Past Perfect

The living room features its original green paint from 1949, which was custom mixed by artist Jack Hulsey. The sofa is by O. Henry House and is upholstered in wool by Opuzen. The pillows are in a Pierre Frey fabric. The Platner chair by Knoll is upholstered in alpaca wool by Mokum.

A painting by Bill Bailey hangs in what’s referred to as the “porch room,” as the space was originally a screened porch. The sectional is a vintage Henredon piece upholstered in Sahel by Mokum. 

Homeowners Kelley Harris (left) and Jared Paul (right) with their 1971 Super Beetle in elm green. The new garage and guest suite is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Bucktrout Brown.

The home’s Williamsburg-style facade is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Gunsmith Gray; the shutters are in the company’s Waller Green.

The kitchen, painted in Benjamin Moore’s Mopboard Black, is completely new, although the cabinetry harkens to the understated spirit of the rest of the home’s architecture.

A custom dining table is surrounded by Philippe Starck Louis Ghost chairs by Kartell. The chandelier is a Gino Sarfatti design for FLOS. Artwork by Purvis Young.

A contemporary painting by Katie Walker hangs above a circa 1840 hunt board from Madison, Georgia.

A photograph by Jody Fausett hangs above the fireplace in the main bedroom. Custom bedding is in a fabric by Kohro. The floor lamp is by CTO Lighting. 

Ernie the cat surveys the main bedroom, which features a primitive table, circa 1890, with a beautiful green painted finish.

A green penny tile from Trinity Tile wraps around the main bathroom. The sconce is by Fuse Lighting and the vanities are custom.

An antique English stone clay tub from Architectural Accents anchors the sybaritic space. The table is a John Dickinson design for Sutherland.

Chic contemporary furnishings by Kettal provide an unexpected juxtaposition with the home’s traditional architecture.

The home’s exterior spaces are ideal for entertaining. Informal plantings are the perfect complement to the home’s wooded, hilly terrain.

For Atlanta homeowners Jared Paul and Kelley Harris, a bit of serendipity led them to their current residence in Buckhead where they’ve lived for the past four years. “We literally found this house by mistake on Zillow,” says Paul with a laugh. But leading up to this discovery was, by any means, no laughing matter. 

The couple had grown dispirited after already having made an offer on another house only to have contract negotiations stall.“We were looking for a project, something closer to our respective jobs,” says Harris, when Paul accidentally swiped his iPad screen while looking at other residences. His finger landed on the place they now call home. Although they weren’t even searching anywhere near the neighborhood, says Harris, “We were looking for a house that had some age to it but had not been updated or renovated, and this one checked all the boxes in the photo. It looked like time had stopped.”

Paul and Harris recall that others who viewed the house while it was on the market didn’t quite know what to make of it. The structure is nestled into the landscape on the highest perch of the steep woodland lot, is imbued with references to Colonial Williamsburg both inside and out and was lacking storage. “There were no real closets, and there was no laundry where you could get to the washer and dryer without leaving the house,” says Paul. The space was only accessible by going outside and descending to a basement. 

The rest of the home’s structured flow and organization also left some potential buyers puzzled. “It’s not an open floor plan by any stretch of the imagination,” adds Paul. In someone else’s hands, the understated residence—clocking in at about 2,000 square feet—could have been considered a teardown because of its desirable Buckhead location.

But these two interior design aficionados—Harris is the principal of Harris Interiors, and Paul is the owner of the Paul+ showroom at ADAC—knew they unearthed a jewel of a house built with time-honored techniques, including square nailheads, hand-planed hardwood floors and one room still featuring its original green milk paint walls. This was not a cartoonish imitation of a historic home, but rather an amalgamation of ideas executed with the highest level of craftsmanship, and the two quickly realized that they could marry the home’s historic references with present-day living in a way that could work for their mix of traditional and contemporary furnishings and art. “We made the house look like us, but not look like a UFO landed inside it,” says Paul. And so began the quest for authenticity, which drove each and every decision.

Designed by architect Thomas G. Little for his own family, the 1949 structure channels many of the hallmarks of Colonial Williamsburg where Little had previously been a lead architect before becoming a preservation architect for the State of Georgia. Little and his wife, Charlotte, had a keen eye for details, most of which remain today. Sadly, the two were killed in the tragic Orly plane crash in Paris that killed 106 Atlanta arts patrons in 1962. 

For Paul and Harris, the end goal was how to live in the house without feeling like a museum period piece or stage set. Surprisingly, the two found the house extremely versatile without having to expand the home’s footprint.  The 8-foot-4 ceilings initially gave them pause (they were coming from a residence with 10-plus-foot ceilings), but they soon grew to love the intimate nature of the spaces.

A trip to various projects that Little had worked on at Colonial Williamsburg helped inform some of their future design decision-making, which turned into a 2.5-year renovation. “We actually found solutions at Williamsburg for some of the things we were struggling with,” adds Harris.

The biggest transformation was annexing a guest room to create an expansive main bath, closet and laundry. When it came to moving walls, the two consulted with architect Rodolfo Castro to advise on maintaining the home’s structural integrity. Today, the bones of the house—including the living room’s green milk paint walls—have become the perfect backdrop for the couple’s mélange of contemporary furnishings and artwork, as well as more traditional Southern antiques. The milk paint wall color also inspired the palette throughout the rest of the house, including the main bath that’s completely enveloped in penny tiles in a similar hue.

In another fortuitous moment, the home’s aging slate roof was in dire need of repair. (Sixty years is not a long lifespan for slate, but Paul and Harris learned that the Littles had sourced antique slate tiles for the house when it was built, so they were actually considerably older than previously imagined.) Fearing a replacement would be cost prohibitive, the two looked at a cedar shake substitute, but then a local source presented them with just enough slate for their project—it had come from a teardown and the owner had been holding on to the pieces for about a decade. “The roof worked out beautifully,” says Paul. The best part? “It was the same Vermont slate,” he adds.

In a more recent nod to bridging the past with the present, Paul and Harris commissioned Colonial Williamsburg’s blacksmith to hand forge all of the shutter dogs that flank the home’s exterior windows. The process took 18 months, with each one made over the hot flames of an open firepit, but that painstaking attention to detail is something that the original owners, the Littles, would no doubt approve of. 

INTERIOR DESIGN Jared Paul, Paul+, (404) 261-1820; paulplusatlanta.com; Kelley Harris, Harris Interiors, (404) 492-5997; hintatlanta.com

Editor’s Note: To see Kelley Harris’ and Jared Paul’s previous residences published in AH&L, visit atlantahomesmag.com/article_tags/harris_paul