I am frequently asked how we select the Phoenix Home & Garden covers. The simple answer is that they choose themselves. But the process is more complicated.

We begin mocking up contenders using photography of homes featured in each new issue. As the weeks go by, additional concepts enter the race. Eventually, we may have as many as a dozen selections, and we start culling the herd. Some mock-ups may no longer excite us when compared to newer creations. Others we were unsure about might get a second chance with a tighter crop or creative typography treatment. We envision how each will look on a newsstand, coffee table or in a dentist’s waiting room. (True confession: Whenever I go in to get the barnacles scraped off my pearly whites, I make sure to move PH&G to the front of the rack or the top of the stack.)

Sometimes the winner is obvious and non-negotiable. For example, when we saw photographer Jason Roehner’s stunning nighttime capture of Wendell Burnett’s Telescope House, we knew that whatever sword we needed to fall on, that was the only choice for April/May.

Another standout that comes to mind was June/July 2022 by Austin Baker, a cozy dining room vibrating with unexpected colors and a fantastically fuchsia floor in the home of interior designer Julia Buckingham Vikander. There was some internal pushback, but I was steadfast that the bright and happy palette would be like candy on the newsstand. While I heard from many readers who loved it, one Sun City subscriber mailed his entire copy to me with a handwritten note crying, “John, what is going on? THIS IS NOT RIGHT!” I still have the missive stapled to the magazine, as he sent it.

When we saw this month’s image in our cover template, we doubted anything could best it. Photographed (again by Austin Baker) in the dining room of a Desert Mountain home transformed by the deft hands, heart and soul of interior designer Mary Meinz, the setting was carefully staged and expertly tweaked by our art director, Len Loria, specifically as a cover try. And here we are.

We hope you’re as taken by it as we are.

John Roark
Editor in Chief