Not far from the city lights of Atlanta sits an 1800s-era horse farm with surrounding outbuildings on 75 sprawling acres in northern Georgia. The homeowner and his family had lived on the land for about 40 years before deciding it was time for a facelift. “The homeowner had already restored the original farmhouse on the property and was using it as a guesthouse,” says Jon Berndsen of The Berndsen Company, a builder of luxury bespoke residences. “The family was living in a 1960s ranch-style home on the land and wanted to renovate and expand it.”
Originally, the homeowner only wanted to renovate certain parts of the ranch home. Architect Ryan Duffey, who first met and began talking with the homeowner a decade before the project came to fruition, said the ranch house was “old and tired,” and he urged the homeowner to think big. “It is always more satisfying to transform a home in a big way,” Duffey says. “It took the owner some time, but he finally decided to demolish the ranch house and build a new one in its place. Once he made that decision, everything started to click and the project got legs.”
The owner brought in a full team of professionals, including Julie and Jeremy Griffin of Hazel & Grey Architects and landscape architect Cindy Bray of Floralis Design in addition to Berndsen and Duffey, to design and create a new home that complemented the land and reflected the rustic, old-world style he liked. Berndsen introduced interior designer Melanie Millner of The Design Atelier to the homeowner as the perfect fit to round out the team. The architects embraced the homeowner’s vision: design a home that appears as if it has grown from the land while using authentically sourced natural materials and highly skilled artisans who are masters of their trades. “He wanted a rustic style with a fresh, modern twist,” explains Berndsen.
The owner was all in on meeting and collaborating with the craftsmen dedicated to building his dream home—from the carpenter to the metalworker to the stonemason. As an art lover, he appreciates the artistry of the building process, including the age-old techniques, hands-on skill and attention to detail for which true craftsmen are known.
To capture the essence of the timeless European style he had in mind, the homeowner wanted to source authentic materials reclaimed from the local region. He found a stonemason in the Highlands-Cashiers area of North Carolina who was working on the home of an acquaintance and recruited him for the construction team. The mason worked for 18 months on the home’s exterior, much of which is composed of large natural stones sourced from the North Carolina mountains. The stone, a combination of granite and Carolina fieldstone, is rich in color and reminiscent of an English countryside cottage. “The stonemason hand selected and hand chipped each stone to the perfect size to ensure the joints were tight between stones,” says Berndsen.
Fine materials were used on every exterior surface, including custom-made antique oak windows and doors, copper gutters and a unique slate roof, where graduated tiles become smaller and thinner as they reach the roof’s ridgeline. The vanishing viewpoint makes the home look taller than it is.
The home’s interior is a testament to the beauty of vintage wood, including white oak, pecky cypress and sinker cypress reclaimed from Southeastern river beds. “The owner has a passion for different species of wood,” says Duffey. “And while he was concerned about the source of his building materials, he also kept quality as a top consideration. He spent hours talking, sampling and learning while at the Vintage Lumber warehouse. We checked the color of every board, especially the sinker cypress pulled from the river, and culled out certain colors if they didn’t work in a particular room.” Since sinker cypress logs have been on the bottom of a river for more than a century, they often become buried in mineral-rich silt that imparts different colors into the wood based on what minerals are present in that area. It’s impossible to tell what colors are in each “painted by nature” timber until they are cut apart, milled and dried.
Some of those sinker cypress boards turned out to be pecky cypress, an even more rare type of cypress with irregularly shaped holes in the heartwood that give it instant character. The building team added pecky cypress to key areas such as ceilings in the two-story stairwell and sitting room. Other rooms feature reclaimed antique white oak flooring, while antique oak boards add character to the living room as paneling and vaulted ceiling beams.
Hand-selected colors of sinker cypress boards play a starring role in main living spaces of the home, such as the kitchen, keeping room and sitting room. In the kitchen, reclaimed sinker cypress cabinetry, ceiling beams and paneling surround the room in warmth. “We selected green and gray boards to use throughout the home,” says architect Jeremy Griffin.
“The use of sinker cypress on cabinetry, paneling, beams and on paneled appliances ties the kitchen together,” says Berndsen. “Even the vent hood is recessed into a paneled cypress soffit.”
The warmth of wood contrasts with other types of repurposed materials to enliven and soften the look. Every room of the home employs artisan-level plaster instead of drywall as a throwback to materials of yesteryear. “Lime plaster is a living finish with an ethereal glow,” says designer Melanie Millner. “It continues the bespoke quality throughout the entire home.”
Using plaster enabled the design team to add texture and integrate color within the material instead of it sitting on top of the surface like typical painted drywall. “I like to use plaster in special rooms because it gives a warm and timeless look that is durable and never needs painting,” Berndsen says. A high-caliber craftsmanship process is inherently detail oriented. The plaster artisan, for example, integrated ventilation registers within the plaster. Working with the design and construction team, he created vent openings in a pattern reminiscent of Scandinavian design to pay homage to the homeowner’s Finnish background.
“The home is full of vignettes and special moments, which we tried to execute in an understated way,” says Duffey. A door in the primary bathroom, for example, features another Scandinavian pattern.
The dining room, which also serves as a breezeway connector between the single-story private wing and the two-story public portion of the home, features 3-inch-thick antique limestone pavers reclaimed from a French monastery as flooring. The dining room is a shining example of how using vintage materials creates a naturally comfortable space. The area also provided a chance for the design team to bring in a hint of modernity, with floor-to-ceiling bronze windows and doors that bathe the room in natural light and create a seamless flow into the garden.
“From the beginning, the interior architecture mandated that each room live and feel a unique way,” says Griffin. “The homeowner asked that we introduce new materials into each space so each room would have its own identity, but everything still needed to flow. We achieved this goal by repeating some of the reclaimed materials. While it isn’t a totally new palette in each room, we used the same materials in different applications for individualized statements.” From wood detailing throughout every room to quartzite countertops and hand-cut granite stones that were shaped and pieced together on the fireplaces, the home mixes and matches vintage materials in a way that ensures its timelessness.
Authentic materials have a way of lending themselves to storytelling. “Reclaimed cypress from the river bottom has a history and a story, as does every craftsman who worked on the home,” says Duffey.
The homeowner’s collected treasures, stored in a warehouse for potential use in this home, also contributed to the storyline of the finished product. “There is a mix of old and new furnishings and artwork. The homeowner selected some of his existing pieces that were the most meaningful to him. It was challenging to pull it all together, but the end result is always better and feels more like home when using familiar furnishings,” says Millner.
While the main home’s design was a primary focus, the team also designed and built a complementary detached garage across a gravel motor court that has functional space above it serving as a home gym. The back side of the structure is nestled into the hillside and surrounded by landscaped beds, retaining walls and stone stairways that lend an old-world, built-over-time feeling. The landscaping incorporates a natural stream on the property, with three levels of water features that include a natural pool created from a pond with a fountain. A stone dam creates a peaceful spillway down to a smaller pond. The stone placement on the dam enables it to be a footbridge for the homeowners to walk over and get an up close view of the water features and native plantings. The family room, kitchen and bedrooms all have views of the water features from inside the home.
“This home and land are an oasis,” Duffey says. “Just seconds before turning down the driveway, you’re in a suburban area. The gardens, horses, 150-year-old barn and landscaping are the last things you expect to see when you turn the corner.” And then there’s the house—what the team describes as a grand but intimate European hamlet, but what the homeowners simply call home. *
Dana W. Todd is a professional writer specializing in interior design, real estate, luxury homebuilding, landscape design, architecture and art.
