Belman and Randy Korando are the owners of Buckhead’s Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts. Their European travels and fascination with antiques inspired the decor of their Madison home.
The circa-1890s Queen Anne home sits prominently on Madison’s Main Street. “We love Madison; it’s kind of like Mayberry,” says homeowner Dan Belman. “My joke is it’s 50 miles and 50 years away from Atlanta.”
Using the home’s fleur-de-lis details, they named the house Walton’s White Lily. The porches provide ample seating for taking in the surrounding town.
The couple’s collection of oil paintings featuring Scottish Highland cows encapsulates the library’s case opening.
Bolster pillows on the armchairs are adorned with teal tassels, while shelves showcase various finds from decades of collecting.
Antique blue orb apothecary balls are perched in the foyer, though the inside water color can be changed. At their previous Madison residence, the couple made them red for the holiday season.
French busts on pedestals are a permanent audience in the music room, formerly a women’s parlor
A settee covered in a blue flame stitch Schumacher fabric and a portrait of the former homeowner rest beneath the stairs.
Antique oil lamps were used to create a custom chandelier for the eat-in kitchen table.
Another unique light fixture made of copper and brass from an old train car hangs above the marble sink. “We both wanted a real functional, very warm, very comfortable kitchen,” says Belman. “When you have people over, no matter how big your house is and how many rooms you have, everybody winds up in the kitchen.”
A Scalamandre silk linen tablecloth is paired with a series of antique white-and-gilded chairs. The couple originally found eight before spotting two more of the exact chair style during another hunt.
The walls of the main floor powder bath are lined with pieces of a disassembled piano made with inlaid bronze. The ivory keys surround the sink. The piano is part of the portfolio of a rare company that only produced the instruments for a decade.
Custom armchairs covered in hand-painted cowhide create an intimate conversation corner in the main-level bedroom.
Masculine details and various textures give the main-level bedroom a layered look. The leather headboard is suspended from an antique iron rod. right Stacked French doors in the en suite bathroom give an angular feeling to the space. One of the duo’s most interesting finds rests above the claw-foot tub—a rose water extractor complete with its original patent.
Stacked French doors in the en suite bathroom give an angular feeling to the space. One of the duo’s most interesting finds rests above the claw-foot tub—a rose water extractor complete with its original patent.
Korando exercised his artistic side when he hand-painted the custom mural on the ceiling of the couple’s primary suite.
Noting how dark the upstairs landing was, Korando removed the doors to the former sleeping porch to capitalize on the room’s large windows, which now serves as additional primary closet storage.
The third floor bunkroom houses a 9-foot pool table, a bathroom, a steam room, a sauna, and three guest beds. To get to its spot in this space, the antique pool table had to be cut in half and reassembled.
The indoor porch, with its domed ceiling and architectural detailings, saw the largest transformation. “Our carpenter spent months in this room working on the ceiling and all of that lattice. Each piece is hand-cut and custom-made,” says Korando.
The original wood floors, once part of an exterior porch, were painted by Korando to disguise some of the wear. The mint paint color was of his own design too.
The exterior of the indoor porch underwent a full transformation. The couple added lattice, windows, a whimsical wall fountain, and turned the stairs into a staging area for their collection of topiaries and antique urns.
A metal garden piece holds special memories. “When I was a kid, I came home from school and my mom said she wanted something for her garden, and she wanted me to pick it out. I went to the garden center and picked out that armillary sphere when I was 7 or 8 years old,” says Korando.
Korando’s “he shed” is his tinkering workshop. It was the summer kitchen, but now serves as a utilitarian space filled with cabinetry, saws, easels, and paint.
The duo’s rescue horses, Ellie and Eli, live on the property along with a donkey, chickens, and dogs.
The pea gravel-filled area serves as a dual parking and entertaining space. The custom outdoor table can seat 14 people.
The fountain in the pool is an antique. It was made by J. W. Fiske & Company, a prominent iron company in the U.S. in the 1800s.
Dan Belman and Randy Korando spent more than 20 Christmas Eves at their circa-1890s home in Madison before moving in. Their friends owned the Queen Anne while Belman and Korando lived on a nearby 250-acre farm. When the house went up for sale after the owners’ passing, the couple knew they wanted to be its next stewards. “We’ve always had a special place in our hearts for the home,” says Belman. And just like that, they went from being party guests to preservationists.
The duo’s design philosophy is rooted in architectural accuracy with historic nods and modern-day function. Using Queen Anne descriptors as a guide, they painstakingly reimagined the home to suit their style. “What makes a Queen Anne is that there’s nothing symmetrical. If you look from the front of the house, the door doesn’t line up with the pediments. Rooms with fireplaces are askew and unbalanced, which goes against everything I like,” laughs Korando. As a result, he shifted light fixtures as needed, painted built-in cabinetry, and added millwork to mimic symmetrical elements. An antique crystal foyer chandelier was moved about 18 inches to be centered, crowning the grand entrance.
Korando designed spaces that intentionally used repetition, whether through color or collections. In the library, the couple showcases a series of oil paintings of Scottish Highland cows from their many travels to France. “While we were there, we would always try to buy at least one painting as a memory of the trip. The top left one looks just like one of the special
Scottish Highlands we had at our farm. It looks like our Sissy,” says Belman.
Shades of blue pull the viewer’s eye around the space, the hue extending across the hallway into the music room, where French busts dot pedestals and columns. “Dan plays the piano a little bit, and the guitar was my father’s,” says Korando. Found pieces and inherited items appear around the room. The hourglass martini table, for example, belonged to Korando’s grandmother.
Decades of collecting find the perfect context in the house, particularly with Korando’s unconventional concepts. In the main-floor bedroom, a leather wrestling mat from the 1920s becomes a plush headboard, while cowhide chairs across the bed rise in a curvaceous shape punctuated with oversize details. The secret lies within: “Where they come up and curl around at the top? Those are beer cans under the upholstery,” he says.
Even the home’s most difficult space—an enclosed indoor porch with varying ceiling heights—utilizes unorthodox materials. A child’s snow toboggan serves as the mold for the room’s dome, giving the chandelier precious extra inches of height.
Historic renovations can be arduous, but the couple was up for the challenge. “We have the most charmed life ever. We must have somebody watching over us because things always work out in a good, wonderful, blessed way,” says Korando. Perhaps one of the couple’s onlookers is the former homeowner, whose portrait hangs above the flame stitch settee in the foyer. Here, from her perch, she observes her friends’ ingenious elements and the home’s regular soirées that continue its tradition of hospitality.
INTERIOR DESIGNER Dan Belman and Randy Korando, Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts, (404) 233-3400; boxwoodsonline.com
