Duologue with Leslie Heaney

Nick Mele has spent his whole life in Newport, Rhode Island — and turned his eye for that world into a career photographing it, in a style Town and Country refers to as "the Slim Aarons of our time." He's also the photographer behind the book A Newport Summer, his love letter to the place he grew up. On this episode, Nick shares where to stay, where to eat, and the local-only spots most visitors never find — everything you need for a perfect Newport summer weekend.

(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:35:55) Where to stay in Newport
(00:40:27) Where to eat and drink
(00:44:56) Cliff Walk and Rejects Beach
(00:47:20) Mansions, Newport Film, and museum culture
(00:52:30) Festivals, car shows, and Coaching Weekend
(00:56:22) Family-friendly spots outside town
(01:07:00) Outro

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Sarah Wetenhall had never worked in hospitality when she and her husband decided, almost on a dare, to buy The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach. She joins me to talk about turning decades as a guest into two of the most in-demand boutique hotels in the country, and what it took to build The Hedges Inn in East Hampton next.

(00:00) Introduction
(02:00) The Colony: family history & buying in with zero experience
(06:39) Deciding to buy The Hedges
(09:00) Opening The Hedges & bringing Swifty's east
(11:22) Inside the guest experience
(13:35) Local recs: restaurants, shops & hidden gems
(27:24) The Ina Garten story
(29:43) Best times to visit East Hampton
(32:00) What's next for Sarah and Andrew
(34:25) Community programming: Conversations at the Hedges
(39:10) Wrap-up

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They never appear in the photo. They never take the credit. But without them, there’s no flyover, no Brandenburg Gate speech, no “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” For sixty years, the people behind every presidential moment have operated under one unwritten rule: what happens on the road stays on the road. Jean Becker and Tom Collamore have finally convinced 96 of them to break it.
Jean and Tom join me to discuss their new book Don’t Tell the President, a bipartisan collection of stories spanning LBJ through Obama. We get into the bicycle bell phone trick that conjured a fake presidential call, how Chelsea Clinton ended up chasing Air Force One through Moscow in a laundry van, what really went into making Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech historic, and why Bob Dole ended up being greeted by Daffy Duck and Frankenstein at what was supposed to be a campaign event.
We also go to the serious side — 9/11, Sandy Hook, assassination attempts on Ford and Reagan — and what it means to be the person who has to put a president in the right place on the worst days in American history.
Jean Becker served as Chief of Staff to President George H.W. Bush is the author of The Man I Knew and Character Matters. Tom Collamore is a senior advisor to the George and Barbara Bush Foundation, was Chief of Staff and assistant Secretary of Commerce in the George H W Bush Administration senior fellow at the Bush Presidential Library and a veteran of multiple presidential trips.
(00:00:03) Introduction
(00:01:50) How the book came to be
(00:06:31) What does a presidential advance person actually do?
(00:08:46) John the Baptist: the first advance person
(00:10:43) The bicycle bell phone trick
(00:13:00) Chelsea Clinton and the Moscow laundry van
(00:15:27) How advance changed after the Reagan assassination attempt
(00:17:44) The Secret Service relationship
(00:20:08) Robert Gates as a pre-advance person
(00:22:28) The nude beach in Martinique
(00:24:48) George W. Bush, a safari, and elephant mating season
(00:27:10) The Vatican vs. the Bush team over a backdrop
(00:29:31) Two Clinton staffers, a locksmith, and a Texas standoff
(00:31:48) The president as comforter in chief
(00:34:12) 9/11 and the shoes Brian Montgomery still can't clean
(00:36:39) Reagan's Berlin Wall speech almost happened inside
(00:39:00) Obama at Sandy Hook
(00:41:25) Bob Dole, Daffy Duck, and the campaign event from hell
(00:45:59) Outro

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Nina Campbell has been one of my favorite people I have had the pleasure of sitting down with since I started Duologue — sixty years of designing the most beautiful rooms in the world and she is still the most curious, most passionate person in any room she walks into. In this conversation we talk about how she got her start working under the legendary John Fowler at Colefax and Fowler, the project in mainland China that required flying in thirty people, their own paint, and their own tea, the house in Maine that became her favorite project of her career and the subject of her book, and what it actually means to design a room for the life someone lives in it — not the life they imagine. We also get into Nina’s insider tips on paint, bedding, tabletop, and the best places to find antiques. Nina Campbell is the author of A House in Maine and the creator of fabric and wallpaper collections sold worldwide, as well as the new Nina Campbell for NEXT line.

(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:04) Learning from John Fowler at Colefax and Fowler
(00:04:23) London's Annabelle's
(00:09:16) Opening a Shop with Mark Birley / Porto Linens
(00:11:37) Cullen House in Scotland
(00:16:06) Starting Her Fabric and Wallpaper Collection
(00:18:25) The Tree-of-Life Wallpaper Rescued from a Scottish Ruin
(00:20:50) The China Project
(00:28:00) A House in Maine and Her Favorite Client Relationship
(00:32:11) The Lavender Telephone Box Bar
(00:35:03) What She Loves Most About the Work
(00:36:54) Breaking All the Rules
(00:37:21) Signature Is Detail
(00:39:56) Lampshades and Cushions: The Shoes and Handbags of Design
(00:42:16) Different Places to Entertain and Dine
(00:44:39) Must Haves: The Embassy Story
(00:47:04) Senior Living Projects and Nina Campbell for Next
(00:51:47) Insider Tips: Argile Paint, Bedding, Tabletop, Antiques

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At some point in all of our lives, we will experience Grief. Thanks to my next guest, we will now have the tools to manage it when it arrives.  Kate Doerge — certified grief coach, founder of Penny's Flight Foundation, and author of Reimagining Grief (out June 16th) — has lost her father, her mother, and her daughter Penny at sixteen to neurofibromatosis-related glioblastoma. And in every case, she chose light over dark, faith over fear. She reached for signs, she moved her body, she turned her pain into a foundation that has raised over $6 million for neurofibromatosis research. This episode is about what grief can look like when you refuse to let it define you — and the five actions that can help you get there.

00:00:03 Introduction
00:04:20 Kate's Losses and Her Father's Advice
00:08:55 Losing Her Mother Five Days Before Christmas
00:11:14 Rejecting the Five Stages of Grief
00:13:34 Penny, Neurofibromatosis, and the Love Cocoon
00:27:29 The Five Actions for Moving Through Grief
00:29:50 Movement and the Neuroscience of Grief
00:34:18 Signs, Faith, and Sunshine People
00:45:38 Changing the Language Around Grief
00:48:02 Penny and the Prom
00:52:37 The Book Tour and Penny's Flight Fam Jam
00:59:24 Outro

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