WHEN AMY DOVER AND HER HUSBAND, STANLEY, first moved to Belmont, they purchased a home just minutes from downtown. The house worked for their family of five, and the property was beautiful. But they couldn’t erase the image of one particular home they had seen while walking the streets of downtown Belmont: a stunning and historic circa-1949 Georgian within walking distance of Main Street. The idyllic tree-lined 1.1-acre lot was spacious and private, and the home was chock-full of character. “It was our dream house,” Dover says. “It has amazing curb appeal, and the street is so serene and quiet yet walkable to all the downtown coffee shops, restaurants, and stores.”
The home, however, was not for sale, so the Dovers told the homeowners to keep them in mind if they were ever ready to sell. In 2020, the couple received word that the home was about to be listed, and within hours, they toured it, put an offer in, and, not long after, it was theirs. The Dovers knew going into the purchase that the 5,650-square-foot home, while charming, needed a major interior renovation. “We knew this would be a massive undertaking,” Dover says. The home featured wall-to-wall carpet, a closed-off floor plan, no downstairs powder room, and a tiny kitchen. “I had seen Brooke on Instagram, and I loved her aesthetic,” says Dover of designer Brooke Cole. “She’s also a Carolina girl, and when we met, it was an instant friendship.”
Cole, too, could see the flaws in the layout and interior design. “All of the living spaces were very grand and elegant, but the kitchen and bathrooms were very small, very tight awkward spaces,” Cole explains. “The plan was to pretty much gut the interiors and make it livable for their family.”
Cole and builder Andrew Roby began the renovation process, which included converting the formal dining room into a brand-new kitchen and knocking down a wall so that the kitchen opens to the living room. The compact kitchen was transformed into a scullery, while the space under the stairs was converted into a downstairs powder room. Upstairs, the primary bathroom was extremely small, so Cole took square footage from the adjacent closet to enlarge the space, resulting in a spacious primary bathroom. “The original primary bathroom was impossibly small for today’s living,” she says. “Reworking the space while keeping the existing footprint of the home was one of the biggest challenges of the project.”
After months of renovating and getting the floor plan in place, Cole was finally able to set her design wheels in motion. “The home has beautiful traditional architectural millwork and details, and Amy wanted to maintain that integrity throughout the renovation and interior design install,” explains Cole. The Dovers also wanted color, loved the high contrast of black and white, and were particularly drawn to Carolina blue, a nod to their Chapel Hill roots as a couple. Because the existing millwork was “painted a dingy beige color,” says Cole, she painted the architectural details a crisp white. “The home itself is very traditional, but Amy wanted to push the design a bit more modern,” Cole explains. “We landed in a really good place, feeling like the design matches the architectural details of the house but also moving toward a more modern aesthetic.”
The music room featured existing wood paneling with dental molding, but instead of stripping away those interesting details, Cole opted to add a high-gloss paint by Fine Paints of Europe to elevate the room’s aesthetic. She continued with a monochromatic all-over blue with a stunning drapery by Larsen and a vintage Murano glass chandelier by Louise Gaskill. The Slim Aarons print is a nod to the family’s love of tennis. “The artwork made this space that much cooler,” Cole explains.
Color and texture are woven throughout the home. Even in the most private of spaces, like the bathrooms, Cole utilized the existing retro vibe to infuse character into the home. In one guest bathroom, she kept the dual sinks “because they were in great shape. We thought it would be interesting to keep them as a nod to the historical nature of the house,” Cole says. She then updated the space with wallpaper, a new mirror, and window treatments. In one of her son’s bathrooms, Amy challenged Cole to go bolder with her wallcovering selection, so they chose Brooklyn Toile by Flavor Paper, a bold green pattern designed by Mike Diamond of the Beastie Boys. “It’s playful and fun,” Cole says.
Instead of an all-white primary bathroom, Cole opted for a serene color palette of blues and greens. The Carrara marble complements the seafoam green tile on the shower walls, while the freestanding Victoria + Albert tub with a decorative-shaped slab of Carrara marble becomes the focal point of the newly expanded space. Cole took a different approach to the adjacent primary bedroom by using a neutral color palette with varying textures and patterns to create a calm and relaxing vibe. “This room originally had wood paneling that made it feel so dark,” explains Cole of her decision to strip the room of the paneling and the existing worn carpeting. “It instantly gave the room a brighter, airier feel,” she says.
From renovation to installation, the home took eighteen months to finish. But despite the long process, the Dovers say they wouldn’t change a thing. “I knew it was an enormous project, and I knew it would take a lot of time,” Dover says. “This was a very difficult project, and Brooke is so graceful in the way she executed things. We love this home so much.”