Painter Donna Krakovitz Feiner uses the fruitful land as a vivid canvas for herself and her family in Bucks County, Pa.

Feiner House

This magic happens just 45 minutes from Philadelphia, where the Feiners bought an old stone house 15 years ago, renovated it, and added an orchard and gardens (one with 50 varieties of roses). "I do all the gardening myself," says Donna. "Glenn mows." She also paints and teaches Ashtanga yoga in her studio. It's a symbiotic life: Her art inspires her garden and vice versa. She looked for peace here, and found it. "This land speaks to me. It teaches me to slow down."

Donna planted yews, boxwood, and conifers in front of the house, and she painted the guest room's new shutters to look old.




French Dining Room

The dining room and kitchen rich with wood, reflect Donna's love for France. The dining room furnishings-the earthenware pot, candlesticks, and grape harvest basket-are French, as is the kitchen's farm sink. The seltzer bottles behind it are from her parents' Paris honeymoon.




Garden Patio

Morning glories grow on the arbor that Donna made from fallen trees. A boxwood hedge defines the space without obscuring it.




Bright Kitchen

A kitchen cupboard is made from copies of old French doors. Donna specializes in Mediterranean cooking. She cooks almost every night, often using the vegetables she grows organically in the garden, such as the peppers and eggplants on the butcher block and 1720 table. She also makes her own pizza and bread in her Gaggenau oven, which heats up to 600 degrees.




Wax Wall Finish

In the living room Donna made the plaster walls glow with a treatment of dry pigment and wax.




Writing Desk

An 18th-century writing desk fits nicely in a living room corner.




Floral Still Life

This still life hangs in the guest room above the c. 1610 fireside bench from Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France. Donna sells her work through David David, a Philadelphia gallery.






photo credit: Gridley & Graves