Fresh-faced Beauty
Using texture, contrast and plenty of white, Beth Webb transforms a lake house into a light and bright retreat.

Interior designer Beth Webb swathed the master bedroom in sumptuous fabrics and rich creams and whites, allowing the ever-changing reflections through the windows to provide color in the space. Bed, Max & Company. Striped wool rug, swivel chairs, art and bedside lamp, Bungalow Classic. Drapery hardware, Bradley. Drapery fabric, Arabel. Drapery trim, Rogers & Goffigon. Three-drawer bedside chest, Mrs. Howard.

Interior designer Beth Webb swathed the master bedroom in sumptuous fabrics and rich creams and whites, allowing the ever-changing reflections through the windows to provide color in the space. Bed, Max & Company. Striped wool rug, swivel chairs, art and bedside lamp, Bungalow Classic. Drapery hardware, Bradley. Drapery fabric, Arabel. Drapery trim, Rogers & Goffigon. Three-drawer bedside chest, Mrs. Howard.
Perhaps it’s her background as an art dealer that informs Beth Webbβs innate ability to discover beauty in unexpected places. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. But when her clients settled on a lakefront property on Lake Chatuge in dire need of a makeover, ultimately they trusted the interior designerβand her inviting, multilayered aestheticβto transform the homeβs overwhelmingly brown architectural envelope into a fresh-faced beauty in which their family of five could find respite.
The first order of business: to limewash nearly every mahogany-covered surface of the 10,000-square-foot house, from the floors, stone and beams to the homeβs pre-existing antler chandeliers. “It was a Montana application that we took the Western out of to make more contemporary,” Webb explains.
While time was not on her sideβafter closing, the family needed to be in the house in less than six monthsβlabor was in Webbβs favor, thanks to a commercial contractor who was enlisted by the hospitality-industry husband “to do the unthinkable in an amazing time frame,” Webb says.
And while the designer maintains that, philosophically speaking, second homes are no different than primary residences when it comes to decorating, Webb allows that she adopted a “no muss, no fuss” attitude with this one, which needed to be durable enough for an active young family but also stylish enough to entertain the coupleβs frequent guestsβall while keeping the expansive lake views center stage.
Coincidentally, it was a Lake Keowee house, a former Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles showhouse, that initially drew these particular clients to Webbβs clean-lined, artful approach. While the result is not your typical lake house, the aesthetic is exactly what the family was afterβa comfortably elegant space in which luxurious textures, from rough-hewn woods to natural hide rugs, mix with low-maintenance materials, such as slipcovered dining chairs and upholstered pieces in acrylic-blend fabrics.
Against a calming, monochromatic palette, these contrasts both evoke a Zen-like feeling and reveal a collected sense of styleβno easy feat for such a turnkey project. Itβs a testamentΒ to Webbβs unflinching eye for beauty; the homeβs light and bright new bones are a deceivingly subtle reflection of theΒ interior designerβs complex approach.Β