Publisher's Note

When you get right down to it, when you are talking about your home, you are talking about the place where you should be your most … you — where you exist with your family, where you feed your pets, where you create your art, where you let loose and live, and where you circle the wagons and shed a few tears.

For this issue, we couldn’t help but see how much of a connection family and heart have to hearth and home. For the three Gilchrist brothers who own and operate Nashville Billiard & Patio, success isn’t about honoring just what their father and founder Ray started, but also honoring his intent to provide everything fun so a family can truly enjoy down time, together.

Artist Ed Nash has been enjoying more down time with his family, too, after he and his wife, Nicky, moved to Brentwood last year after a decade in Inglewood. A retreat away from the city, the distance and expanded space has meant fewer long nights at his studio and more days hanging around the pool with his kids.

Designer Blaire Murfree has worked with all kinds of clients — but when she worked with her mother to help her update her home, it was a client pairing made

in heaven. By understanding her mom’s style and history, she was able to help usher her into the next phase of life in her home, breathing new life into beloved pieces and cherishing every moment.

When EOA principal architect Michael Murdock moved to Nashville with his wife, Carol, they were already avid collectors of art from their travels. Once settled with kids, they continued to grow their collection through annual trips to SOFA and USN’s Artclectic fundraiser while remodeling their ranch home to make perfect sense for their family of four.

And while 505 is a towering building in the heart of downtown, inside is a rustic ode to developer Tony Giarratana’s mother. Carmen’s Cellar, designed by Frank Ponterio, may be an amenity for condo owners at the high rise, but it is also a loving nod to the woman who raised him.

And once Venice Beach no longer offered artist Mark Hobley what he wanted out of life, he and his daughter, Shane, packed up all of their belongings in a U-Haul truck and made their way across the country to Hendersonville. Mark’s home may look like a suburban dream from the outside, but inside it is a history of his artistic life, filled with Elvis iconography, garden gnomes and record albums in every room.

They are very different, but the common thread connecting all of these people — no matter how disparate their design aesthetic — is that they all have a place to call home, filled with things they love and people who love them. And they do it all in style. Their own.

Hollie Deese Publisher