#eric sander

Hôtel Beauharnais, 78 Rue de Lille, 75007 Paris, France,

The Man Who Keeps Monet’s Famed Gardens Growing

Each year, from late March to early November, more than 500,000 people travel to Giverny, France, to visit a place they’ve primarily seen in paintings.

They arrive to find a charming pink farmhouse with emerald-green shutters, set among brilliant flowerbeds that overflow with tulips, lavender, or sunflowers, depending on the season. They follow signs to a tunnel, and are led to an oasis of weeping willows and bamboo shoots, where they can amble along a pond packed with waterlilies, before crossing a familiar Japanese footbridge cloaked in wisteria.

More than just the idyllic inspiration and open-air studio behind some of the world’s most famous paintings, Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny have long been understood as a total work of art in their own right. (In 1907, Marcel Proust wrote in an essay that Giverny was a “transposition of art.”)

Today, the Impressionist master’s home and gardens—where he lived and worked for most of the second half of his life—are a site of pilgrimage for not just art lovers but botany buffs, sightseers, and wanderlust addicts alike. Recently, on July 10th, Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, announced that the site would be a candidate for a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. That achievement is due in no small part to Gilbert Vahé, Giverny’s head gardener.

Photography by Eric Sander

Hôtel de Beauharnais, 78 Rue de Lille, 75007 Paris, France,

Chateau de Fontainebleau, ‎Fontainebleau, Seine-et-Marne‎, France,

Villa Astor, Sorrento, Italy

Villa Astor : Paradise Restored on the Amalfi Coast, by Curt DiCamillo (Flammarion, 2017) Eric Sander

Acquired by U.S Ambassador to Italy, William Waldorf Astor, at the beginning of the 20th century, the villa has been fully renovated by French architect and interior designer Jacques Garcia.