Behind the Seen

Simple but sensual arrangements of sweet peas, lavender and purple heather set the scene for the summery affair held inside and out of Suzanne Kasler’s Regency-style estate. The lush setting, complete with casual and formal touches, created a convivial atmosphere for mingling business and pleasure.

Simple but sensual arrangements of sweet peas, lavender and purple heather set the scene for the summery affair held inside and out of Suzanne Kasler’s Regency-style estate. The lush setting, complete with casual and formal touches, created a convivial atmosphere for mingling business and pleasure.

Simple but sensual arrangements of sweet peas, lavender and purple heather set the scene for the summery affair held inside and out of Suzanne Kasler’s Regency-style estate. The lush setting, complete with casual and formal touches, created a convivial atmosphere for mingling business and pleasure.

The same pale lavender linen used to drape the long dining table, Kasler’s signature fabric for Ballard Designs, was used for curtain panels that envelope the intimate outdoor fireplace furnished with seating by Janus et Cie. Dennis Dean Catering prepared pear tarts on turbinado-sugared shortbread crust.

Simple but sensual arrangements of sweet peas, lavender and purple heather set the scene for the summery affair held inside and out of Suzanne Kasler’s Regency-style estate. The lush setting, complete with casual and formal touches, created a convivial atmosphere for mingling business and pleasure.

Esteemed guests from the SCAD coterie, as well as the local design circuit, included from left: Nathan Lycan; Moattar, Ltd., president Jason Moattar; senior vice president for University Resources Glenn Wallace; Wendy Conrad Aronson; and president Paula Wallace.

Simple but sensual arrangements of sweet peas, lavender and purple heather set the scene for the summery affair held inside and out of Suzanne Kasler’s Regency-style estate. The lush setting, complete with casual and formal touches, created a convivial atmosphere for mingling business and pleasure.

Passed hors d’oeuvres included sweet potato biscuits filled with aged prosciutto and fig compote and cheddar-and-leek gougeres.

Simple linen napkins were wrapped in lavender ribbon.

Floral compositions by designer Keith Arnold included kale and purple larkspur in a polished silver Ralph Lauren bowl. Inventive fare by Dennis Dean Catering featured tortellini salad with artichoke hearts, orange-rosemary grilled chicken breasts with orange relish and pepper-rubbed beef tenderloin with green apple-horseradish cream.

The lush setting of Kasler’s Regency-style Buckhead home created a sophisticated atmosphere for the mingling of business and pleasure.

If there’s one thing Suzanne Kasler does more beautifully than create inspiring, comfortable spaces, it’s supporting the generation of like-minded talent currently coming of age. After joining the 
Savannah College of Art & Design’s advisory council in 2012—following years of involvement with its interior design program—the designer embraced the opportunity to host May’s SCAD Seen Gala 2013 patron party, where she entertained approximately 80 of the university’s most valued supporters at the Regency-style Buckhead estate she shares with husband John Morris.

“As a person in the creative world, I know how design can make a difference,” she says. “I’ve seen what [president] Paula Wallace has done—all over the world. The students and staff members of SCAD show such energy and enthusiasm…how they’re thinking outside the box.” Kasler applauds the school’s excellent instruction of “design thinking,” a skill she utilized with aplomb when planning this fête.

The key to party-planning success, she says, is preparing the day before, leaving the date of the event to weather unexpected snags. This laissez-faire attitude allows the hostess to relax and have fun, which is a graciousness her guests will in turn notice and appreciate. At the patron party, guests moved freely between indoors and out, which encouraged conviviality and conversation, strengthening friendships and fostering new connections, both personal and professional. The evening’s cuisine, prepared by Dennis Dean Catering and served buffet-style from the formal dining room, was enjoyed beneath a lush canopy of European-clipped sycamore trees in Kasler’s backyard, where French cafe chairs and a linen-draped communal table anchored the intimate architecture of the pea gravel courtyard.

“I love the juxtaposition of relaxed and formal. I do it in my work, and I love it when entertaining,” she says. “It’s those wonderful 
details, in entertaining as much as design, where the fun is in mixing high and low.”

THE PARTY
Patron Party for SCAD “Seen” Gala

THE DATE
May 2, 2013

THE PLACE
Kasler’s Regency-style estate

THE PLAYERS
Hal Ainsworth & Winton Noah
Wendy & Neal Aronson
Katie Belveal
Judy Bentley
Cinda & Mark Boomershine
Michel Boyd
Susan Bozeman
Ginny & Charles Brewer
Ben Collins
Dennis Dean
John Dewberry
Fay Gold
Ryan Hughes
John Lineweaver & John Oetgen
Nathan Lycan & Jason Moattar
Amy Morris
Ric Parrish & Matthew Quinn
Brian Watford
Mark Williams