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" Should you have the good fortune of scoring an invitation to a dinner party at designer Lela Rose&amp;#039;s home in the sleepy hamlet of Long Eddy, New York, two and a half hours northwest of Manhattan, prepare to get your hands dirty. After proffering an oversize goblet of red wine, the designer\u2014whose ladylike dresses (to say nothing of her elegant bridal confections) are beloved by everyone from Mindy Kaling to Kate Middleton\u2014announces the menu. &amp;quot;These are what we call country-style canape\u0301s,&amp;quot; she says in her Texas crackle. Tonight&amp;#039;s spread features fried chicken, spicy slaw, and homemade tortillas paired with Tenayo-brand salsa, a company in which Rose&amp;#039;s ruggedly handsome hedge-fund-manager husband, Brandon Jones, is invested. &amp;quot;We call him the salsa baron,&amp;quot; she says with a laugh. (The pair were married at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1999, a year after Rose launched her label.) Oh, and don&amp;#039;t forget about a just-baked German chocolate cake with coconut and maple frosting. Stealing a finger swipe is practically a house rule.  And though nibbles abound\u2014the couple&amp;#039;s towheaded son, Grey, 12, and daughter, Rosey, 7, are especially adept at creating forkless amuse-bouches\u2014a full dinner awaits. With the quiet calm of an experienced host, Rose, who calls her country house&amp;#039;s aesthetic &amp;quot;a little bit western, a little bit of Japan,&amp;quot; lures guests into a sunken space that functions as a dining-den hybrid. &amp;quot;What was so nice is that we could move in without feeling like we had to go get stuff,&amp;quot; she says of the 3,600-square-foot cabin, which its former owner, architect Steve Chrostowski, designed to blend in with its wooded surroundings. In fact, Rose and Jones, who bought the four-bedroom home in 2012, requested the place come as was\u2014right down to some very fancy shampoo in the master bath. Over time, Rose has introduced some personal touches: a bamboo hanging chair that vaguely resembles an ostrich egg, a collection of stumbled-upon birds&amp;#039; nests displayed in the main hall, and hand-embroidered bedding. The one constant, however, is the home&amp;#039;s durable flexibility. The open-plan layout &amp;quot;affords all these different places to be and sit,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I love being able to move around.... I kind of always have.&amp;quot;  The ease of Long Eddy paired with what Rose calls a &amp;quot;very Frank Lloyd Wright&amp;quot; sensibility, is what enticed the family of four (plus Norwich terrier Bobbin) up here. &amp;quot;I just love our apartment in New York, and if I don&amp;#039;t like a vacation home as much, why go?&amp;quot; asks Rose, who moved to Manhattan 22 years ago to attend Parsons. It&amp;#039;s understandable why she was especially reluctant: After spending seven years gutting their nearly 6,000-square-foot, ground-level TriBeCa apartment (which now boasts five bedrooms, a doggy elevator, and a tequila nook), the prospect of renovating yet another home seemed down- right daunting. The family makes the trek northwest across New Jersey and up NY-17 twice a month to while away weekends building fires, scouring the 125-acre property for ramps and morels, and falling asleep under the stars on an enclosed sleeping porch. &amp;quot;It reminds me of Texas,&amp;quot; Rose says. &amp;quot;You can kind of walk around without hearing cars and just be in solitude.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s the diametric opposite of her life in the city. Case in point: At 7:45 A.M. on a Thursday in April, Rose, whose ready- to-wear business now spans 75 specialty stores nationwide, plus in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, received a harried call from her head of sales. Unbeknownst to the designer, Kate Middleton had selected an ivory peplum Lela Rose shift for the last night of her and Prince William&amp;#039;s three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand. &amp;quot;The phone was ringing, texts were dinging, and sales were headed northward,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Leaving early and kicking back with a cocktail? Oh, how I wish!&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;ll always have Long Eddy. This article appeared in the August 2014 issue of ELLE magazine.  Related:  How to: Athena Calderone&amp;#039;s Quick and Thrifty Table Linens  Related:  Filles \u00E0 Fromage  Related:  12 Smart Ideas for a Simple Summer Party  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/art-design/a12799/lela-rose-home-decor/>