Homes

After a Fourth of July weekend in 2019, Tom and Chris Glavine were on their deck at Alys Beach, enjoying a last view of the Gulf before heading back to Atlanta, and he said, "Why are we leaving here, exactly?" The family of seven soon started pondering how to make life on 30A a year-round thing. In 2020, they switched to full-time coastal life.

Rather than starting from scratch with a custom house, the contemporary-loving owners of this traditional Brookhaven home opted for a modern makeover.

“It looks like every other house on the street from outside,” says the interior designer. “But when you walk in, it’s not. Defining the spaces as individual and special, while still being connected, was a wonderful challenge.”

“I get a lot of inspiration from commercial projects,” says interior designer Carole Carter Malloy. “I’m drawn to masculine textures like brick, steel, glass, and wood.” So, when she was finishing her raw-space apartment on the 15th floor of the St. Regis in 2018, she kept coming back to places like Ponce City Market, Barcelona Wine Bar, and Sid and Ann Mashburn’s stores.

As the founder of Coastal Living magazine and the mastermind behind the first 20 HGTV Dream Homes, Jack Thomasson has helped form the tastes and wants of homeowners for decades. For his own house in Roswell, he made it personal. “Of every dream house I’ve done, I’m most proud of this,” Jack says.

Some homes are worth playing the long game. “We had told a realtor friend that our dream was to find a house to renovate on Silver Lake, and nothing had really come available for over 10 years,” says Michelle Clery, who is a longtime Atlanta resident, along with her husband, Bob Roddewig. “He called us a year later about a home going up for sale the next day, so we jumped in the car to take a look right away.”

The key rule in creating this ridgetop guest house at Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm residences: Don’t impede the view. Architect Keith Summerour collaborated with furniture designer Skylar Morgan to create the wood, metal, and glass abode.

After first pondering a move to the country, interior designer Jayme Armour ended up buying a house a few miles from downtown Atlanta, but it turns out the two ideas weren’t that far apart. The 1950s cottage she discovered in East Lake came with a large, lush lot—including a banana palm tree in the back—and a leafy neighborhood.

An intentionally minimalist lake house allows this high-profile couple to hang out in one big room—with a gorgeous view all around.

Whether you call it downsizing, rightsizing, aging-in-place, or  just retiring, more Baby Boomers are creating homes that will make life easier in future years. “What we’re seeing is people making a conscious decision before it’s too late to get their stuff in order,” says designer Beverly Baribault. “It’s the difference between having to do it and choosing to do it.”