Explore Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown’s curiosity-filled Marietta loft

Ingram helped design Alton Brown’s loft. Then they got married.

14455
Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Elizabeth Ingram has designed the interiors of some of Atlanta’s most stylish restaurants—including Beetlecat, Golden Eagle, and Guy Wong’s latest spot, Ruby Chow—and New York’s Joyface. She married chef and TV personality Alton Brown in 2018 after designing his Marietta loft, which they now share. The couple’s rescue dogs, Francis Luther and Scabigail, are part of their story. The once-mange-covered Boston terrier has her own Instagram account (@call_me_scabigail) with more than 26,000 followers.
A vintage industrial light illuminates the midcentury dining table (from the Westside’s Brick + Mortar), where Alton writes episodes of Good Eats. The Food Network (and one-time Cooking Channel) show aired from 1999 to 2012 and returned this fall.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Award-winning interior designer Elizabeth Ingram says most of her residential clients want “serenity and white,” but she’s better known for a moody, vibrant, curiosity-filled look that she’s created at restaurants like Westside’s clubby steakhouse Marcel, where tufted leather banquettes, gilded mirrors, and old fencing masks set the scene. That’s what caught the eye of Food Network personality Alton Brown, who called her up to plan his office, a project that turned into designing his loft in Marietta.

Alton, whose critically acclaimed, Marietta-filmed cooking show Good Eats returned this year after more than seven years off the air, bought the loft in a turn-of-the-century textile mill sight unseen. Elizabeth recalls his general wishlist to be sort of “bachelor pad,” but the designer got it, outfitting the space with black bookcases, painted navy floors, industrial lights, zinc, and beat-up wood, and layering it with vintage finds and architectural treasures. “He’s a dramatic person and likes dramatic things,” Elizabeth says. “I tend to like a more masculine look, too.”

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
A hallway nook with semigloss floors reflects the couple’s love of unusual art and curiosities. Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown found the collage on their honeymoon in Greece. Polaroids and tokens from travel contribute to the personal, unstuffy vibe of their collections.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Elizabeth anchored the living room with a navy velvet sofa from her furniture line, Elizabeth Ingram Studio; the two walnut-encased swivel chairs are also her design. Custom bookcases are filled with items that have a history and sense of purpose, including wedding pictures, old records, and antique treasures. Says Elizabeth: “I’d like to think this loft looks like it could be in London.”

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
The entry to the Ingram-Brown Marietta warehouse loft, where Insta-famous Scabigail and Francis Luther greet guests. Elizabeth’s cheap and easy trick for potted plants? Butcher paper.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Alton’s daughter, Zoey, spends most of the year at college; here, her loft bedroom has feminine touches mixed in with vintage rattan and theatrical window treatments.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

As it turned out, over the course of this creative project, they found more than that in common. “We discovered that our minds kind of work similarly,” says Elizabeth. They got married in 2018.

“We both have this healthy disregard for the norm that probably sprouts from the fact that punk rock was an influence in both our lives,” says Alton. “We like things a bit on the grungy side, worn . . . threadbare. Neither of us trusts anything new that hasn’t survived a street fight.”

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Custom bookshelves by local furniture maker Subeau display Elizabeth and Alton’s sense of adventure. Photos of their wedding decorate the shelves, while art books and ephemera reveal interests ranging from science to mystery. Alton, who is also a musician, uses a Rogue tube amplifier.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Bats are a quirky recurring motif in the home, and this Flavor Paper wallpaper, custom printed in Benjamin Moore’s “Lead Gray,” fits the theme. The stove is by Rais.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Their richly personal style comes to life in this corner unit with plenty of windows, 14-foot ceilings, and weathered brick walls. Find some new things—sexy furniture from Elizabeth’s own line as focal-point pieces—but plenty of vintage, macabre, unexplained, and curious, like a recurring bat motif and antique anatomy models. Many items come from Europe, a reflection of Elizabeth’s 10 years spent in Paris and Belgium, and the source for so much in the restaurants she designs. The common thread? Staying power.

“Luxury, we both agree, is about the quality to last,” says Alton, referring to the loft—and more.

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
The couple designed a kitchen without typical cabinetry, instead repurposing old furniture. A custom zinc and wood island made by B-10 Union and Puzio’s Iron Studio (a regular source for Elizabeth) features fold-out stools. “The kitchen is more like a hobby corner, and it’s composed of all my favorite materials: wood, rock, steel,” says Alton.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
A work cabinet imported from Germany through Bobo Intriguing Objects anchors the back wall, with pots hung directly on the black steel wall.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
Original drawer pullouts on the work table are now a home for kitchen bits and bobs like matches and salt.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
An old Belgian bakery cabinet purchased in Antwerp functions as a catch-all in a kitchen niche.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

Elizabeth Ingram and Alton Brown's Marietta loft
A coffee area was carved out near the kitchen, and it’s just the sort of space they planned to look original to the loft. Fans of Alton’s TV show wouldn’t be surprised to see the mad-scientist look to the getup.

Photograph by Jeff Herr

This article appears in our Winter 2019 issue of Atlanta Magazine’s HOME.

Advertisement