FLOWERS & GARDENS

CRIS BRIGER GROWS A VERDANT FAMILY ARBORETUM IN MEXICO, ONE TREE AT A TIME. GLOBAL FOLK ART TRADITIONS COME ALIVE IN SEVEN VIVID FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS. A SENSORY JOURNEY TO GRASSE, THE FRAGRANT EPICENTER OF PERFUME

- STEPHANIE HUNT

OUTSIDE OF SAN MIGUEL de Allende, the city's exuberant colors mellow into a more subdued palette. Inside the gates of Cris Briger's Mexican country retreat, there's no Froot Loopy jacaranda and bougainvillea, no bright ochre and magenta buildings, just the soothing shade of green trees. "It's our own little oasis," says Cris, who with her late husband, Paul, ran a furniture business and began working with San Miguel artisans in the early 1990s. Enchanted by this property at the end of a juniper-lined historic road, they began building their country casa, with its seven bedrooms and four-foot-thick walls, in 1998. The family has spent extended weekends and holidays here, always with a houseful of guests and dogs, for more than two decades. "This more than any place is home. We've already spent a lifetime here," says son Augie Briger, 27, who was four when the house was finished; his brother, Charles Peed, was 12.