At an age when other girls were playing with dolls and skipping rope, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon preferred exploring the nooks and crannies of her grandmother’s garden or wandering through the wildflower fields of her family’s estate near Princeton, New Jersey. When Bunny married philanthropist Paul Mellon in 1948, the couple established their primary residence amid rolling acres of peaceful Virginia farmland a few hours’ drive from Washington, D.C.
