they left off over summer vacation, taking home whatever food the gardens bear.

Students handle the final harvest in the fall, serving up their finds at the school’s September open house.

“It really brings it full circle,” Schnabel said.

The program was brought to the building from Riverview Elementary at parents’ insistence after that school closed about four years ago.

“They were adamant it continue,” Schnabel said. “Our families love it.”

So does Dillan Deleon, who said the biggest challenge of her lesson was making sure all her itty-bitty seeds made it in to the pot.

The 10-year-old also offered up a pick for what vegetable she would be. “A tomato, because they’re yummy and grow fast and everyone in the world loves them,” she said.

Sarah Horner can be reached at 651-228-5539. Follow her at twitter.com/hornsarah.

Budding garden designers urged to pitch their ideas

TV’s Sarah Travers is calling budding local garden designers to pitch in and enter UTV’s The Magazine Show Garden Challenge for this year’s Garden Show Ireland event which takes place at Antrim Castle Gardens from May 9-11.

The Magazine Show Garden Challenge asks existing and budding garden designers to design a small garden which is fun, useful and easy to maintain.

Three lucky finalists will be featured on UTV’s Friday night show, The Magazine, as they prepare to be part of Northern Ireland’s premier gardening event where the finished gardens will be judged by the Garden Show Ireland judging panel.

The winning garden will be announced on May 9 at the Garden Show and will become the centre piece for filming for The Magazine which airs that evening. Plus, the winning designer will receive a prize of £2,500.

Sarah said: “Garden Show Ireland is a stunning show and we are thrilled to be involved and I cannot wait to see the designs as they progress over the coming weeks.“

Taking place in a brand new venue for 2014, an expanded new look Garden Show Ireland will include appearances by Channel 4‘s River Cottage team, Alys Fowler from BBC Gardeners’ World and Ireland’s world-renowned plantswoman Helen Dillon.

With thousands of specialist plants, great garden shopping, garden designers and show gardens, a craft village, a free design pavilion, artisan food stalls, live music, garden gourmet, garden challenges, a dedicated kids zone and more, the event promises to be the ultimate garden show experience for gardeners of all ages and experiences.

Claire Faulkner, Director of Garden Show Ireland, added: “This new design competition is a great way of recognising the wealth of talent that exists in the world of garden design. Our desire is to help bring those talents to everyone with a garden, large or small. It is wonderful to have such tremendous support from UTV to make that happen.”

The 2014 Garden Show Ireland will run from May 9-11 at Antrim Castle Gardens and is open daily from 10am to 6pm with parking adjacent.

Adults are £10 (concession £8) and the event is free for children under 16. There is a reduced rate for online booking and for more information visit www.gardenshowireland.com

Design master class: The power of window treatments

The Challenge

A renovation turned the formal dining room of this 17-year-old Chapel Hill home into an inviting gathering space that is now in constant use. Replacing the formal furnishings was easy. The challenge was to design window treatments that would take advantage of the light and views, yet provide interest and polish.

Super Space

Although a formal dining room was no longer desired, the special-occasion china and glassware still needed a home, so built-ins were installed on either side of one wall of windows, creating storage. The traditional chandelier was replaced with a semi-flush fixture made of copper and recycled glass. A sofa from another room was freshly slipcovered and leather chairs were brought in to form a comfortable floor plan conducive to conversation.

Taking off the plantation shutters was one of the best days in the eight-week renovation. Light just came flooding in! Now the 12- by 12-foot space was bright and cheerful, but a bit stark with a touch of glare. We hung custom drapery panels in a creamy white, semisheer fabric with a soft stripe on metal rings attached to a 3-inch diameter rod in an oil-rubbed bronze finish. The draperies feature a tape trim, embellished with antiqued silver metal accents that add a modern touch. Across the top, we ran a different trim that follows the pinch-pleated header – a small detail that adds an easy elegance. Now these window treatments stand out against the walls, which are painted in Benjamin Moore’s Latte.

In the bay window we installed custom roman shades in an Arts and Crafts pattern that brings in red and gold for a warming effect. Raised, these shades connect the room with a view of trees and sky. Lowered, they make the space intimate, cozy and luxurious. The use of red created visual excitement in an otherwise calm oasis, and we continued that vibe with accent pillows and a wool throw on one of the leather Ekornes chairs.

Terrific Trick

Hang window treatments high – often just inches from the molding or ceiling to take the eye upward and make the room look bigger. Use chunky rods in rooms with high ceilings; they look more proportionate with full-length drapery panels and can now be found in big-box hardware stores.

(Not) By the book

Variety adds interest. We varied fabrics, colors and styles in our window treatments. The pulls on the custom cabinetry are pewter, the new light fixture is copper, the coffee table is glass with nickel and a floor lamp features brass accents. The overall color palette is neutral, with a pop of red; the result is visually interesting yet calm. Have a party, read a book, take a nap – this room is ready for it all.

DeCocco Drapes

5012 Tallwood Drive, Raleigh

919-612-6464 or DeCoccoDrapes.com

Gaston News: Daniel Stowe to host garden design lecture

Garden design lecture: “Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design,” a lecture about Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden’s newest attraction, “Lost Hollow: Kimbrell Children’s Garden,” will be offered at 6 p.m. April 17 at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, 6500 S. New Hope Road, Belmont.

Landscape designer W. Gary Smith will discuss his inspiration for Lost Hollow and will show images of some of his latest works at locations across the country, including Santa Fe Botanical Garden and the Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas.

A reception will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the lecture 6:30-7:30 p.m. Wine will be available in the Garden Store. Cost is $12 for garden members, and $15 for nonmembers. Advance registration is required. To register, call 704-829-1252.

Pancake Jamboree: The East Gastonia Lions Club will host its 57th annual Pancake Jamboree 5-8 p.m. March 28 at Brookside Elementary School, 1950 Rhyne Carter Road, Gastonia. The meal is all-you-can eat and includes pancakes, sausage and stewed apples. Cost is $6 for adults and $4 for ages 12 and younger.

Peter Rabbit event: Children’s storybook character Peter Rabbit will make an appearance 11 a.m.-2 p.m. March 29 at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, 6500 S. New Hope Road, Belmont. Other characters from the Beatrix Potter story “Peter Rabbit’s Garden Adventure,” including Mrs. Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, will also greet guests.

The event will include stories and hands-on activities. Greg Briley Photography will be available to take spring-themed photos in the Orchid Conservatory. Photo packages will be available starting at $39.95. Photo time availability is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Food and drinks will be for sale at the Bunny Café, provided by Best Impressions Caterers. Wine by the glass will be available at the Garden Store. Guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets for a picnic. Carriage rides will be available for an additional charge, weather permitting. The event is free with garden admission. Members are free; adults, $12; seniors age 60 and older, $10; and children 4-12, $6. For details, visit www.DSBG.org.

Lincoln County

New location: Hospice Palliative Care Lincoln County recently moved to a new and larger location. An open house will be held 5-7 p.m. April 3 at the new office at 900 Donita Drive, Lincolnton. Drinks and appetizers will be served. Registration is requested by March 26. For details, contact Tiffany Petti at 704-375-0100 or pettit@hpccr.org.

Kings Mountain

Shakespeare program: A family-friendly program, “Shakespeare’s Spear: The History of Heraldry,” will be presented at 5:30 p.m. March 27 at the Kings Mountain Historical Museum, 100 E. Mountain St., Kings Mountain. The program will explore the history of heraldry, the art and science of blazoning coats of arms, and it will teach the tale behind the granting of William Shakespeare’s coat of arms.

Participants will be able to create their own family coat of arms. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated. For details, visit www.kingsmountainmuseum.org or call 704-739-1019. Compiled by Gina Smith

Garden State Plaza trying digital locators, innovative design in 22-store addition

With online sales growing four times faster than in-store sales, how can a mall lure customers? Westfield Garden State Plaza is betting $160 million that the answer is a combination of uncommon stores, added amenities and what mall executives call the “wow factor.”

The Paramus shopping center’s newest addition, a 55,000-square-foot, two-story wing, brings 22 stores to New Jersey’s largest shopping center, as well as expanded concierge services and a first-of-a-kind digital storefront with a 7-foot-high touch-screen that shoppers can swipe to search for products or store locations.

The barricades on the new wing came down on Thursday, with several of the stores opening for business on Friday or scheduled to open today.

The entrance to the lower level of the wing will be next to a valet parking service and will have a concierge desk where visitors can check their coats or shopping bags, search the Internet on iPads, relax in a lounge area and watch TV or ask the concierge to make a reservation at a mall restaurant.

U.S. shopping centers are adding lounges and similar amenities as a way of “creating a sense of place for the consumer,” said Jesse Tron, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers. “The third place is what we call it — it’s not the place where you work, it’s not the place where you live. It’s the place where you go and congregate with friends, and you shop and do all those kinds of things,” he said.

Bryan Gaus, senior general manager of the plaza, said the new wing is intended to give mall customers an “elevated shopping experience.”

The added space has some cutting-edge design features that the mall plans to extend to other parts of the shopping center, including higher storefronts that create more of a presence for each retail space. The storefronts in the new wing are about 22 feet, compared with 14 to 15 feet in most of the mall.

The addition also has multiple seating areas, with charging stations for electronic devices and coffee-shop style tables, and has wider corridors and more open spaces than older sections of the mall have.

The digital storefront display, which is 11 feet wide, is a double-sided device with three touch screens that can be swiped to display pictures of clothes, shoes or other products, or used to access directions to a store. The device was developed by Westfield Labs, the digital innovation division of Westfield, the mall development company that owns the plaza.

Retailers already open in the new wing include the designer apparel brands Maje, Sandro, Vince Camuto and Robin’s Jeans; the cosmetics retailers Lush and Kiko Milano; the sandal shop Havaianas; the food retailers Starbucks and Au Bon Pain; and The Kase, a European company that sells custom cases for smartphones. A Lasaka sushi bar is scheduled to open on Saturday, and a Max Brenner chocolate shop will open in April. A Microsoft store will open in the new wing in May. Several stores in the new wing are their brand’s first locations in New Jersey.

Construction of the wing began in January 2013 with the demolition of the four-story parking garage adjacent to Neiman Marcus. That structure was replaced by a five-story parking deck that allowed the mall to carve out space for the new wing. The L-shaped wing creates a store-lined walkway between the Macy’s and AMC movie theater wings of the mall and a newer section of the mall that houses luxury tenants, including Tiffany and Louis Vuitton.

Email: verdon@northjersey.com

ANN LOVEJOY | Simplify garden care by design

Now’s the time to judge which plants made it through winter and which did not.

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