Step Inside Three Southern Dream Homes

LET THERE BE LIGHT

The facade of New Orleans lighting designer Julie Neill’s double shotgun house in the Garden District.

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The back dining room, with a framed paper collage that Neill created. The light fixture she designed was inspired by tree branches and Spanish moss.

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The kitchen.

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A bedroom.

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The house’s original cypress doors.

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Neill’s living room.

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OUT OF THE WOODS

Building a house in the middle of Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm is as close to heaven as it gets. Here, the front door opens to the cobblestoned courtyard.

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The screened-in porch.

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A bathtub with a burnished cast-iron exterior and a riveted base.

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A cozy bedroom.

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The sitting room.

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For the living room, artist Jean de Merry created a massive verre églomisé piece depicting cattle grazing with mountains in the backdrop.

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The kitchen, clad in reclaimed wood.

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A custom-upholstered banquette.

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AT HOME WITH CHARLESTON HISTORY

The exterior of the Philip Johnston Porcher House, a house with deep Lowcountry roots updated by Zoë and Brys Stephens.

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Interior designer Amelia Handegan worked with the Stephens family to select the distinctive wall color in the sitting room. The painting at left, by Theodore Colebrook, features the library of the William Gibbes House, the Charleston home in which Zoë Stephens grew up.

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Shards of pottery found on the site.

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One of several porches.

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An antique painting of Mercury hangs above the library mantel.

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The butler’s pantry.

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The dining room wallpaper resembles that which hung in Zoë’s childhood home.

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The coatroom.

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The couple in the kitchen, with their cookbook collection and their Australian labradoodle, Griffon.

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The Stephenses chose a dark hue for their kitchen, which in the daytime gets flooded with light; the casement windows overlook a garden designed by Sheila Wertimer.

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