For me, style is a way of living. It’s so much more than how you look. Style is an attitude. It’s about making sure that your whole life works. I have been lucky to have wonderful teachers. C. Z. Guest, my mother, had an iconic sense of style. She always knew what was distinctive and appropriate. It didn’t matter if it was how to dress, manners, decorating the house, making gardens, planning parties—her instincts were always perfect.
My first riding instructor, Katie Monahan Prudent, taught me discipline. There was no sleeping in for me. I had my horses to take care of and hours of riding without stirrups to get ready for shows. I had determination, but her strict sense of discipline has carried over from riding to how I live my life. I couldn’t have had a better style mentor than Halston, who was so kind and generous to me. I had good times with Andy Warhol, who taught me that anyone or anything is fascinating.
Great style begins with being comfortable in your own skin. Style means being natural, having the relaxed graciousness that comes from being confident, kind, and open to everyone and everything. Pretension, excess, and uptightness are my biggest pet peeves. In Simple Pleasures, I’d like to show you a way of living, the easy elegance I learned from my family and our illustrious friends. I want to return to those basic values and show you an affordable and simple way to live with style. Style has so many elements—an inviting and comfortable house, a beautiful table whether or not you have family heirlooms, delicious, unfussy food, good manners, and understatement all contribute to simple elegance accessible to anyone.
Tulips in old polo trophies out by the pool.
As elegant as my parents were, they were country people at heart. They loved their horses and their dogs, and to be at home at our house, Templeton. My father, Winston Guest, had teatime every day at 5 P.M. I remember him smoking his cigar, surrounded by our Jack Russells. I must have had ten of them. My original Jack Russell, named Jack, and his wife, Tootsie, had puppies, and so on, and so on, and so on. We kept them all!
I grew up watching my parents entertain—formal dinners, poolside cocktails, a constant stream of guests. Our house was always filled with extraordinary people, from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Rudolf Nureyev, from Truman Capote to Yves Saint Laurent. I was always brought down to see the adults before dinner. I was taught to curtsy, so I curtsied to everyone, and if I didn’t I would get a swift whack on my rear from my mother or my beloved Mademoiselle, whom I named Maze.
I was like a sponge. What I saw, what I heard, and what I learned from all those wonderful people made me who I am today. I was fascinated by the archaeologist Iris Cornelia Love. I loved that she and I shared the same name and that she discovered the Garden of Aphrodite. All I wanted to talk about was her digs, and I dreamed of digging with her one day.
Templeton, my family’s home where I now live, is beautiful. We shot the photographs for Simple Pleasures there, because so much of who I am and how I live comes from Templeton, where I learned from the best. I work in the gardens, play with my dogs, bake cookies for my business, Cornelia Guest Cookies, and invite my friends over to eat food mostly grown in my garden. The house was decorated more than thirty years ago. The rooms are cluttered with photos and beautiful things that bring back so many memories. The rugs are worn, faded chintz and vibrant colors are everywhere, the faux-marble finishes are chipped, and family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Dalí, and Andy Warhol hang on the walls. The house has a classic, old-guard look that never goes out of style. It is the flip side of the minimalism that is now so in vogue. Templeton is cheerful, colorful, and comfortable. For me, the house embodies the feeling of a well-lived life.
I’ve always been a homebody, like my parents, happiest at Templeton. I returned whenever life got crazy. I came home for good in 1995 when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She always said, “Anybody can go off, the trick is coming back.”
My mother, a maverick herself, had supported my move to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. She left her very proper family in Boston for the same reason and ended up onstage at the Ziegfeld Follies. Years later, she broke the rules again by working. After a riding accident laid her up, she began to write a gardening column that eventually was syndicated in 350 newspapers. She developed gardening products and fragrances and designed a line of cashmere sweaters for Adolfo. She was a trendsetter. None of her friends were doing anything like that.
When I made my debut, my mother’s advice to me was “Be polite, meet everybody, and have a wonderful life.” I took her advice to heart. I enjoyed life in New York as a debutante. I was lucky enough to have three de facto fairy godfathers, Andy Warhol, Halston, and Scavullo. Andy Warhol was a close friend, a genius, who taught me not to lose a sense of wonder and to believe that you can get wisdom anywhere, from every possible place.
Halston taught me how to walk in a dress on a makeshift runway in his studio. One day he told me I walked like an elephant. He put me in a dress with a pair of high-heeled—five inches—shoes that laced up my ankles. He said in his booming voice, “Walk!”
I teetered halfway up the runway.
He slammed down a book with a bang and said, “Walk properly.” He got up and demonstrated what he had in mind. “Now walk,” he commanded.
And walk I did. I knew enough to avoid the wrath of Halston.
Then he said the immortal words, “Beauty knows no pain.”
I cannot tell you how many fashion disasters he saved me from.
Scavullo, the renowned photographer, came to watch me in horse shows. He was a great support to me after my father died when I was seventeen. One day I had a terrible fall right in front of him. I was taught if you could get up, you’d better. I jumped up and turned around, and there was Francesco sweating and white as a ghost with a look of horror on his face. The paramedics ran right past me and straight to him. And, boy, did he ever give me hell for almost giving him a heart attack.
The eighties were a great time to be a party girl. The scenes at Studio 54, Xenon, and Regine’s kept me out every night. The time came when I wanted to be someone different for a while. I had to do more than go to parties and ride my horses. I needed a purpose. So I went to Hollywood.
After five years of studying out West and getting some bit parts, I was drawn back to Templeton.
I began to read all I could about health when my mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Everything I read seemed to point me toward a simple equation: Food = Health. I read The China Study, Farm Sanctuary by Gene Bauer, books by Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Neal Barnard, and many more. I realized the untested chemicals used in processed foods and the residue of pesticides and many fertilizers had to be hurting us. I began to notice that my animals were developing lumps and bumps that I don’t remember them having when I was growing up. I knew then that it was time to make some changes.
Dr. Richard Palmquist is an angel of animals. I had just adopted a Great Pyrenees from Gentle Giants Rescue. It was love at first sight. I named him Bear. He was covered in hot spots, and I was desperate for a great vet. A friend had told me about Dr. Palmquist, so off we went. Poor Bear was absolutely terrified. When I took him to Dr. Palmquist to deal with his skin condition, he put himself in the corner of the exam room, and all 150 pounds of him were shaking like a leaf. He had already been given away twice, and I think he thought I was going to do the same.
“Dr. P” came in, ignored me, and sat down right next to Bear. He scratched his ears, kissed his nose. Bear relaxed, and I realized we were at the right place and what an incredibly special person Dr. P was. Bear and I spent a lot of time there, and Bear’s health just got better and better. Dr. P uses a lot of homeopathy, but when he needs to will use traditional medicine. He lives and practices in Los Angeles and, lucky for me, is just a phone call away. I have asked him to talk about the best ways for us to protect our beloved critters.
When people begin to use natural medicine and products, their health improves and they learn new and healthier ways of living. In the process, they spread the good news to others. Now more than ever we are seeing a massive movement to healthier, gentler, and more cooperative lifestyles, and that includes how we care for our pets.
Toxins of all sorts damage our bodies and those of our pets. Bodies react by creating the various diseases we see each day in our clinics. Toxic food additives and environmental or medical toxins lead our bodies to expend energy to repair damage and eliminate those biologically unfriendly substances.
When it comes to our pets, health and happiness begins with a safe space and proper nutrition. Our website has some simple tips about pet health and the use of integrative medicine for animals: www.lovapet.com/tips.nxg/#aspects
RICHARD PALMQUIST, DVM
Author of Releasing Your Pet’s
Hidden Health Potential
and Chief of Integrative Health
Services at Centinela Animal Hospital, Inglewood, California
My concern about what I ate started even before all my reading and research. When I was twelve, I told my parents I would never eat another animal again. I have always loved critters great and small. I would rescue anything I could get my hands on. I brought home snakes, gerbils, turtles, fish, bunnies, and birds. I even rescued a pig. I think that’s where my veganism all started. I never understood how my furry friends were any different from the animals we were eating, and I could not imagine eating one of them. That lasted until my doctor said I needed animal proteins to grow up big and strong. So meat became part of my diet again.
Dan Mathews, the senior vice-president of campaigns at PETA, has uncanny intelligence about people and animals. He knows when to push and when not to. He knows how to get things done. The legislation protecting animals that he has accomplished is amazing. His love and compassion for animals is very deep. I am constantly in awe of him. I couldn’t think of a better person to discuss cruelty to animals and other reasons why people choose to drop meat from their diets.
PETA, which has more than two million members worldwide, recognizes that people have the right to eat whatever they want. We just want people to make informed decisions. That’s why we conduct undercover video investigations in factory farms and slaughterhouses to show consumers that even the measly laws that exist to protect cows and pigs and chickens are routinely violated. Very few people—although there are some—want to hurt animals. PETA has emboldened consumers to fight animal cruelty with their forks by trying a vegan diet and not giving money to the violent meat and dairy industries.
Aside from animal cruelty issues, many people decide to shun meat because they want to avoid heart disease, cancer, and obesity. That’s why PETA showcases so many fit vegan celebrities in their campaigns.
Others decide to drop meat from their diet after learning how the meat trade is the number one polluter on the planet: farmed animals and all the smelly transport trucks are the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Chemicals and waste from factory farms also choke the life out of beautiful rivers and bays. They say the Chesapeake Bay looked like the Caribbean a hundred years ago—before decades of being fouled by runoff from all the huge chicken farms in Delaware and Maryland. PETA goes to great lengths to give people this food for thought so they can make up their own minds on what to put in their mouths. You can read more at PETA.org.
DAN MATHEWS
Senior Vice-President of
Campaigns, PETA
As I grew up, I realized I never felt great the days after I ate meat. I was a carnivore and loved a big, fatty steak with a big bone, but my body didn’t. I ate less meat and lots of fish, but my mercury levels got very high. I gave up stinky cheeses, which I loved, and unless I saw the hen laying the egg, I would pass.
The reading I was doing when I came home supported my childhood intuition. I read about how the beautiful creatures we were eating led the most tortured, hideous lives imaginable. I had no idea this level of cruelty existed, and I wanted no part of it.
I was ready for a major change in my life. I have always been one to jump right in and a firm believer in “no time like the present.” I threw myself into the vegan world. I was in awe of all the wonderfully delicious things I could eat that I had no idea about. Kale and quinoa never appeared on my parents’ table. I felt that I had so much more energy, and I felt more level. My skin just glowed. I could tell my new way of eating was working, because I was getting compliments on how I looked from everyone. I was thrilled—and who doesn’t love a compliment?
After six months on a vegan diet, I felt much happier, lighter, and I wasn’t so impatient. I believe that the fear and anger of animals is transferred to us through their meat. By removing animal products from my diet, I’m healthier than I have ever been, and there is the added benefit of a bit of weight loss. I have become a convert and want to encourage healthy, wholesome eating. I know not all your friends are ready to become vegan. It is not my intention to alienate you by being too obsessive, but it is my intent to ask you to think and to inspire you and show you a different way.
Alexandra Fahrni, my Pilates teacher, changed my body. She understands how emotions are held in the body and block the flow of energy. I see exercise differently now. I move to get the energy flowing.
Today, everything is so fast. Homes are now wired for quick, unencumbered access to a world of information. The global flow of ideas goes on 24/7. Everything is highly charged and moves with the speed of light.
That electric energy is the same as the vital force that flows through us, a life force that makes things move. Energy that moves freely in our bodies allows abstract thought and creativity. But substance, like our bodies, is denser than energy. Just as we have to recharge our laptops and phones and clear our e-mails, we have to recharge our bodies to sweep away the blockages. What we eat, think, and love affects how the life force moves in our body. The flow of our energy can get blocked. The wrong food, negativity, and passions can make us feel heavy, slow, and plodding. For some, the suffering of animals is transmitted in the food we eat and throws off the body’s balance.
The way we move indicates how the energy is flowing. We want to fly, not plod, to move like light. Movement is the expression of our body’s responses to the flow of energy within us and outside us, the physical manifestation of what we give and what we get.
ALEXANDRA FAHRNI
We all have a great capacity for change, but only for the right reasons. You must have a firm belief, a passion for the change you are making, otherwise it simply will not work. For me, these changes are right. I never feel deprived or that I’m missing something. In fact, just the opposite is true. I learn something new every day, and the opportunities are endless. Every time I turn on the TV, I hear about the recall of beef, eggs, and milk because of bacteria. It all starts in factory farms where animals are kept and bred. On the other hand, whenever I go to a farmers’ market, I find such a huge selection with many new varieties of vegetables. Easy access to great produce makes me want to experiment in the kitchen.
I am now about to make another major transition in my life. Putting Templeton on the market is the most liberating thing I have ever done. There are so many ghosts in that house. That part of my life is over, and the world has changed. I want my own house and my own garden. I have made Templeton as much my own as I could, but the house has a built-in level of formality. In some sense, I have always felt like a visitor. I want to build a place of my own with enough land for me to have a small organic farm and to be able to adopt all the animals I can fit.
I decided to write Simple Pleasures to share what I know about relaxed elegance, entertaining with ease, and my own passion for eating in the most healthful way possible, which for me is a vegan diet.
