IT ’S HARD TO IMAGINE, but this organic modern masterpiece of a home, with its white stone and Ipe wood-clad exterior, walls of windows, and custom detailing inside and out, all started with the front door. Just the front door.
As inspiration, the homeowner showed her builder at Wolfe Homes a single photograph of an entryway. It’s what residential home designer Kim Carlson, who drew up the plans for the Greensboro home, describes as “midcentury-modern California with stone.” “She really loved the entry, and that was it,” says Carlson, who has made over-the-top entrances a hallmark of her business, Kim Carlson Designs. “Rarely do I get a client who says, ‘Come up with ideas and show me what you got’ the way this one did.”
Of course, there were other issues to work around, such as how to fit 8,500 square feet onto a single level without it looking monolithic, and how to take in the majestic views of the nearby PGA golf course without sacrificing privacy.
To tackle those and other issues, the homeowners enlisted interior designer Stephanie James, whose work they had admired at a show home three years prior. “She showed up at my store and said, ‘I was saving your card. Would you do my house? I can’t think of anybody else I’d want to have,’” recalls James.
James, who co-owns Allen + James Home in High Point and has made a niche for herself in contemporary design, began working before they even broke ground. She knew that with the home’s clean modern lines and large scale, they’d need natural, organic materials to soften it up. The wood on the exterior helped to break up all the white concrete and stone. “It added a different layer and ended up being one of the best parts of the house,” says James.
Inside, she used a similar palette of warm tones and textures to offset the hard surfaces and angles. “It has an organic, modern, luxe feel mixed with pretty gold and bronze finishes,” says James. “This house needed that because it’s all windows, and the light shows everything. So it’s got to be right.”
Her eye for detail came in handy when the homeowner decided to add mirrored windows for privacy, which made the interior lighting seem a bit darker. “We had to get lighter tile than we’d originally selected for the music room,” says James.
Everything in the house is custom, from the front-door hardware, designed by James, to the stain on the cabinets in the primary bedroom’s walk-in closet. “I got spoiled with all the beautiful finishes in the furniture industry,” she says. “I wanted to bring that to the cabinets.”
Having previously worked in the furniture industry, and with High Point Market in her backyard, James knew the most current designs, and she frequently shops European markets, so when this client gave her the creative license to do so, “we pulled in things you don’t normally see,” she says.
The result is a truly unique living space that perfectly suits her client’s needs—a majestic entryway with a towering wall of white stone included. “They were blown away with their house,” she says, “and that made me happy.”