If Peter W. Busch had his way, he’d celebrate Christmas all year long. “It’s my favorite holiday,” muses the great-grandson of Adolphus Busch, founder of Anheuser-Busch. And it’s no wonder! For Busch and his longtime fiancée, Ashley Albers, fond memories of Christmases spent in their mutual hometown of St. Louis influence present-day celebrations at their waterfront Moorings home with Busch’s six children, 10 grandchildren, and the couple’s wide circle of friends.
Grant’s Farm, the 273-acre ancestral St. Louis estate where Peter Busch spent his youth, was a resplendent setting for frequent Busch family celebrations, including Christmas. “My uncle would dress up like Santa and carry a 40-to-50-pound sack about a half mile all the way up to the main house,” recalls Busch “He would hand out nuts, fruit, and chocolate, since we were half Swiss, and talk to us about whether we were good or bad. When we celebrated at the ranch in Montana, we’d have 20 or 30 carolers under the porte-cochere because there were too many to come into the house. We’d be outside wrapped in blankets as the snow fell.” Add in a few of the family’s famous Clydesdales and it’s hard to imagine a more picture-perfect holiday!
Albers’ recollections of her own childhood Christmases spent at her family’s farm are equally warm and fuzzy. “My Dad had me so convinced there was nothing more for me, and then around 4 o’clock in the afternoon he’d say, ‘Let’s go walk up to the barn.’ There I’d find a horse or a dog with a big red bow around its neck!”
Keeping traditions alive for future generations is paramount to the couple’s annual Christmas celebration in Vero Beach. Decorating usually begins November 1, according to Albers, the day after their yearly Halloween birthday bash for one of the grandchildren. With help from her assistants, Jade and Nadine, she layers the neutral palette of their South African–inspired home with colors and accents that blend from room to room and evolve from year to year.
“Peter associates red with Christmas, so the living room, where we gather, tends to be the red room,” says Albers. “Otherwise, each room is a different color than the year before.” This year, the dining room is decked in gold, cream, and silver. That color scheme is carried into the foyer, where a 9-foot-tall chandelier, fashioned from leather strips by an Indigenous African tribe, takes center stage…