Veranda Magazine

Some interiors magazines exist to help you repaint the spare room. Veranda is not one of them, and pretending otherwise would undersell it. This is an American luxury title, published by Hearst since 1987, and its actual purpose is the hour you spend inside houses you will never own: estates in the American South, villas in Provence, gardens with their own full time staff. It’s the interiors equivalent of slow television, and readers who love it are very clear that’s why.

That said, the ideas travel down better than you’d expect. A colour pairing from a Charleston drawing room works in a semi. The garden features, written around proper landscape designers, are full of planting and layout thinking you can lift at any budget. And the travel and food coverage rounds it into something closer to a lifestyle magazine than a decorating manual.

Where it earns shelf space is production. The photography is some of the best in the category, printed large on heavy paper, and issues are the kind you stack on a coffee table rather than recycle. As an import here it also has scarcity on its side, you won’t often find it in a supermarket, which is partly why it makes such a good gift for the interiors obsessive who already has Living Etc and House and Garden.

Delivered to your door, no auto renewal, and we’ll remind you before your term ends.