Three Generations of Creative Women Under a Century-Old Country Roof

"To the great irritation of my brothers," says Hope, now 94.Twice widowed, she goes by Hope Porter, having taken the surname of her second husband She is joined on this damp April morning, as she is several times a year, by her granddaughters: Hope Atherton, a New York ­artist-small, fine-boned, with two-toned hair-who lives in Harlem with her husband, the gallerist Gavin Brown; and Lily Hanbury, a London-based jewelry designer and fashion entrepreneur, tall and slender, wearing an antique rock-crystal cross on an oxidized silver bike chain and velvet shoes from her own collection, Le Monde Beryl, inspired by Venetian gondolier slippers Hanbury and Atherton grew up on a farm not far away, with ­parents deeply committed to a rural life but actively interested in the world beyond.

Their father, Harry Atherton, served for many years on Fauquier County's board of supervisors and, with Porter, crusaded ­tirelessly for land-use policies that would preserve the local landscape and protect the watershed "As an artist, I'm drawn to organic, elementary materials," Atherton says "I'm in awe of an object that can speak intimately to me across 2,000 years," says ­Atherton, whose latest show opened in June at the Rome outpost of Gavin Brown's Enterprise.

"It's exciting to have these things that mean something," Atherton says. . Source