We are walking over a miniature bridge that crosses a babbling brook in rural western Connecticut, and a little house straight out of a fairy tale—its architectural style is actually called storybook—beckons in the near distance. Its wood siding is painted a deep shade of chocolate brown, with its windows and single door a contrasting forest green. The house—six rooms and a porch—dates from 1937, Stuart Vevers tells me.
“Wow!” I exclaim. “Isn’t that the year the movie Snow White was released?” This conversation is not as odd as you might think: Vevers, a transplanted Brit who has been the creative director of Coach for more than a decade, is an avid Disney fan, and I am, I’ll admit modestly, quite the Disney scholar myself, with a home liberally littered with Mickeys and Donalds. Vevers and I have discussed all this before, so I already know that he is a connoisseur of Disney experiences all over the world, including the home base in Orlando, which he has visited more than 10 times—and I am soon to learn that one of his early dates with his husband, the accessories design director Ben Seidler, took place at Disneyland Paris.
Now he and Seidler escape to this cottage-like getaway with their twins, River and Vivienne, who have just turned four and are already veterans of the Magic Kingdom’s Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, where Vivienne underwent an extreme makeover and emerged a glittery princess. The two are currently viewing this visitor a bit warily—is.