Carriage House Tour

UPDATE 2022: The Charleston Symphony Orchestra League’s Tour of Homes (held May 22-23, 2021) has received the Gold Award of Excellence from the League of American Orchestras. The Gold Award of Excellence recognizes best-in-class programs or initiatives that have made a significant impact on their orchestras. Close to 900 participants were able to view six historic Charleston homes. COVID precautions did not dampen the enthusiasm of those who participated. Musical accompaniment was provided by student musicians, ending with a violin concert by Concertmaster Yuriy Bekker and Micah Gangwer. Funds raised for the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and the CSOL scholarship program totaled over $50,000.

May 22, 2021

Text extracted from the video tour transcript | Video Tour

Thibaut and I got together and created a beautiful vignette in this beautiful carriage house in historic Charleston. It’s a part of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra League’s Tour of Homes (held May 22-23, 2021).

We’re going to start in the garden. This courtyard was designed by local landscape architect Linda Greenberg. She did a fabulous job. She actually did everything based on a beautiful Canary [Islands Date] Palm here in the Garden. It is actually rather significant, even by Charleston standards. It sets the stage for this beautiful courtyard as well as the stage for what I did with the interiors of this home.

I can’t start a courtyard without Thibaut. I added some of their new collection, Sierra and this is ‘Big Sky.’ I actually used it as a tablecloth here, even though it’s an upholstery weight fabric. I use upholstery weight fabrics quite a bit for outdoor tablecloths here in Charleston because we have strong winds. They’re just great, and not only for the weight of the winds, but also for maintenance. This is an inside/outside fabric, and so it’s great to just toss and wash and reuse it again and again.

Another thing that we have is this ‘Oak Creek Stripe’ and I’ve done it here in Navy. It’s just a little place to pause before you go inside and see all the other beautiful things we have going on in this historic carriage house.

You’ll start by seeing that I bathed this entire house in Thibaut’s apple-green, raffia palm. This grass cloth not only ties historic Charleston sweetgrass baskets and our beautiful gardens into the historic architecture, but it also is a fresh breath of air into this somewhat tiny and challenging space.

This is ‘Tahoe’ from the new Sierra collection and I did it in Canyon. I love that it gives a strong statement, but that it doesn’t overpower the room. Again, inside/outside fabrics make a living with these fabrics easy.

Our ‘Kyoto’ from the Nara Collection is in Spa. I had to do something that is traditional and yet elegant in the space. After all, this is Charleston. The master chair is in ‘Fawn’ in Spa. Something that I really love to do is use Thibaut vintage or archived fabrics as accents. Here I’ve added just a touch of one of my favorite archived Thibaut fabrics.

In the dining room we have a special place set for my favorite Thibaut rep, Michael Woodall. Here we’ve got ‘Prisma’ in Sunshine and we’ve monogrammed each chair with the house number.

We have beautiful art galleries here in Charleston and so we have lots of people who love to acquire art collections. The great thing about Thibaut grasscloths is that they are very forgiving when you want to change out your art. When you have to move the nail hole- it never shows.

The front and center in this room, we have ‘Ombre Velvet’ from the Anna French Collection. And of course, I have another spot of ‘Kyoto’ in Spa here at this beautiful secretary. The secretary is actually a piece that was in the collection of the owner and I definitely wanted to incorporate some of her pieces in this beautiful space.

Here we have another of my favorite vintage Thibaut Fabrics. Again, I love to mix the vintage and the archived with the new beautiful collections. Notice that I still am surrounded by Raffia Palm in Apple Green. Throughout the property I used it as my baseline to show different color stories with one bold color.

In the master bedroom I wanted to create a space for the owner to take a pause to sigh and say, “I’m ready to rest my eyes.” I bathed it in white, but I did add a touch of Thibaut green. This Thibaut green is in ‘Essex Velvet,’ and one of the new tape collections in linen tape is also applied to the bed scarf. You also have the ‘Kyoto’ in raspberry, beautiful Mohair from the Mohair collection and more tapes. Who can resist a Thibaut silk from the vintage collections? And just below there is Thibaut in Raspberry. All of our upholsterers love working with Thibaut.

For our final stop of the tour, we’re under the rafters in this beautiful carriage house where I’ve created a guest suite starting with the Anna French ‘Mulberry Tree’ in Navy. I love backing Thibaut linens in Beaucraft. We’ve wrapped the box bed in Essex Velvet.