Bold Colors Add Character to an Atlanta Designer’s Historic Druid Hills Condo

Designer Doug Weiss invites Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles inside his personality-filled home

After purchasing a second home in Highlands, North Carolina, interior designer Doug Weiss and his husband felt it was time to simplify their life in Atlanta and trade in their Inman Park house for a lower-maintenance condominium.

 “Everything we looked at was the same look; even if it was in an old building, everything was white and gray and any character had been erased,” Weiss shares. Eventually, they found their perfect match in a circa-1910 Druid Hills condo, one of five units housed in what was originally a sprawling estate.

“We bought it right on the spot. It was really kismet,” says Weiss. “I love working on old homes. It’s so incredibly important to listen to the architecture because it will give you all the information you need.”

Though the couple was in love with the unit’s historic charm, bringing their new home into the 21st century—and making it feel personal—required significant renovations and thoughtful updates.

In addition to gutting the kitchen and bathrooms, Weiss also added touches of symmetry throughout. In the living room, for instance, he added a new bookcase to match the room’s existing shelving and create a frame around the mahogany pocket doors. He also added a second doorway from the dining room into the kitchen to create symmetry with the double doors leading from the sunroom into the living room. “That opened up the home and still makes it feel very classical and proper for a home of this era,” the designer says.

Weiss also balanced old and new by layering the home with a mix of antiques, modern artwork, and rich, bold colors—particularly teal, terracotta, and green. “I like to pick up a color from one room and take it to the next,” explains Weiss, who used the sunroom’s drapery fabric—Jim Thompson’s Central Park—as his inspiration for the home’s color scheme.

Weiss enveloped the kitchen in his favorite color, green, by painting the cabinetry Farrow & Ball’s Bancha, a deep mossy hue. “Moving from the blues in the sunroom to the terracotta dining room to the green in the kitchens continues the evolution of color in the home,” Weiss explains.

While strategically placed seating and dining areas lend themselves to the couple’s love of entertaining, Weiss paid equal attention to the home’s more personal spaces. The bedrooms and connecting hallway are swathed in moodier hues and textures, including a green velvet wallpaper by Phillip Jeffries in the hall.

“I’ve come to a place where I really know what I like, and I’m not afraid. This home evolved very organically,” says Weiss. “It really represents what I love in design.”

INTERIOR DESIGN Doug Weiss, Douglas Weiss Interiors, (404) 408-8718; douglasweiss.com