Architectural Digest
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This Interior Designer Didn’t Like a Single House in Atlanta—Until She Found a 1980s Abode With Mediterranean Flare
Even though interior designer Gabriela Eisenhart is an Atlanta native, she’s not a fan of traditional Southern architecture. So when the Silo Studios founder was ready to settle into a forever home with her family, she thought she would have to build one herself. That was until she walked into an unassuming 1983 white-brick Tudor-style house in the Morningside neighborhood. Its interior was unlike anything she’d seen in the city before.
“Atlanta homes can be a little transitional,” Gabriela explains. “There’s a lot of Craftsman style, and that’s just not my vibe. This place had Mediterranean flair, but it was interesting because it had this eighties edge to it too. There were great curves and openness and a beautiful two-story fireplace right when you walk in. There were angular moments that felt very retro. I liked the juxtaposition of the two styles.”
Despite this special and idiosyncratic aesthetic, the home still needed significant renovations to accommodate modern life. So Gabriela maintained the most striking features—like the zig-zag staircase in the double-height living room—and mimicked the existing architecture where she had to make adjustments. As she tore down walls to further open the first level, she created archways in their place to match those around them.
Then Gabriela gutted the outdated kitchen, so she made sure to build a new and stylistically-consistent version. Black-and-white patterned porcelain tile floors evoke the Amalfi Coast, while a rounded hood—which was modeled after a classic pizza oven and then covered in milky ceramic tiles—feels distinctly postmodern. The cook space is complete with warm oak cabinetry by Dutchman Furniture, oil-rubbed bronze Rejuvenation hardware, and Viatera Carbo Brushed quartz counters that look like soapstone but offer more durability.
Gabriela then layered the area with a variety of statement light fixtures, from the pair of crackled ivory dome sconces that flank the oven to the wicker task lamp above the sink to the flying saucer-like gold pendants that hang above the reeded island. “If I can get away with not putting on overheads, I don’t,” she reveals. “It’s always important for me to have a lighting plan that’s livable without them.”
The adjacent dining room is illuminated by a honeycomb rope pendant that emits a gentle and shadowed light ideal for cozy meals. It’s suspended above a set of sculptural Crate & Barrel chairs and a 1970s Italian travertine table that wasn’t part of Gabriela’s original vision. She first ordered a round plaster table to offset the room’s strange shape, but it broke in transit. “It was a blessing in disguise,” she admits. “I never thought of doing a square, and I saw this table and I was like, That’s it.”
The real action happens in the airy living room, which Gabriela furnished with a Sarah Sherman Samuel x Lulu and Georgia checkerboard rug, a curved-back Four Hands sofa, and a midcentury surfboard coffee table. “We just threw a New Year’s party here, and slapped a DJ on one the balconies, and it was just so much fun,” she shares. “Everyone was dancing—it felt like a club. That room has so much versatility. You can also hang out by the fireplace, and it’s the entry.”
By contrast, the family room is dedicated to curling up with a book or watching a movie on the Samsung Frame TV. Gabriela designed a custom sink-right-in sectional so she, her husband, and their two musician sons can all sit together. The couch is peppered with comfortable throw pillows and accompanied by vintage parquet side tables, a geometric Jaipur Living rug, and a black lamp made from an old wallpaper roller from her family’s wallpaper business.
Each bedroom in the house reflects its inhabitants, from a drum set, a Nirvana poster, and an heirloom painting in one son’s dwelling to multiple guitars, a fluffy rug, and original artwork in the other’s. Gabriela and her husband’s primary suite is a neutral oasis of relaxation, with gauzy linens, graphic Schumacher Porter Teleo Circuit wallpaper, and custom bouclé drapes that she convinced Jim Davis Designs to craft despite the thick material.
“It’s typically an upholstery fabric,” Gabriela explains. “I went to Jim and said, ‘Listen, you might think I’m batshit, but I really want this bouclé for the drapes.’ And he was like, ‘No, it’s too heavy, it’s not going to lay right.’ And I said, ‘We have to try.’ So he did a test for me, and that’s what these drapes are. They add such texture and softness to the room.”
Gabriela’s favorite part of her bedroom, however, is the tranquil sitting zone. She outfitted it with a deep sage velvet sofa, an oversized faux shearling ottoman, and a painting by her grandmother. “I go in there at night, I turn on my sound machine, I light my incense, and I can chill—even if my kids are playing metal downstairs,” she says. “It’s calming for me.” As it should be.