Twenty-one-year-old Samantha Feuer wasn’t quite sure if she liked her new job as design assistant at Blackberry Farm, a renowned Relais & Châteaux resort tucked into the rolling hills of East Tennessee. But an introduction to cofounder Kreis Beall changed everything.
“She walks in, and she is so perfectly dressed and just gorgeous,”says Feuer, now thirty-five. “I’m from a small town. I’ve literally never seen anyone like this in my life. I was thinking about quitting [the day before], and I see her walk in, and I’m like, ‘I think I’ll be staying.’”
That weekend, Beall took Feuer along to a Blackberry showcase in Cashiers, North Carolina. The two soon began reimagining Blackberry Farm’s spa and an original farmhouse on the property, and quickly formed a close bond (Beall would even officiate Feuer’s wedding). After taking some time off to travel, and following the tragic loss of Beall’s son, Sam, Feuer rejoined the Blackberry team as assistant director of design.
“Kreis took me under her wing and taught me so much about style and scale, and how to make a space really feel cozy, and like home,” she says. In 2021, Feuer stepped away from Blackberry to found her own design company, Norris Studio. In 2024, when she and her husband, John Michael, became the proud (and slightly intimidated) owners of a 1940s colonial home on three acres in nearby Maryville, Tennessee, she had myriad ideas for how to transform it into her dream home.
It’s hard to spend so much time at Blackberry Farm, revered for its culinary prowess and high-end hospitality, and not have it creep into your psyche. “I learned about wine and food, and a different level of travel and leisure,” Feuer says. When considering her own home, she knew firsthand the importance of a well-designed kitchen and entertaining spaces.
“We spend all of our time in the kitchen,” Feuer says. “So the focus was just trying to make it feel cozy, because it is so big.” The kitchen windows offer gorgeous views of Maryville College Woods, a 140-acre forest nestled behind the house where Feuer hikes almost every day. The kitchen also came with brand new cabinetry, stainless steel worktables, and a large wood-block island that Feuer commissioned a local furniture refinisher to re-stain.
Almost every item in Feuer’s home is something she’s collected. Copper pots that she scored at antique shops in France or received from her mother-in-law hang from a rack on the kitchen ceiling; colorful printed rugs that she found at an auction splay near the island; a 1960s rattan ice bucket from an antique store sits on a thrifted bar cart in a corner just off the kitchen.
Design strategies aren’t the only lessons she learned at Blackberry. When Feuer hosts her parents (who live twelve minutes away) for dinner or throws a girls’ weekend with her friends, many of Beall’s hosting tips come to mind. “She taught me to have snacks on the table while you’re finishing up dinner, and to make things ahead,” Feuer says. “She would also make a cold salad, like a pasta salad or chickpea salad, and then a grilled meat. So all you’re really doing when your guests get there is grilling a piece of meat, which is so easy.”
Feuer’s go-to dessert for entertaining also comes straight from Beall: ice cream sandwiched between thin, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. And having a well-stocked bar, naturally, is paramount. “We have every ingredient [in our bar],” Feuer says. “Now, I don’t know what to do with all of them, but somebody can make anything they want.”
Danielle Wallace joined Garden & Gun full time in March 2024 as the editorial assistant after interning in 2023. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, she lives with her sister, Nicole, in Charleston, South Carolina. When she’s not writing or fact checking, she’s most likely crocheting or spending time with her cat, Holly.
