All In The Family
Veranda|July/August 2017

ALONG WITH ARCHITECT MARC APPLETON, DESIGNER EMILY SUMMERS CREATES A DREAM HOME IN DALLAS FOR HER SON AND HIS WIFE.

Mimi Read
All In The Family

WHEN IT COMES TO MOTHERS-IN-LAW, there are pop songs, T-shirts, and endless jokes attesting to the pitfalls of one of life’s most precarious relationships. But Elisa Summers would beg to differ.

At the time she married her husband, Stephen, 17 years ago, she acquired not only a genial spouse but also a charming mother-in-law, Emily Summers, who happens to be a world-class interior designer with a blue-chip clientele and offices in Dallas and Manhattan. “She’s just so talented, and she has incredible vision for her projects,” Elisa says. “Plus, if his mom says it’s good, my husband knows it really is!”

Elisa and Stephen are style arbiters in their own right. They are co-owners of Highland Park Village, the 1930s Mediterranean-style shopping center (said to be the nation’s oldest) that is a crown jewel of Highland Park, the tony Dallas enclave where they both grew up. Since purchasing the complex in 2009 with Elisa’s sister and brother-in-law, they have turned it into a chic shopping destination, with such luxury boutiques as Tom Ford, Céline, Dior, and Fendi.

This story is from the July/August 2017 edition of Veranda.

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This story is from the July/August 2017 edition of Veranda.

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