When Rich and Terri LoRusso opened LoRusso’s Cucina almost three decades ago, many of the recipes came straight from his mother’s kitchen. “This restaurant emulates how I was brought up,” he says.

Nothing unusual in that, except the matriarch of this Italian restaurant was Irish.“My grandmother taught my mom to cook,” LoRusso explains. He, in turn, always loved to hang out in the kitchen, soaking up knowledge from his mother and his paternal aunts.

“Downtown has always been my playground,” laughs homeowner Joe Benninger. “I love the pace, the bars and the people.” So when Joe and his girlfriend Kelly Lindsay began looking for a new place to call home, there was no question it would be in the city.

It’s often said that St. Louis is, in many ways, still a “small town.” Live here long enough and you’re bound to run into someone you know almost anywhere you go. For Kathy Cramer and John Davis, the fifth owners of this elegant three-story in Ladue, the colloquialism certainly seemed to hold true. 

Melissa Losos, and anyone who has viewed her garden and knows the story behind it, would agree. That the 2015 St. Louis Homes & Lifestyles' Garden of the Year is genius, there is no doubt. Twice on the Missouri Botanical Garden tour of private gardens, which occurs once every three years, the breathtaking, serene, one-acre parklike space resembles something one would encounter on a tour of the Orient rather than in a back yard in Central St. Louis County.

Despite not being born among the vines, this proud Frenchman had a long-held dream to take his love of wine to a whole new level. In 2000, after 30 years working for the retail giant Carrefour, Michel left to make something that looms large in his country’s culinary identity – and to be true to his own passion and surname.

An ancient Japanese practice, bonsai is the form of growing miniature trees in containers, then carefully and meticulously trimming and grooming into art. A variety of trees can be used to create bonsai, which is a calming hobby for many garden enthusiasts. We asked local landscapers to share their favorite tree for bonsai.