Photography by CAROLYN TURGEON

I grew up in a humble West Virginia ranch house with low ceilings, wood paneling, and hideous orange-and-avocado-toned vinyl flooring. I vowed that would not be my fate as an adult! I longed instead for an opulent Victorian home with soaring spaces, hardwood floors, leaded glass windows, and widow’s walks. In college, I had apartments in two different Victorian houses in the one-stoplight town of Athens, West Virginia. One of the houses was a three-story brick affair with dark green trim and no small amount of gingerbread.  On one side was a round turret with original curved glass offering a wavy, imperfect view of  the garden and my world in general. Since I can remember I wanted to own such a house. I didn’t care if I’d possibly freeze in winter or have a heatstroke in summer. Old homes are often not very energy efficient by today’s standards.

Gothic and medieval style has always appealed to me. I’m intrigued by the intersection with Victorian design. Like trends in fashion, architectural styles are often borrowed and given new life. One of my biggest inspirations is the Gothic Revival work of A.W.N. Pugin, whose offerings were ecclesiastical but also  adapted to grand homes and public buildings in the U.K., like the interior of the Palace of Westminster. He created everything from these soaring structures to decorative metal work, tile, and stained-glass designs in the Gothic style. I love the repeating elements of spires, quatrefoils, and Gothic arches that appear somewhat delicate but have strength and endurance.

Decades following my college days, I bought my current home outside Raleigh, North Carolina. It was described on the blueprints as a Queen Anne Cottage, unfortunately built in 1988, not 1888 as I would have preferred, but within a price range I could manage. Finally my dreams were realized—or as close as I could feasibly get. In this part of the southeast, true Victorian homes are hard to come by (Raleigh has a very small historic area downtown) and rarely come up for sale. Even more rare is the dreamy Carpenter Gothic style I adore, with its use of wood instead of stone to create a grand space. I’m likely romanticizing the past to some degree, but I love the ability to pick and choose styles from different decades—centuries even—and incorporate them into my home in some small way.

So even though your home may lack the grand architecture you desire on the outside, you can transform the inside with a bit of work, good quality paint, and some inspired furnishing choices!

My first year in this house was spent removing pastel floral wallpaper in shades of nauseating blue and pink (I imagine Morticia Addams saying “Pastels?” and raising her eyebrows even now) and then painting and furnishing with as close to a Victorian Gothic style as I could conjure. This progress continues—one is always fine-tuning! My own style is what I would refer to it as “flea market”: I buy almost everything secondhand from thrift stores, antique malls, and outdoor markets and did so even before eco-friendly was a thing. Buying secondhand is good for our planet and good for those of us with no generational wealth and living on shoestring budgets!

Ebay came along during my first years in this home (cue the angelic music), and I’d spend hours besotted with gothic lightfixtures and antique reliquaries. I scored a pair of  large gothic  chairs from a church, one of which is in my bedroom from time to time—the other is a cat perch in the office. Somewhere I’ve a folder of “Ebays that got away,” as I often got outbid at the last second. But things often have a way of reappearing. One has to be patient, creative, and clever, and I do most all home projects myself, from replacing light fixtures (don’t do this if you have no working knowledge of electricity!) to painting fifteen-foot walls with five coats of burgundy paint (no fear of heights comes in handy).

My enduring love affair with dark jewel tones is wonderful, but a home needs to be functional as well as beautiful. I find that warm parchment colors (dare I say beige?) are great in rooms where good lighting is essential. These softer tones work as a neutral backdrop for carved wood furniture, iron candelabras, wall-mounted candle holders, framed artwork, and gothic mirrors. My biggest splurge in the house is the Gothic arch bed by Corsican in my bedroom (shown at right) bought at the furniture market in High Point, North Carolina, twenty years ago. I chose a gold finish because I wanted it to glow against the burgundy walls inspired by online photos of rooms at the Witchery in Edinburgh, not to mention Cher’s Sanctuary catalog from 1995, which I still have. This bed remains one of my favorite purchases ever.

Much like Cher’s Sanctuary catalog, my house is just that—my little sanctuary that serves as both working and living space. It’s never perfect, always changing, but it is the house I dreamed of as a girl. And I did get my turret!

By Lisa Gill and Carolyn Turgeon

If you want to pass a couple of hours swooning to the poetry of a gorgeous, doomed romance and suspecting you might have been born in the wrong century altogether, we recommend Jane Campion’s 2009 film Bright Star, which is about the last few years of the poet John Keats and his one true love, Fanny Brawne. Campion wrote the film after reading Andrew Motion’s biography Keats and becoming captivated by the poet/heartbreaker. After reading the love letters Keats sent to Fanny, Campion was in love. Who wouldn’t be?

The film is full of Keats’s own words from said letters, which are just as romantic today: “For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright; a fairer word than fair.” Another example: “You must write immediately and do all you can to console me … make [your letter] rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me … write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been.” How can a modern-day email compare?

“It’s been such an amazing and incredible journey for me, getting close to John Keats and also Shelley and Byron,” Campion told NPR upon the film’s release. “I think what they responded to was their own spirits, and that was the Lord for them. And to me that seems like great instructions for life.”

In the film, there’s a quiet tension from the moment the two lovers interact on screen that sets the tone for the entire movie. Once a mutual attraction is formed, it’s nurtured with furtive glances through windows—Keats often inside, Fanny in the garden—or through knocking on the shared wall of the house with Fanny’s family on one side and Keats and his friend Mr. Brown on the other. At times playful, there is an undercurrent of growing despair once Fanny witnesses John’s brother Tom suffering from and succumbing to tuberculosis. And then, of course, Keats himself will succumb, in true Garbo-esque fashion.

The two are the ultimate star-crossed lovers—Keats, unable to marry due to his dire financial circumstances and Fanny, pleading with her mother to allow them to become engaged when it is clear that a very ill Keats must travel to the warmer climate of Italy to convalesce. But what is a perfect Romantic romance without some star-crossed despair?

My introduction to nature was at my childhood home a top a mountain in West Virginia with thirty-five acres of woods to call my playground. Exploring those woods brought countless hours of delight as my siblings and I discovered flora and fungi native to Appalachia. Morel mushrooms grew wild in the forest, along with trillium, pink lady’s slipper, and the ginseng that my uncle harvested to sell to the local drugstore. I remember swinging from wild grapevines under thick canopies of trees, splashing in the nearby creek and playing with lizards and crawdads. These are my best memories, and my love of local woods has continued into my adult life. I’m most at peace surrounded by groves of trees in the forest.

Currently, I live in North Carolina, in a much a less rural landscape than the one I grew up in, but the magic of the wild is still out there. I simply have to be a bit more patient and look harder for it. Every morning I try to visit a municipal or state park nearby, staying close to home so I can spend more time on foot rather than in my car.

Dawn is the best time for me to encounter wildlife, as the light is wonderful then and I find it both meditative and magical. The moment I enter the woods, I feel the rest of the world slip away. I focus on what’s immediately in front of me and concentrate on being completely present in the moment. I always carry a camera, though, to capture the elusive animals I come across and all number of magical things. Surely, I must record my witness to this magic with photography—otherwise I might feel I’ve dreamed it.

I’ve had some memorable hikes—sometimes it’s the animals I encounter, like the beautiful barred owl you see on these pages or a small black bear crossing the road. Other times the journey is about the color of an autumn sunset against bare trees. I try to follow the “observe, don’t disturb” rule and am mindful that I’ve entered the animals’ home. Deer are my absolute favorite wild animals because there’s something so magical about their large watchful eyes and graceful presence. It feels like they’ve stepped in from another dimension and allowed me a brief glimpse into it. Or perhaps it’s the other way around?

Beside my house is a large oak tree with a hollow about twenty feet up, a hidden hideaway first discovered by my dear friend Jen during a visit a decade ago. I closely monitored that hollow afterward, and much to my delight, I once saw a tiny squirrel face peeping out at me. Then I saw two, and finally three! I dubbed it the Wee Three Tree, and a new hobby was born—watching them watching me as I visited the mailbox. Since then, I’ve had quite a few squirrel families born in that snug home. This experience reminded me to be vigilant and ever watchful of my own outdoor space and the seasonal magic it holds. If not for Jen, I could have missed them altogether, right in my own yard!

There are still a few spirit animals on my bucket list to witness—one is the elusive white deer sometimes spotted in this area; the other is a great horned owl that I’ve heard but never seen on my property. Hopefully nature will grant me these wishes someday, but if not, I’ll remain content with the multitude of blessings sheltered beneath mighty oak and towering pine.

In addition to what I see, nature appeals to all my other senses as well, offering scents (who doesn’t love the smell of a forest after a rainstorm?), sounds, texture, and colors that are always changing with the seasons and light. In this way, setting foot in nature is always unpredictable. You never know what treasures you may find. Will it be a fawn curled in sleep waiting for mom to return, a rare mushroom pushing through the rich earth, an owl calling for a mate in the distance, the delicate scent of violets crushed underfoot? This sense of unexpected beauty is certainly part of nature’s allure for me. Perhaps that’s also why so many fairy tales begin with a deep forest, equal parts welcoming and foreboding but always holding the promise of grand adventure.

How can one sustain a sense of enchantment when returning home to the everyday world you may ask? I generally don’t take anything from the woods (in most places it’s illegal to do so), preferring to leave those gifts within the sanctuary of the forest for the inhabitants there to enjoy. But on my own property, I collect seasonal bits I find while gardening. Acorns, lichen, lush clumps of moss, interesting bark (which I sometimes fashion into gauntlets, like on page 16), and bird nests, which I tenderly gather and preserve in a Wardian case in my kitchen, are regular finds. I’ve also created a series of photographs (like the one at right) of mirrors. I position large, often decorative ones in the wild (I love to collect these treasures at flea markets) to reflect the landscape. To me they look like portals to another place. The view represents the mutable quality of nature to me and how things aren’t always as they appear on the surface.

So dear readers, given all the treasures nature holds, I challenge you to wander near or far. Perhaps venture out one morning, and on another day go as the light fades into
the evening and note the changes. And please share your photographic observations and enchantments with us. We’d love to partake in them.

Follow Lisa Gill on Instagram @medievalmuse02.