Decorating

Behind the classic facade of a traditional, southern-style estate, designer Kay Douglass fashions an extraordinary—and unexpected—design scheme

With the quiet architecture of his Colony Square residence serving as a backdrop, architect Bill Ingram marries furnishings of disparate styles and various periods for a unique but keenly edited mix

Decorator Stan Topol knows his way around The St. Regis Atlanta Hotel & Residences. Not only has he designed a number of model residences there, he also was recently charged with making some lifestyle enhancements to the hotel’s public spaces, including the lobby overlook that now features an elegant dining area. But it’s in one of the property’s private residences that you’ll find Topol’s pièce de résistance.

The day after Thanksgiving, Adelaide Burton changes her everyday china to the Spode Christmas china she received as wedding gifts 28 years ago, when she and husband Dal moved into their charming farmhouse in Buckhead. Over the years, the holiday tradition has remained as their family has grown up in the now nearly 100-year-old home.

“It’s a very old house. We finally cleared off a part of the cement floor in the basement and uncovered a date scratched into it: Feb. 7, 1913,” she says. “It has been hit by trees and it seems to survive.”

There’s a great sense of responsibility that comes with owning a Philip Trammell Shutze-designed house. One of America’s finest classicists, he designed residences from the Swan House at the Atlanta History Center to the Italian Baroque Calhoun estate in Buckhead, each boasting a level of craftsmanship and grandeur that have become part and parcel of Atlanta’s collective architectural heritage.