Homes

If any couple needs a place to nest, it’s Alexandra Breckenridge and her husband, Casey Hooper. In the current family scenario, the foursome is happily ensconced in a quiet community just outside Atlanta in a two-story house they’ve made their own.

Investors must view our property as the perfect tear-down. After all, it’s a strange, dated home on a large, attractive lot near Decatur Square. But this is a historical Lustron, a modular kit designed completely in steel—from interior walls to roof shingles—during the housing shortages following World War II, in an era when metal was reserved for commercial buildings and instruments of war.

When designer Jessica Davis met the young owners, who bought the house to use as their second home while working in the film industry, she knew she had to showcase its lush views. The diamond in the rough came with its quirks. But when the homeowners found Jessica on Instagram and asked her to inject their home with her vibrant style and rework its layout to make it more livable, she delivered.

Jennifer Schoenberger loves the charming village of Vickery in Cumming, where she and her family have lived since 2003. Their bucolic farmhouse-style home on an acre of woods even has a parterre garden. But alongside the sweet setting, this Michigan-raised girl makes sure the interior design casts an edgy vibe, too.

Three families, three locations, and three beautiful lakeside summer homes. Take a tour inside.

Having grown up on 30 acres in north Georgia, artist Elaine Burge was thrilled when her future husband, Richey, showed her his farmhouse in tiny Riddleville, around two hours east of Atlanta.

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.”

When you approach the grand brick facade of the Adair Park house you’re struck by the building’s proportions and history. Atlantans aren’t used to seeing houses 160 years old in a city that was all but incinerated in 1864. “No building permits exist for it,” explains owner Tracy Galasso.

Not long after Governor Nathan Deal and his wife, Sandra, moved into the fully furnished, three-story residence in 2011, Mrs. Deal began to seek out the building’s backstory. Where did the antique furniture come from? What was the significance of the artwork? Who picked out the drapes?

Highlands, North Carolina, is well-known among Atlantans for its rustic mountain houses, but it was a modest office building that caught Laird Memory’s eye as a potential second home. The low-slung former ranger station and law office had ugly interiors, but that didn’t deter Laird and her husband, Matt Bunting, from transforming the building into their dream mountain getaway.