A Garden Inside Grace Chapel: How Southport Spends the Rooms with a View Weekend

"Keep your ticket for entry all weekend." It sits in small type under the show dates on the Rooms with a View homepage, and it changes how a neighbor should plan the show. The 31st Rooms with a View starts tonight, Thursday, November 5, with its opening party at Southport Congregational Church, 524 Pequot Avenue. The general show follows Friday through Sunday, November 6 to 8. A $30 general admission ticket gets you in on all three days, and it covers the lecture series and the book signing.

If you can walk to the church, that ticket works like a pass for the whole weekend. The program is set up for people who come back more than once. You can see the rooms on Friday, hear some of the designers who made them on Saturday, and stop in again on Sunday for one more look.

Thirty-One Novembers, Started by Albert Hadley

The late interior designer Albert Hadley founded the show in 1995, and according to Home & Garden CT-NY, it has run every November since. This year's program is titled "The Enduring Influence of British Design," and the garden is a second theme. Proceeds go to local and regional charities and to the NYSID/Rooms with a View Scholarship Fund. The 2026 scholarship winner is Lauren Joyce.

Hadley's name is still part of the weekend. Every year the show turns Grace Chapel, which its organizers call "a rather ordinary space," into a themed setting known as "The Hadley." Past versions include a terrace in Ibiza and a Moroccan palace. For the 30th anniversary, the chapel became a recreation of Brooke Astor's Park Avenue library, made in Hadley's honor.

This Year, the Chapel Becomes a Conservatory

According to the show's Hadley Garden Cafe page, the 2026 version of The Hadley starts from the question "What happens when you bring the outdoors in?" Grace Chapel becomes a large conservatory with flowers, trees and botanical installations, entered through a garden gate. It also serves as the show's café. You can get coffee or tea, a mid-morning bite, lunch, a glass of wine or an afternoon cocktail there between lectures. The café is open all weekend.

That's why the multi-day ticket matters so much. A lecture, a lunch in the conservatory and another walk through the rooms add up to a long afternoon, and the ticket lets you spread that over several days.

The Rooms, and the People Who Will Talk About Them

The Class of 2026 includes these designers:

• Phillip Thomas of Phillip Thomas Inc.
• Rebecca Amir of Rebecca Amir Design
• Tom Cox of HÁM
• Mark Ciano of Mark Ciano Home
• Lina Galvao and Erin Coren of Curated Nest
• Elaina Darden of Elaina Darden Design
• Jennifer Bradford Kennedy of Jennifer Bradford Kennedy Interior Design
• Henriette von Stockhausen of VSP Interiors
• Henry Prideaux of Henry Prideaux Interior Designs
• Liz Anderson of LVA Interiors
• Lee Ann Thornton and Allie Resor of Lee Ann Thornton Interiors

Three of the names on that list also appear in the lecture schedule. Von Stockhausen, Prideaux and Cox are the UK designers on Saturday morning's panel about British design, and Benjamin Reynaert moderates. Visitors who walk through the vignettes on Friday can hear three of their designers discuss British design on Saturday, then go back to the rooms afterward with the same ticket.

Reynaert is the US Editor of Homes & Gardens UK and Anthology and has held editorial roles at ELLE Décor, Architectural Digest and House Beautiful. His book The Layered Home came out from Clarkson Potter this year.

The Weekend, Day by Day

According to the show's lecture series overview, this is the order of events. One page of the site prints lecture dates of November 11 through 13, and another listing gives a different panel time. Check times at roomswithaview.org before you head over.

1. Thursday, November 5, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The opening party gives a first look at the vignettes and art, with cocktails, food, and shopping in the Marketplace and Tartan Shop.
2. Friday, November 6, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Ken Selody, founder of Atlock Farm, the New Jersey nursery known for its topiaries, explains how to care for and maintain topiaries so they stay healthy for years. Given this year's garden theme, his talk is a fitting way to start.
3. Friday, November 6, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. A Night at the Hadley is a fundraiser and networking evening for the design community, with food by Alchemy Celebrations and cocktails at the Hadley Garden Bar.
4. Saturday, November 7, 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The panel "The Enduring Influence of British Design," with von Stockhausen, Prideaux and Cox, moderated by Reynaert.
5. Saturday, November 7, 1 to 2:30 p.m. The book signing.
6. Saturday, November 7, 3 to 4 p.m. Kit Kemp presents "Design Stories" in conversation with Elizabeth Graves. Kemp and her husband Tim founded the Firmdale hotel group in 1985. Its 11 boutique hotels are known for bold color, eclectic British patterns and original art.
7. Sunday, November 8, 1 p.m. Ben Pentreath, the British architect, urban designer and interior designer known for classical design, presents "A Year at the Parsonage."
8. Sunday, November 8, 1 to 3 p.m. Bloody Mary Sunday in the Hadley Garden Cafe.

The general show is open Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

What Each Ticket Buys

The ticket site adds a small fee to each, so the totals come to $30.90, $180.25 and $169.95. The two evenings are fundraisers with their own price. The $30 ticket is the one that gets you all four lectures.

Getting There Without Moving the Car

The church's FAQ points drivers to the large lot across the street and the lot behind the church, with more parking in town. Southport station is 0.2 miles away, about a five-minute walk. Besides the café, the show runs a Tartan Shop for holiday gifts, a bookstore and the Marketplace.

With re-entry included, a visitor can come for one lecture, go home, and return later for the rooms. Pentreath's 1 p.m. Sunday talk overlaps with Bloody Mary Sunday, which runs from 1 to 3. You can hear him and then walk across to the conservatory while it's still going.

The Rest of the Week on the Same Stretch of Pequot Avenue

Pequot Library has its own programs around the show weekend. This Thursday, the library holds Great Lawn Astronomy from 6 to 7 p.m., weather permitting, and the Yale folk group Tangled Up in Blue plays from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Both require registration. Both overlap with the first hour of the opening party.

On Tuesday, November 10, Perry Boyle and moderator Jack Leslie lead "Ukraine's Drones & the Future of Modern Warfare" from 6 to 8 p.m., with registration required. On Friday, November 13, at 11:30 a.m., the library's Literary Luncheon features author Jean Hanff Korelitz, with a conversation, Q&A, book signing, lunch and wine. Tickets are $150 each, according to the Pequot Library homepage. Later in the month, the library's Black Friday/Saturday Book Sale runs November 27 and 28 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission.

At Elizabeth Altobelli, we'll be looking at the vignettes this weekend with the same questions we bring to every listing we prepare: what makes a room feel finished, and why people stay in it. If the rooms at Southport Congregational Church make you look at your own home differently, request a complimentary home valuation. We'd be glad to talk about how a design-led presentation could work for your home.