INTERIORS
North Greets South
Artful Design on the Move
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Brianne Williams
A passion for collecting and the art of restraint have always dictated my furniture selections . These came as a blessing when on the third day of a long-awaited install into a newly renovated home in Charlotte , North Carolina , I was told that the client had accepted a job in New York . An inventory list of the contents of the house had to be prepared for the move the following week . In addition , the couple was going on vacation for three weeks and would be returning to their newly leased 3,400 square-foot town home in Manhattan .
After two years of passionate work and endless hours of editing , the completion of the project never came to fruition , and neither the client nor our firm would ever see the results of our collaborative labor of love . Our clients would never enjoy evenings of candlelit dinners in the chocolate lacquered dining room or casual meals in the pecky cypressclad wine room . The couple ’ s daughter would never forge childhood memories in the home we had so thoughtfully designed with her in mind . With melancholia , I headed back to the drawing board with a determination that our past year ’ s work would be just as relevant in their New York town house .
With architectural plans in hand and the inventory list complete , it was time to undertake the challenges of working within the constraints of an existing space . We couldn ’ t make any modifications to the architecture and where had to work with endless restrictions ( all changes had to be approved by the building ’ s board ). Once I was resolved to working with white walls and a new architectural details , I set about to imagine this couple with a young child living in Manhattan .
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