HOLIDAY CHEER
Chic rooms imbued with tradition
DINING ROOM
The scenic floral wallpaper is by Gracie, circa the 1970s, found in a period house in north Georgia and moved to Richmond. The antique Serapi rug is from Persia; the chandelier and sconces are French, circa 1820; and the Duncan Phyfe-style dining table and upholstered chairs are contemporary.
and provide visual interest. “The design is really di erent,” Moyers says. “It really catches people’s attention.”
Furnishings throughout include Moyers’ collection of American and English antiques, which he began to acquire in the 1990s. “I wanted to focus on Southern [pieces], but there’s so little of it because so much was lost in the Civil War,” Moyers says. “I think of this style as ‘established traditional,’ because I hope guests feel like they can sit on any chair.”
“We wanted [the house] to be very traditional but also very comfortable,” Maddix adds, noting that his contributions usually come about as a result of his work.
LIBRARY
The walls are covered in chocolate grasscloth. The small blackand-white box on the mantel with compass rose patterns is from North Carolina, circa 1820. The painting over the fireplace by German painter Edward Beyer depicting the Spears Farm in Botetourt County, signed and dated 1856, was acquired through Richmond antiques dealer Robert C. Crawford.
LIVING ROOM
The ebonized 1906 Bluthner piano from Germany was considered a “chamber grand” by the maker, Moyers says. The antique furnishings include an Oushak (Turkish) rug; a Duncan Phyfe sofa made in New York, circa 1815, covered in burgundy horsehair; and a wing chair made in Philadelphia, circa 1775.
“He’ll call me and go, ‘I’ve found the most awesome thing,’” Moyers says, pointing to the chairs around their kitchen table, which came from a local resale shop, Class and Trash, and were significantly less expensive than those Moyers had seen elsewhere.
At last year’s Christmas party, guests were in every room of the main floor, which was the point, the pair agreed.
“We looked at a lot of houses, and they were pretty, but the level of detail [here] with the woodwork and arches is crazy,” Moyers says. “You see all these cool design things on the front — columns, wing walls with urns — and then you come inside, and it’s even better inside.”
‘Everything Has a Story’
LIVING ROOM
A converted hayloft turned bucolic abode with Southern traditional style
story by KIM CATLEY photos by GORDON GREGORY styling by J.P. HORTON
The border on the sofa apron is Passion Flower Vine from J.P. Horton’s bespoke fabric collection. He discovered the rare piece of green-and-white Jemez pottery while on a family trip to the Grand Canyon. The Medusa head is from the Getty Museum gift shop in Los Angeles, and the pillow is crafted from Fortuny silk damask.
BEDROOM
The bedside lamps once belonged to Horton’s great-grandmother.
The nightstands are by Phillips Scott in a French gray painted finish, the mirrors are by Pottery Barn, and the faux bois rug, which fits the whole room, is by Jaipur.
COLOR AND LIGHT
LIVING ROOM
Jesse and Sally Valentine Ellington sit with their dogs Clyde (the golden retriever) and Lucky. The nude sculpture on the antique chest, that belonged to Sally’s mother and grandmother before her, was one of the first pieces in her art collection.
Art, antiques and vivid color add sparkling personality to a Windsor Farms Colonial Revival house
story by VALERIE HUBBARD
photos by ANSEL OLSON styling by LAUREN HEALY-FLORA
FAMILY ROOM
The painting is by Frankie Slaughter. The desk and “No Whining” sign belonged to Sally Ellington’s father, who is pictured in the photos displayed.
FAMILY ROOM
Books, family photos and small works of art fill the bookshelves in the family room. McVey and Valentine had the gray velvet sofas custom made. The co ee table has a hammered zinc top.
painted in Farrow & Ball’s Mole’s Breath with a leathered black stone countertop. Dark stained floors are covered with a Turkish Ouschak rug, adding bold pinks and purple to the design equation. A Phillip Je ries leaf motif on grasscloth wallpaper envelops adjacent space that once served as the home’s galley kitchen but now provides a cozy o ce space and back entry hall.
Grays and white, with a splash of chartreuse and lime green, prevail in the space shared by the kitchen and family room, where light spills in from windows o ering ample views of the garden.
A saturated treatment of gray walls, ceiling and moldings in the dining room provides the perfect canvas for pieces from Ellington’s art collection, displayed throughout the house. A large abstract work by Richmond artist Janie Pinney is a contemporary focal point amid the family antiques.
“Sally buys art wherever she goes and wherever she lives,” Valentine says.
Landscapes, portraits, sketches and statues are found throughout every available space in the home, attesting to Ellington’s passion for art, especially nudes, which she first began collecting in Charleston.
“I am drawn to the di erent shapes and colors in each work,” explains Ellington, whose collection also includes works by Charleston artist Anne Darby Parker and Sally King Benedict, a contemporary artist in Ketchum, Idaho. Dense, salon-style arrangements of paintings in the home’s
main living spaces showcase works by Richmond artists Frankie Slaughter, Andras Bality and Chris Shands.
“I love to find artists who are up and coming,” Ellington says.
The Ellingtons’ collection also includes works by Sally’s mother-in-law, the late Nancy Ellington, who was a en plein air artist in California, and paintings by Sally’s mother, Ella Gordon Smith Valentine, an avid gardener and artist. “I picked up my love of art and appreciation of color from my mother,” Ellington says.
One of her mother’s most treasured works was painted by noted landscape artist Mary Page Evans and is on display in the Ellingtons’ family room. The work was commissioned as a triptych of the garden at the family’s Virginia Beach home. Treasured by all three of her children, the family decided to divide the triptych into its three parts so that all could enjoy the work.
The artist’s joyful landscape filled with bright garden colors encapsulates all that the home’s design represents for its owners: an homage to family, joy, color and light.
Ellington and Valentine discovered the mirror with mermaid cartouches in a shop in Charleston, South Carolina. The Sta ordshire figurine, the desk and cellarette are family pieces.
Celebrating the Divine
ALL ACROSS INDIA and in Indian diaspora communities around the world, the ancient Hindu festival Navaratri begins on the first full moon of autumn, just after the monsoon season ends. Sending the people’s love to goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, Navaratri is a joyous nine-day-long celebration — this year from Oct. 3-12 — of the divine feminine in all its incarnations. In southernmost India, the people of Tamil Nadu welcome guests to their homes by lighting special lamps and making kolam rangoli (special floor drawings made from colored flour). Colorful kolu or golu (gods and goddesses) are sculpted from marble, wood and clay in the shape of idols and toys and arrayed in homes, businesses and temples in displays ranging from simple to quite complex. Families and friends visit each other, exchanging sweet treats, fresh flowers and gifts, and participating in garba dancing, which entails moving in concentric circles around the garba flame representing the light of Devi, the mother goddess of India. —Susan W. Morgan
