The allure of Louisiana’s waterways, wildlife and fauna have long been the muse of artists of all kinds—songwriters, poets, painters and the like. In April’s cover story, one of Baton Rouge’s boldest naturalist painters, Chase Mullen, brought us inside his home studio. Twenty-nine years prior, Robert Rucker, one of Louisiana’s most renowned impressionist painters, also invited inRegister readers into his home studio.

“Working in both watercolors and oils, he prefers to paint nostalgic subject matter, much of it relating to the Mississippi River,” reads the May 1997 inRegister cover story. “This connection seems natural for this New Orleans native whose father and both grandfathers were all riverboat captains.”

It was in that same river that Rucker contracted polio at 17—an affliction he said helped him to learn the discipline required to sit and paint for hours. Rucker was prolific, turning out about 20 paintings a year from his home studio, an amazing feat accomplished from a modest room, the original article notes. Small but inspiring, his home studio boasted windows all around overlooking a sprawling yard filled with live oaks, azaleas and other traditional Southern flora.

In this month’s cover story, Jeanne Lyons Davis brings us into her family’s Baton Rouge home—a house in University Gardens they have made their own after relocating from San Francisco, trading views of the Bay for window scenes of a sprawling live oak, magnolia tree and crape myrtle.

Whether you are a lifelong local or a new arrival, the magnetic pull of Southern flora is undeniable. Swaying magnolias, blossoming crape myrtles and the low-lying branches of a live oak offering a seat are an effortless sort of beauty and the hospitable soul of a landscape that makes any and all feel right at home.