![TheWhimDusk1 Home and grounds of Oatsie Charles home at sunset](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/TheWhimDusk1.jpg)
Photo by Mick Hales and Nick Mele
Overlooking the crashing ocean, The Whim enjoys flashing sunsets and golden dawns, reposing in gardens of wisteria, hydrangeas, ‘Concodor’ lilies, and roses.
![old photo frame with corner and empty field vintage black-and-white portrait of Oatsie Charles](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Granny-Young.jpg)
Glamorous Oatsie Charles dressed in veiled hat and gloves at postwar Ascot races.
A special Newport, Rhode Island house named The Whim will happily come full circle when Victoria Mele moves back and calls it home after almost 50 years. “I came to this property when I was 2 years old,” says Victoria. That was in 1952, when her mother, prominent Washington socialite Marion “Oatsie” Leiter Charles, bought the famous estate called Land’s End. It consisted of a main house, a gardener’s cottage, an eight-car garage, a greenhouse, and vestiges of previous owner Edith Wharton’s gardens.
Designed by architect John Hubbard Sturgis in the 1860s for Samuel C. Ward, brother of writer and activist Julia Ward Howe, the sprawling shingled house on 8.5 oceanfront acres was purchased in the 1890s by Edith Wharton, who worked with architect and interior decorator Ogden Codman to remodel it and create the magnificent gardens. It was here that the two began writing Wharton’s famous treatise, The Decoration of Houses.
The property passed through several owners before Oatsie and her first husband, Thomas Leiter, bought Land’s End as an escape from the Bar Harbor scene, where “everybody went off on boats and there was no one to talk to,” said Oatsie.
![WhimRabbits A glimpse of the Newport, RI, coast through the walled garden entrance of Oatsie Charles’s home, The Whim](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/WhimRabbits.jpg)
May June 2020. The Wit & the Whim of Oatsie Charles. By Marion Laffey Fox | Photography by Mick Hales and Nick Mele. Ivy-covered walls topped with Oatsie’s favorite bunny sculptures were once foundations of a greenhouse. The heron sculpture by Walter Matia preens in a tousled grass bed of ‘Nassella tenuissima.’
— Nick Mele, Oatsie’s grandson
![grannynewport portait of Oatsie Charles](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/grannynewport.jpg)
Oatsie, who adored holding court in her libraries, surrounded by favorite books
![GrannyHats settee, hat collection](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/GrannyHats.jpg)
A yellow-silk French settee is piled with Oatsie’s collection of hats.
![OffBellevue_006 dancing frogs outdoor sculpture](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OffBellevue_006.jpg)
Photo by Mick Hales and Nick Mele
“I never saw her on her hands and knees, but she knew what she wanted and had talented help like Wiggy Brown, of the local landscaping family T. J. Brown, who was always wandering around. Eventually, the gardens had a little bit of everything, because she liked unusual plants.”
![OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA garden shed, climbing roses, estate of Oatsie Charles](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OatsieCharlesHomeP7010072.jpg)
The garden shed shows off a romantic caplet of ‘Evangeline' roses.
![OffBellevue_001 pink roses](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OffBellevue_001.jpg)
‘Queen Elizabeth’ roses
![old photo frame with corner and empty field vintage photo of Oatsie Charles](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OatsieVic1950.jpg)
Oatsie holds 6-month-old Victoria on her christening day in 1950.
When Kennedy later named Fleming his favorite author in a Life magazine interview, the writer’s work shot to the top of every best-seller list, and his James Bond movies became blockbuster hits.
![OatsieCharlesHome03 home of Oatsie Charles](https://flowermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OatsieCharlesHome03.jpg)
The front hall, lined with Chinese tapestries, leads to the living room.
MORE FROM THE HOME OF OATSIE CHARLES
By Marion Laffey Fox | Photography by Mick Hales and Nick Mele
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