 French Highs
French influences and Upstate styling merge to beautiful effect in The Cliffs at Mountain Park By Maya Payne Smart Click here to view the article with pictures. (PDF) The model home nestled within The Cliffs at Mountain Park looks like the Old World cottage of fairytales elegantly transplanted against the backdrop of today’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Named Grenadier after a French garden flower, the Traveler’s Rest home is a chateau scaled down to charming size. Its vaulted ceilings, open floor plans and arched walls render it spacious beyond its 2,902-square-foot dimensions. Once upon a time, doesn’t seem so long ago in this home, which merges fantasy
and artifacts of the past with the conveniences that contemporary lifestyles compel.
All of this, of course, is by design. The Cliffs Communities, the developer of
private clubs and luxury properties throughout the Carolinas, brought together
Greenville designers Linda McDougald and Julie Perkinsof Postcard from Paris and
builder Rick Thoennes of Marick Home Builders to erect the model, which impresses
potential buyers with Upstate treasures from fine art to mountain views.
The home’s architect, Ron Hill of Euro World Design in Ozark, Mo., says this design was inspired by structures he saw in Normandy, a grassy, coastal region of northwestern France. For more than a decade, Hill has designed timeless character into European-influenced homes with details that are at once refined and relaxed. The curvilinear walks and driveways, and the sweeps and rakes of the roof illustrate the theme. The roof design, which is steep in one area and swoops out in another, originated centuries ago to break ice as it slid down. “On the interior, we do a lot of post and beam elements and arches to give it a nice, warm and cozy feel,” Hill says. The local designers and builders brought Hill’s color sketches to life using stacked stone on stucco with a special aging finish and custom-designed shutters on the home’s exterior. The Old World vision is carried inside with singular wood and tile that evoke a bygone era. “We tried to use homebuilding materials that had an old feel and were authentic,” says McDougald, co-owner of Postcard from Paris, a European interiors market and full-service interior design firm located in Greenville’s West End. The home’s kitchen provides the best illustration. It features two-inch thick antique terra cotta tiles that were originally used as roofing on homes in the Provence area in the south of France and a massive island made from solid black walnut. “Rather than stain it, we oiled it so it will continue to develop this wonderful patina as it is used,” McDougald says. Honed granite was used for the other kitchen counters. A modern Lacanche range
imported from the Burgundy region of France known for gourmet food and fine living
sits opposite the island and is flanked by stacked stone and a terra cotta backsplash.
McDougald credits Marick Home Builders with finding craftsmen skilled enough to
ensconce the unusual materials to such beautiful effect.
Oil-rubbed bronze fixtures and candle-themed chandeliers throughout the home add to the bucolic lure while color ties the distinct character of each room together. The rustic kitchen melds seamlessly with the dining room and great room with 14-foot ceilings. “We unified the color; it is all Huntington Beige,” McDougald says of the Benjamin Moore paint. “Walls and ceiling are that same very mellow understated neutral and it makes the home feel a bit bigger.” Local artist Jeff Renow added texture to walls in the library and the master bath with a plaster finish in keeping with the soft, natural hues found 200 years ago. A long hallway off the kitchen leads to two bedrooms that McDougald and Perkins designed with particular characters in mind. One seems to be the resting place of an outdoorsman complete with riding boots, a helmet and a lantern. A wall within it features four Weldy-Johnston Studios archival works (wet emulsion on watercolor paper) depicting scenes from the life of the artist’s grandfather, a Southern gentleman who traveled the world over before settling in Greenville. The most prominent image is a scene from Le Seine in Paris in 1958. The other room, by contrast, is fit for a young princess with soft colors, an antique French chair and a two-poster painted bed dressed in luxurious Yves Delorme linens from The Finer Things in Greenville. The master suite epitomizes relaxed luxury with a well-appointed sitting area, bedroom, walk-in closet, dressing room and bathroom. The airy master bath features a blend of travertine tiles arranged in grid and diamond patterns with wall accents. The serene room pairs a modern Drexel Heritage bed with an 18th century armoire, antique side tables and upholstered arm chairs. French influences and Upstate styling mingle again in a painting by local artist Jo Ann Taylor. The rich gold- and blue-toned work based on sketches found in an old French book rests on the mantle. And an outdoor veranda facing arresting mountain views lies one step beyond the bedroom. Indeed, happily ever after begins here. |
