The "stairs to nowhere" are straight out of a storybook.
Alabama architect James Carter and designer Jane Hawkins Hoke collaborated on this gorgeous house in Cashiers, North Carolina. With rooms both small and soaring, the vacation home is a delightful illusion: It's all brand-new.
Interview by Celia Barbour | Produced by David M. Murphy
The up-and-down stair landing creates the sense that this house was built over time, as need and fancy dictated. In the low-ceilinged entry, an oversize Virginia chest from Edgar-Reeves helps to accentuate the coziness of the space.
In the great room, built to resemble a converted barn, a pair of bobbin chairs is covered in a Ralph Lauren Home stripe.
A small landscape painting set into the waxed-pine mantel acts as a whimsical medallion. The ottoman is upholstered in a 19th-century patchwork quilt made from men's suiting fabric.
"Traditional architecture is not all about rigidity and going by the book. I like houses that are a little quirky," Carter says.
At the far end of the great room, a dining nook provides both intimacy and views outside. The Old World Weavers fabric on the banquette cushions and pillows offers "texture and a lot of presence, without being busy," Hoke says. The reproduction English ladder-back chairs have shawl bars across the tops. The clients' tole trays and paintings lend a sense of richness and history. The walls and wainscoting are in Benjamin Moore's Wheeling Neutral.
Carter designed extensive cabinetry for the house, including quirky nooks, bookshelves and paneling, both painted and waxed. The flooring is reclaimed antique oak planks.
A cabinet displaying the owners' majolica collection resembles an old china cupboard.
On the screened porch, the most-frequented room of the house, is a table that Hoke "drew on a piece of paper" and had custom made.
An outdoor fireplace makes the screened porch a three-season space. A wall of local stone creates a seamless feeling between the house and the porch. A reproduction dovecote hangs above the firebox. The door and flooring are in Benjamin Moore's Army Green.
A dropped floor makes the kitchen feel more expansive. Carter designed the custom stove hood. The island pendant is from Circa Lighting.
The upstairs landing features a "stair to nowhere" (the steps actually lead to a hidden HVAC unit). Reproduction Audubon prints line the stairwell. Hung above a bench with cushions in a Jed Johnson Home fabric is a painting of the summer camp the wife and her daughters attended.
The master bedroom's tartan is by Ralph Lauren Home. The ticking-stripe fabric on the walls, valances and bed skirt is by Schumacher.
An antique-seltzer-bottle lamp from Parc Monceau hits a playful note. The pewter jug displays flowers from the garden.
Antique twin spool beds from Hawkins Israel were expanded into full-size beds in a daughter's room. Walls and valances are in Marvic Textiles' Peonies.
Graceful, small-scale prints and a muted palette lend quiet intimacy to a guest bedroom. The walls and valances are in a Brunschwig & Fils hound-dog toile. An antique needlepoint of terriers watches over the room.
Adirondack chairs, painted to match the house, invite guests to the terrace. Carter added another whimsical gesture — a closet in the chimney for firewood and outdoor furniture — to enhance the illusion that this newly constructed house is an antique.
Read more about Carter and Hoke's inspiration for this home here.
See something here you like? Check out our shopping guide for where to find it.
This story originally appeared in the December/January 2017 issue of House Beautiful.
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