At Home with the Darts

Owners of Pierce & Parker share their renovation story

WORDS BY LINDSEY ADKISON | PHOTOS BY SAM GHIOTO AND SPM PHOTOGR APHY

Matt and Miller Dart are living a legacy. The couple owns Pierce & Parker, a furniture store and interior design firm that Miller’s parents founded and operated on St. Simons Island for more than 35 years. Today, Matt and Miller are at the helm, supported by a knowledgeable staff of seasoned designers.

Family — and furnishings — are never far from their minds. That was certainly true when the Darts were

Mlooking to settle into their own home.

“We moved into this home in 2018,” Miller says. “We loved that it was right down the street from where I grew up and where my parents still live.”

The home was ideal for their growing family, which includes their children Will, 13, Liza, 10, and Lera, 7, and, of course, their two dogs, Charlie and George.

But Miller notes the space had to be reconfigured a bit with the addition of their youngest child.

“We adopted our youngest daughter, Lera, last year from Colombia — she is an amazing girl and we love her to pieces. Adopting Lera really kicked off our decision to renovate the house because our guest room became her bedroom,” Miller explains.

“We decided to build a new master bedroom suite over the detached garage and then convert our old master into a family room that can do double duty as a guest room. That way, the new master provides more privacy, and the family room is conveniently located right off the kitchen and provides a secondary place for kids to watch TV and play video games.”

The couple is drawn to traditional layouts that embrace cozy, charming spaces. Their home, originally designed by architect Ed Cheshire, was built in 1981. The family updated the kitchen and made some cosmetic changes.

“Over the past few years, we’ve re-landscaped the front and back yards and my son, Will, and I dug out and built a fire pit seating area ourselves near the dock,” Matt says.

While the Darts are in “the biz,” they reached out to a local friend and architect Chad Goehring of Harrison Design Group to bring their vision to life. He created a plan that fit within the home’s existing footprint but offered an entirely different feel.

“One thing that he suggested was to have our main bedroom door open up to a master hallway. Then, the bathroom, and each of our closets open up into that hallway,” Matt says. “The effect is that it’s easy to get ready without disturbing each other. We each have our separate spaces in our closets to keep our things, so our room stays pretty tidy.”

The family also wanted the aesthetic of the space to fit with the existing, traditional design of the house. They worked closely with Goehring to blend new and old elements to craft that cohesive look. Among the additions was a vaulted ceiling with paneling and beams. However, everything remained painted, which helped it meld.

“We installed the same wood flooring that was used downstairs, and re-stained the the whole house so it would match perfectly. Above all, we wanted it to look like it had always been there,” Matt says.

Once the remodel was complete, it was time to turn their attention to something near and dear to their hearts — furnishings. The Darts sought cohesion, a balance between being too formal or too casual.

“We try to ride a fine line between the two — for instance, most of the rugs in our house are relatively easy-to-clean indoor/outdoor rugs or inexpensive natural weaves — we have three kids and two dogs,” he says.

“While in our bedroom, we went for hand-knotted wool Oushack that will last a lifetime. There was a lot of discussion to settle onto a color palette and design elements that felt right for both of us. Both of us like ‘traditional-meets-transitional’ furnishings — traditional looks but with cleaner lines and fresh colors. But we also like to add elements that are more transitional or fun, whether that be abstract art, a standout mirror, or an exciting accessory.”

Luckily, they knew just where to find those very things. The family enlisted advice from their staff at Pierce & Parker.

“(Designer) Lori Harden helped us with the layout a ton — we had her climbing ladders to see it when it was barely framed up,” Matt says with a laugh.

“She had us move a doorway to make room for a hall chest, and she convinced us to have built-in cabinets made next to our fireplace, which really defines the whole space. She also helped us with designing the draperies. Carson Jones helped us accessorize and with fabric choices. Brenda, Julie, Hannah, and everyone else also helped us with furniture selections. We are so blessed to have so much knowledge and good taste at our disposal.”

Their bedroom color palette was inspired by a piece of Lee Jofa fabric used to make a bolster for their bed and two lumbar pillows for the chairs. It is a floral pattern that incorporates icy blue, brown, taupe, and cream.

“We chose to wallpaper our room with a taupe colored grass cloth from Seabrook and chose a traditional ticking fabric in a similar shade for the wallpaper in the bathroom. The trim and other walls are painted Cloud White from Benjamin Moore, which has warm tones that feel comfortable and traditional to us,” he says.

“We also love layering a number of fabrics and trims in a room that coordinate around a handful of colors. It makes it evident that someone put thought into the room, and at least for me, makes it feel cohesive and peaceful. Many times that means layering a floral with a solid and one or more smaller prints or geometrics.”

While their bedroom proved to be a soothing, peaceful place, they were able to move in a different direction with their newly-converted family room.

“We chose to paint the entire room green, which was inspired by a Schumacher floral and bird print that we used on pillows for the sectional. We wanted to create a clubby feel, with leather chairs and a comfy sectional. We love the way it turned out, and it’s perfect for piling five humans and two dogs for family movie night,” he says. “Also, the two sectional cushions are actually the exact dimensions of twin mattresses, so when we do have guests, we can put on sheets and, voila, it’s a guest room.”

Landscaping: Jason Robitz

Master bed: Tomas at Brunswick Bedding custom-made the bed in the master and re-upholstered several items

Kitchen backsplash: Webster Tile

Draperies: Dawn Newbern and Barry Hayes at Overall Upholstery Studio

Remodel: Chad Goehring at Harrison Design Group

Builders: Joey Walker and Ewell Pope and their crew were the builders for the addition

Interiors: the staff of Pierce & Parker

While the couple is certainly accustomed to pulling posh looks together, they were also aware of possible pitfalls. For instance, they had to be mindful when it came to mixing finishes within a room.

“It’s nice for everything not to match exactly, but if you get too many different finishes in a space it can start to feel pretty disjointed,” Matt says. “There is no single rule about the number of finishes that you want in a room, though — contrast is good but throwing too much at a room is chaos. That is another reason that it is nice for us to have access to the collective wisdom of our design staff at Pierce & Parker — it helps to have a practiced eye determine that correct balance.” an of 53

The size of pieces within a space is another area that requires a bit of caution. There’s a delicate balance between creating a crowded space and leaving an empty room.

“It is also common to see under-sized pieces where properly scaled pieces are really needed. For instance, we tried smaller coffee tables in our living room, but it wasn’t until we got a 5 foot square table that the room really came together. Having properly sized art, lamps, rugs, etc. is such a game-changer,” he says.

For Lisa Jordan, Brunswick is “quintessential South Georgia.”

“We came from Chicago, all the homes here seemed ancient,” says Jordan, owner of Xyno Furniture in downtown Brunswick.

She and her family moved to the Golden Isles in 2016 because of her husband’s temporary placement at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick.

“There was a culture shock for us,” Jordan laughs.

She still does make trips back and forth from Brunswick to Chicago and there is a distinct Lisa for each.

“There’s Chicago Lisa and Brunswick Lisa. Chicago Lisa is fine for Chicago, but for Brunswick, she’s unnecessarily fast and always wants answers,” she says.

Being a Chicago native naturally made her, by her own description, very direct, sometimes aggressive, and always unnecessarily charged. It was a long time before she felt like they fit in, and she has plenty of stories about how the family from Chicago didn’t quite get something about the South.

“You know Maggie Mae’s? We were there getting breakfast and we got up, and they told us somebody had paid for our meal. So we’re like ‘Who? Why did they do that? Where did they go, did you see what they were wearing?,’” she says with a laugh. “The poor folks, they’re just like, ‘It’s just a thing people do.’”

They stayed on St. Simons Island because that’s where a lot of people working at FLETC would go, she says. It wasn’t long until her first exposure to the historic district of the city, where they immediately fell in love. With the old colonial style, the squares, moss-draped oaks, it was immediately apparent to her that there was something special about the neighborhood.

At first, they wanted a historic home like those along Union

Street. It’s not an unusual story, but the Jordan family — Lisa, her husband Derrick, and two daughters — were not fated to end up there.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, Jordan says. She and Derrick looked at a lot of homes, but the one that caught their eye was the building they’re in now, 1214 and 1212 Newcastle St. It’s a squat brick structure near the southern tip of the main commercial strip in the city’s downtown, not far from Hanover Square, and looks like any other storefront along the corridor.

Half is Xyno Furniture, the other half is their home.

A courtyard connects the home to the Xyno storefront next door. A gate at the back opens from the driveway onto Richmond Street behind.

They did a little research when they moved in, and while being younger than the colonial-style homes elsewhere in the city, it’s got no less of a storied past. It likely originated as part of an old fire station at the corner of

Mansfield and Newcastle streets. That building was torn down long ago — it dated back to the days of horsedrawn water wagons. Xyno’s storefront was a livery for the horses.

Later, it served as an extension of the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. building on the other side of Richmond Street, a dry cleaner and a coffee shop.

It’s not exactly what one traditionally thinks of as a home.

“We had to do a whole lot of work. It was very industrial,” Jordan says.

Brick and metal construction, a very open layout, high ceilings, very much like the others along the street used as commercial storefronts and the lofts along Newcastle.

It was a challenge to figure out how to make it feel homey and stylish, Jordan says. She isn’t alone in having to deal with that challenge, but then few have the funky and eclectic sense of style she was tapping into when trying to decorate the place.

She knew what she wanted — industrial-looking furniture in the style of the early 20th century and Roaring 20s specifically.

She immediately went to that time frame because “things were made to last.” It also fits the kind of décor they needed. Lack of closets meant using wardrobes, dressers, and trunks to store clothes and other possessions. It was also just a stylish time period.

“We could have gone with 1800s, but we didn’t want to go that rustic,” Jordan says.

Most of the homes in town are historic or ranch style, and there didn’t seem to be much demand for “heavy and substantial” furnishings. Buying it online was pricey, but Jordan had an idea for a way to solve the problem.

“Xyno was born because we needed industrial furniture with a funky, the 1920s, 1930s vibe,” Jordan says.

She has the wherewithal to run a business and the eye to design furniture, while Derrick, her husband, proved to be an asset when it came to running the back-end logistics.

She started designing pieces and then commissioning manufacturers to make them, making contacts in other countries and establishing shipping and delivery frameworks to ensure everything was handmade.

Part of the early business plan was events just about every month. The part of town they’re in doesn’t get much foot traffic, so they started holding karaoke and musical acts to attract customers to the area. They knew they had to be a destination to get business on that side of town, so “that’s our marketing,” Jordan says.

The most recent batch is the Downtown Brunswick Collection, inspired by the requests she heard from residents who stopped by the store. What was the name of the first series? It doesn’t really have one.

“The first batch was a shot in the dark,” Jordan says. “It was based around what we needed, not what others wanted.”

The store is stocked with some traditional — in function, if not form — pieces, like couches and chairs, tables, and cabinets. Some are more unique, like a crank-operated table that can be raised and lowered, or a TV stand crafted from old equipment.

The Brunswick collection is more curated, derived from what customers want and the city itself. In short, the collection is all-original, unique, and largely designed for the homes and people of Brunswick specifically.

“It’s inspired by downtown Brunswick and the growth and change we have seen,” Jordan says.

From new residents restoring historic homes or moving into downtown lofts to businesses contributing more and more to the daytime bustle and nightlife of the city, the Downtown Brunswick Collection is meant to have something for all of them.

Top Producing Agent

It’s set apart somewhat by a “lighter” design philosophy, incorporating more “pops of color and whimsy” than the initial collection. By and large, the

Bradley Randall 912-270-8556 pieces are smaller and lighter — easier to rearrange and carry upstairs.

Xyno Furniture is located at 1214 Newcastle St., Brunswick. Check out xynofurniture.com to see what’s coming up next.

That’s not to say she’s leaving out the rest of the Golden Isles.

“If people from St. Simons or wherever want to see what we’ve got, they’re welcome here too,” Jordan says.

Brunswick has been an extremely welcoming community and made the store a success. After living in the Golden Isles long enough, the reactions now go in the other direction. Brunswick has rubbed off on Lisa.

Now, when she’s in Chicago, it’s people there who are sometimes surprised when she’s polite, takes the time to look people in the face when she talks to them and speaks clearly. Sometimes Chicago Lisa will still burst into a room wanting answers right away, but it’s less than what it was.

Her dad, little sister, and cousin have all moved to Brunswick. But Chicago is still home and probably always will be.

“It’s been a pleasure to see how the city has grown since 2016, always getting bigger and better,” she says.

While Lisa is glad the city has been welcoming to her and others from elsewhere, she hopes to see more locals getting in on the action, opening new businesses and revitalizing neighborhoods.