Flowers, White House Style: With 100 Original Designs by the Former White House Chief Floral Decorator [Hardcover]

Dottie Temple (Author), Stan Finegold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2002

Whether decorating the grand halls for visiting dignitaries, transforming a room for a holiday, or simply gracing the private family quarters, flowers are an essential part of life in the White House. In "Flowers, White House Style," former White House Chief Floral Decorator Dottie Temple reveals the secrets to these fabulous floral arrangements while offering a rare glimpse into the inner workings of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With more than 125 original and archival photographs, many seen here for the first time, Temple and her coauthor, Stan Finegold, guide us through the floral displays created for five presidential administrations, offering history and insight from the most famous house in the world.

Supplementing this rich memoir, renowned historian William Seale offers intriguing vignettes and little-known facts about White House floral history during the mansion's first 150 years. For example, in the 1840s, it was believed that fresh flowers absorbed all the oxygen in the air and they were banished to the outdoors. The flowers for the wedding of President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice were very restrained; only jasmine and white orchids were used.

Walk through the White House florist shop, where thousands of flowers are delivered every day, and witness the planning and coordinating of each arrangement for important official events. Floral selections must be carefully made so they offend neither visitors nor the President. White flowers are never used for Japanese guests, because they are reserved for funerals in Japan. The favorite flowers of dignitaries are always remembered -- for example, anemones for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britainand roses for President Francois Mitterrand of France. These insights and more are revealed on every page of "Flowers, White House Style."

Stunning photographs and step-by-step instructions will inspire all those who love flowers to recreate the more than forty detailed historic and contemporary arrangements in the book and bring the elegance of the White House into their homes.

Temple describes lavish floral centerpieces and impressive flower designs ranging from those created for numerous State Dinners and three White House weddings (Tricia Nixon; Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson) to garlands and wreaths for spectacular White House Christmas celebrations. With ample ideas and tips on vases, flowers, and tools, Temple and Finegold make these beautifully artistic creations accessible to everyone. Whether you are a professional looking for inspiration or simply an enthusiast who loves the natural beauty of fresh blooms, "Flowers, White House Style" will be the book you'll turn to.

Filled with revealing anecdotes and behind-the-scenes information on the workings of the White House that only Dottie Temple can provide, "Flowers, White House Style" offers history, inspiration, and innovative ideas in a lush and exquisitely designed volume.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The first First Lady to regularly use live flowers in the White House was James Buchanan's niece, Harriet Lane, who had picked up social graces in the court of Queen Victoria. The White House now has its own florist in the cellar, with a conservatory attached. This book by Chief Decorator Temple (who began during the Nixon years and retired during Reagan's second term) is a combination of how-tos for very specific arrangements (categorized by container and occasion) and a unique perspective on the postwar White House. In addition to relating her duties and experiences, Temple (with co-writer Finegold) includes carefully detailed instructions for putting beautiful blooms together, illustrated with more than 170 color photos of the plants and the people who favored them: Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller "share a light lunch in the solarium" along with a silver bowl of delphiniums, carnations, and pompoms. Ronald Reagan toasts then Crown Prince Akihito of Japan from behind a centerpiece of tall topiaries. Lady Bird Johnson "enjoys a quiet moment upstairs in the Lincoln Sitting Room with a small pierced vermeil bowl and tray filled with pink snapdragons." The book is nonpartisan: Jacqueline Kennedy, Rosalynn Carter, Barbara Bush and the Clintons all make appearances. White House historian William Seale sets the scenes of many of the photos in detailed sidebars, and Nancy Reagan provides a "note" at the front of the book. The arrangements are lovely, but the candid photos and inside scoop on the preferences of the presidents and first ladies are likely to be the collection's main attractions.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Rex Scouten former Chief White House Usher The exquisite fresh floral arrangements in the historic rooms of the White House are the final touch. They tell you this house is alive; someone lives here! -- Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743223349
• ISBN-13: 978-0743223348
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #925,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Book!, December 16, 2002

By 

K. A. Peterson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flowers, White House Style: With 100 Original Designs by the Former White House Chief Floral Decorator (Hardcover)

What a lovely book! It is a nice mix of flower arrangements and tips, photos of arrangements in the White House in recent times, and historical survey of flowers and their importance in the President's house. It is interesting to see the floral styles of each first lady. Those women actually exerted a strong hand in the "look" of the florals for their home on Pennsylvania Ave.

What a contrast of the Johnson girl's wedding with that of the Nixon daughter! Wow, talk about different styles, and they were not all that far apart in time!

There are beautiful watercolor illustrations as lead in to each chapter. They seem to be uncredited--at least, I would not find the artist's name after looking carefully. Like any other book these days, there are small factual errors. Tricia Nixon is referred to as the Nixon's youngest daughter (she is their eldest) and Allium Gigantium is called "tropical" (gee, it grows in my midwest garden surviving all winters.)

But those are small quibbles. Really, this is a lovely book and I enjoyed it!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boffo!, October 17, 2002

By 

C. J. Allen (Orefield, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flowers, White House Style: With 100 Original Designs by the Former White House Chief Floral Decorator (Hardcover)

I loved this book and even though I am not interested in learning how to arrange "stems" - this book is beautiful to look at and very interesting to read!
Very few folks get to have the job Dottie had and her insights and stories are super!
If you love the White House and it's history...add this book to your library! If you want to learn how to put together some of those famous White House arrangements - this book will show you how!
Much more than a "how to" book...filled with backstage stories and interesting info!
Thanks Dottie!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shoot the editor, fire the book designer., November 25, 2011

By 

flower lady - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flowers, White House Style: With 100 Original Designs by the Former White House Chief Floral Decorator (Hardcover)

I must admit, I was taken by the title of this book. White House flowers! As an obsessed, award-winning flower grower and arranger, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book and thought the other negative review was just sour grapes.

Oh dear, was I wrong. The White House Florist and her "co-author" actually hired someone else to write the book and staged many of the arrangements with new flowers in non-White House locales. The editor obviously (a) is not a flower person and/or (b) lost interest in the project a long time ago.

How do we know this? Countless captions misidentify or don't adequately identify the flowers in an arrangement. The "how to" sections are glaringly bad. In one instance, the instructions call for only Gerberas, but the accompanying photo shows a bouquet of roses and Gerberas.

In another "how to", 36 red and pink tulips are called for. Does this mean 36 red and 36 pink? Or 36 tulips that are variegated red and pink? We'll never know, because we stopped reading these sections.

It is errors and omissions such as these that take all pleasure out of the book and keep the reader shaking her head, wondering what else is totally wrong or marginally correct.

Acknowledging that tastes and decor do change over time, some of the arrangements look like they came out of an old FTD catalog. Trite and unimaginative. The very limited flower palette screams AMATEUR.

A note to the book designer: the photoshopped, stylized flower photos that open each chapter and are spread throughout are awful. They look like either a bad photo or a low res image blown up too much. What a disappointment. Some of the photography done especially for the book is lacking in resolution - images are fuzzy. Bad photos, poor print quality, or both?

It appears that this book is just another example of a White House ex-employee trying to profit from the cache of the job. Too bad, it could have been a fantastic book and inspired us for years to come.

This book is so bad I won't even pass it along to someone else.

We can only hope that the current White House florist, who has REAL talent and imagination, will write a better book when it's her turn.

from the Elfin Forest Flower Lady