Interior designer Pamela Harvey mixes memories with modern updates in her home.

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
When Pamela Harvey decorates her home for Christmas, she leaves no room untouched. This year, the interior designer, who divides her time between Northern Virginia and St. Petersburg, Florida, trimmed her red-brick colonial in a mix of old and new, modern and traditional.
As a general rule, Harvey decorates the high-trafficked front of the house (kitchen, living room, dining room) more formally for holiday entertaining and keeps the intimate, family-first back of the house (family room, sunroom) more casual. Embracing inspired and unconventional color combinations, the Harvey household is ready for the Twelve Days of Christmas. She doesn’t stop at one tree; instead, she showcases a total of four: two real and two artificial, each aglow and serving its own purpose.

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
First things first, Harvey welcomes guests with festive curb appeal. On her red-brick walkway’s front steps, a bough of pale birch logs festooned with crimson holly berries greets visitors as they enter her home. “I love birch logs,” says Harvey. She keeps a bundle of them beside the family room fireplace all year long, although the boughs out front are for holiday display only. A trio of berry-studded wreaths hangs on the gleaming black, glass-front door. Festive ever-greenery swaths the door frame.
In the foyer, at the base of the curved staircase, the two-level banister is draped in evergreens, where a “snow”-dusted flocked tree stands sentinel, trimmed in black, gold, and emerald green ornaments. Harvey modernized her Christmas color palette this year with her use of black. A couple of years ago, for a charity design event, she decorated a flocked tree in black and green, and she called on that inspiration for her foyer. She had seen photographs of fashion designer Tory Burch’s Christmas tree, a big flocked affair trimmed with heirloom ornaments. Harvey took that concept and added her own sentimental spin, mixing tri-colored balls with ornaments she acquired on a recent trip to Eastern Europe.
“I love a flocked tree,” she says. “And I just think it’s really pretty for the foyer. Normally I have a sofa here, a settee, so this year I decided I would put a tree here. I had all of the green ornaments before, so I basically added the white and black this year to just kind of freshen it up—give it a modern take.”
As a designer, Harvey is “always looking for something new and creative. And since the front of my house is predominantly black and white, I thought this year it would be really fun to do something that really kind of tied in with those rooms,” she says of the foyer, living room, and dining room. The latter is wallpapered in a bold Moroccan-inspired black-and-white pattern, and Harvey’s chunky wood table is dressed with a white runner, the backdrop for stocky floral centerpieces and hunter green candlesticks of varying heights, encouraging conversation. She delights that her “20-some-year-old” green and gold Limoges china matched perfectly with this year’s color story. In a nod to warmer months, and in keeping with holiday déscor she saw in Prague and Salzburg, juicy limes dot the place settings.

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
On that trip, Harvey noticed the use of fresh greens and citrus fruits, including dehydrated orange slices. “I had seen it done in Europe, and that’s what gave me the inspiration to do it in my own house,” she says. Harvey and her team got their hands on a dehydrator and, after a little experimentation, they liked the results. The living room’s size and scale don’t allow for a tree, so Harvey embellished the glossy black fireplace mantel, entwining her DIY orange slices with fresh greenery. It reads elegant, but it “was probably one of the easiest things we did,” she says. She bought green roping, swagged it, then wired the orange slices in clusters and added pinecones until she liked the look. And although the dehydrating required some sweat equity, Harvey is definitely one for effortless backyard foraging for decorative greens. Another easy win: A pretty bowl of sun-kissed clementines livens up any coffee table or bar cart, and warms up a winter’s day, says Harvey, who enjoys these “nice little touches that add just a little bit of interest and color to a room.”
In the family room, a robust, fresh-cut Douglas fir stands on one side of the fireplace, decorated in traditional Christmas swag. It’s topped with a red-and-white toile ribbon and is trimmed with white, silver, and red ornaments and faux berries, hydrangeas, and poinsettias. With a wink to Virginia roots, it’s sprinkled with bright cardinal birds. Harvey prefers other colors to the classic holiday red but always gives in with an accent pillow here, a throw blanket there. An aged, stuffed, ski-wielding snowman stands sentry at the fireplace; Harvey, the mother of three grown daughters, recognizes the importance of making good memories, so she religiously unpacks him from storage each year. “I do think the kids, no matter how old they are, still like to have something around at holiday time that they remember from being a child. So there’s always a few little things that come out every year, and he’s one of them,” she says.

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
The sunroom is where Harvey usually places her family’s biggest tree. Here, natural light pours in from floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the forested backyard. The fresh-cut Fraser fir has a wintry woodland vibe,says Harvey, and “the ornaments on it are really cute;” it’s a showcase for her collection of fuzzy owls, tiny reindeer, and adorable birdhouses. A rust-colored ribbon spirals and tops the tree; “snow”-covered pine cones and artificial poinsettia petals flash in gold and white.
Aside from the addition of the tree, the room itself stays untouched during the holidays. “It’s kind of nice to just put a tree in that just works with the room,” Harvey says. Two chaises topped with coral chinoiserie throw pillows offer perfect perches for lazy days off during the break. The “gifts” beneath the tree, artfully wrapped in gold and chartreuse, are a Harvey specialty; she’s wrapped loads for clients who entertain or want to set a Christmas scene in their homes. “People don’t wrap a lot of gifts anymore. I feel like everybody throws things in a gift bag,” she says. She has wrapped faux presents for clients to display with their tree, which, she says, “pulls the whole Christmas look together.”
As an added bonus, after the holidays, she suggests storing the “gifts” to reuse next year. Harvey also saves ribbons and offers this pro tip to keep them looking crisp: “You can reuse ribbon if you iron it,” she says. “If you want to freshen it up, just press it.”
Finally, Harvey sets up a slender artificial “pear” tree in the kitchen at Christmas. She adorns it with little white lights and a dose of sentimentality, using ornaments from trips with her husband and from their childhoods. “It used to be all fruits, and it’s kind of morphed into other things over the years,” she says of the decorative lemons, pears, and pomegranates, and of the birds that “fly” in for the season.
Mapped with memories and armed with a lifetime of practice, Harvey has thought of everything. And in the kitchen, among the garnet cardinals and shadowy blackbirds, there just might be a partridge in the pear tree.
Decorate Like a Pro
(Pamela Harvey shares her top tips for easy, elegant holiday decorating.)

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
Get a flocked tree. Like the look of a snow-dusted Christmas tree? Try an artificial flocked one. They’ve gained popularity in the past five years, says Harvey, who is a big fan of the faux snow wintry look. “From a designer standpoint, I think the ornaments show off more on a flocked tree because you’ve got a lighter, whiter background,” she says. Find flocked trees at most big box stores; they come easy to assemble, and later, disassemble when storing them for another year. It is important to note that they do have a shelf life and will need to be replaced after several years.
Go forage. No need to spend lots of green on greenery. Harvey suggests foraging your backyard, or that of a friendly neighbor, for fashioning festive garlands, wreaths, or boughs. Take a couple cuttings of pine trees or evergreens, or snag an armful of pinecones that have dropped to the ground. Snip a clipping from a magnolia tree; the simple DIY art of placing a “pretty branch in a tall vase looks fantastic,” says Harvey.
Add fresh flowers. “I think fresh flowers and fresh plants really elevate your holiday decorating,” says Harvey. And they don’t have to cost a bundle if you buy them at your local supermarket. Choose a few bouquets in the color story you want to tell, then place them as your table’s centerpiece or in your entryway. “One of the things I always buy are poinsettias,” says Harvey, adding that they’re omnipresent in varying sizes and colors, including pink, white, and red, at this time of year. “Poinsettias always look crisp and fresh and festive, and no matter where you put them, no matter the size, they’re perfect.”

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)
Set up a dessert bar. If you’re entertaining, find a place in your home where there’s less foot traffic. Set up the desserts away from the drinks so there are two separate zones for people to frequent. If you like to bake, great. If not, there’s nothing wrong with store-bought. Pick up a snowy white coconut cake for a winter look and add a holly berry garnish. Or embellish a bakery-made chocolate cake with crushed peppermint candies. Buy an assortment of candy in silver, red, and green. Then display desserts on their pedestals or in jars from short to tall to add interest.
Consider a bar cart. These are great beverage stations to get guests away from the main thoroughfare. They can serve as an extension of a larger bar or serve as the primary bar in a small space, as long as everything needed to mix a drink is at hand. “Stick with either one type of liquor or one kind of theme when you’re entertaining, to make it easy,” says Harvey. Bourbon and whiskey cocktails are very in right now, she says, and they’re simple to mix “because it’s ice, liquor, and some citrus.”
Store smartly. Store ornaments and other holiday swag so that finding everything next year is as easy as possible. Don’t trust yourself to remember what’s inside, because you won’t, says Harvey. Choose clear plastic storage containers that are the same size so they’re stackable, and devise a labeling system. Harvey marks her box handles with different colored ribbons to denote specific decorations. For example, she’ll snip and attach a piece of rust-colored plaid ribbon on the boxes of her woodland creature ornaments.
Originally published in the December 2020 issue.

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)

(Photography by Stacy Zarin Goldberg)