Weekend Meanderings No. 128 | Fall in the Midwest, a Story That Needs to Be Shared and the Most Beautiful Farmhouse

Milwaukee in Fall, the Cornell 7, RAINN, four home tours and a Karl Lagerfeld film coming to the cinema

The first few weeks of fall have been lovely, and there is nothing quite like fall in the Midwest to remind you what the season is actually supposed to feel like. I was in Milwaukee visiting my mom this week. Cool mornings, warm afternoons, evenings that cool down slowly and perfectly. Walks along Lake Michigan, windows open at night, sitting outside with a cup of tea until it got too dark to see. I did not want to come home.

My heart has been heavy this week, though. I need to tell you about the Cornell 7.

Seven men allegedly gang-raped a woman at Cornell University in 2024, over the course of seven hours. She was a friend of one of them. Afterward, they sent a message to their fraternity letting members know she was upstairs and available. Several of the men received no meaningful consequences beyond writing a letter. The young woman, because Cornell would not refund her tuition, had to remain on campus for another semester, attending classes and passing these men in the hallways. This is only coming to light now because of a civil lawsuit and the amplifying force of social media.

It is not an isolated story. It brought to mind a documentary I shared in 2015 called The Hunting Ground, which documented the same pattern on campuses across the country. Eleven years later, almost nothing has changed. I know several women who were sexually assaulted on college campuses. Including a close family member. And this does not only happen to women. Men are assaulted too, a fact that is discussed even less.

This week I found RAINN, which stands for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Founded in 1994, it is the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the United States. The statistics on their website are sobering. One in four undergraduate women and one in fourteen undergraduate men experience sexual assault after enrolling in college. Between 85 and 90 percent of assaults are committed by someone the victim already knows. Please visit their site at rainn.org. Share it with the students, the parents and the teachers in your life. This information needs to travel far.

On to something lighter. Let’s meander.

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Home Tours

Four this week, and I mean it when I say this is the best Homeworthy episode I have seen yet.

Harriet Anstruther’s West Sussex farmhouse is amazing! I have watched it twice and I am already thinking about watching it again. Harriet is an interior designer and she restored this rambling stone farmhouse with architect Tom Turner, then filled it with inherited antiques, family treasures and a deeply personal mix of art and unexpected finds. Golden tones, rich pattern, layers of discovery in every room. Many of the pieces came from her father, which gives the house the feeling of a life accumulated rather than a room designed. Outside she created her first garden from scratch, brick pathways carving the space into distinct outdoor rooms that balance formal structure with the relaxed beauty of the Sussex landscape. And yes, the black ball skirt she is wearing is fabulous as well. 

Architectural Digest takes us through The Elms in Newport, Rhode Island, a 60,000-square-foot Gilded Age mansion built in 1901 for Edward and Herminie Berwind. Imported marble, gilt bronze, historic artwork, and a house designed specifically to conceal every trace of the labor that kept it running. Hidden servant staircases, secret passageways, a two-story butler’s pantry, concealed living quarters and an underground coal tunnel. The grandeur on one side of the wall and the invisible machinery on the other is a story I find fascinating.

For Practical Magic fans, this one is unmissable. Architectural Digest joins Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman on the set of Practical Magic 2, where production designer Tom Burton rebuilt the iconic Owens house from the ground up, more than 25 years after the original film. The kitchen, the solarium, the living room, all recreated and updated. He talks about the decisions behind every detail and what it means to bring a beloved fictional home into a new era. If you loved the first film, you will want to watch this before you watch the sequel.

The Holland Cooper Country Campaign behind the scenes  is a different kind of home tour, one that takes place entirely outdoors in the British countryside. Jade Holland Cooper takes us through a full day on location, with Richard E. Grant, Jodie Kidd, Highland cows, horses, red setters, a Harris hawk named Fern, a classic Range Rover and a Land Rover Defender. What you get is both the finished campaign and all the beautiful, slightly chaotic reality of making it. It is a love letter to British heritage and to the countryside, and it is exactly the kind of thing I could watch on a slow Saturday morning.

Coming to the Cinema

The Karl Lagerfeld documentary is at the top of my cinema list. Seven decades of fashion, a career that outlasted trends and editors and entire eras of the industry, and a personality that was by every account as much a creation as his clothes. Witty, scathing, uncompromising and magnetic. This film follows his journey from the beginning to the global icon he became, and even if you think you know the story, I suspect you will find something new here.

If you saw Raise the Red Lantern in the cinema thirty years ago, you are going to want to know that a completely restored version is coming. Zhang Yimou’s 1991 masterpiece, newly restored. If you have never seen it, this is the moment.

How Are You, Really?

This short film asks a question that most of us rush past a dozen times a day without stopping to answer it. From childhood we are taught to move past sadness, to hold in anger, to put on a good face. But those feelings do not disappear. They find other ways out, in self-criticism, in anxiety, in the low-grade fog that settles in when we have been ignoring ourselves for too long. This film is about learning to acknowledge what you actually feel and to meet it with kindness rather than suppression. Given the state of the world right now, I think most of us need to hear this. How are you, really?

Before you go, tell me: did you know these statistics about campus sexual assault? And what are you doing this weekend to take care of yourself? Please share in the comments. 

Be sure to visit Kim at Northern California Style and Juliet at Make Mine a Spritzer for everything they are sharing this weekend.

You can find me on Pinterest and Instagram for more of what I am loving this week.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends.

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