I'll build a Stairway to Paradise: A Life of Bunny Mellon

Bunny Mellon, whose life was marked by astonishing good fortune as well as tragedy and scandal, remains a singular figure in the annals of American design. She had her finger on the pulse of American culture and possessed a rare sense of style and grace. Her most celebrated work-the White House Rose Garden-demonstrated how formal restraint and the sparing use of color could be deployed to maximal effect.

In I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise, Mac Griswold-who knew Mellon personally-delves into her subject's closely-guarded personal archives to construct an unrivaled portrait of a woman as complex and multifaceted as the gardens and homes on which she left her mark. This book explores the tension between Mellon's idea of herself as a 'poor little rich girl' and her own enterprising spirit. Mellon tested the anodyne 1950s model of woman as-wife-as-mother by getting a divorce, admitting candidly to her first husband that she wanted a richer one. She imperiously traded old friends for new, and ultimately used her reputation, her connections, and above all her money to help fund John Edwards's short-lived presidential campaign.

How Mellon's character, style, and taste developed together to produce her greatest accomplishments-private and public-is the real subject of this biography.