KAT E TOW I L L
K
ate Towill is a long way from her life in New York City, but she has never felt more at home. “You sure needed vision to appreciate it,” she says of the 1960s ranch house she has been renovating for her expanding family for the past year. “It’s two blocks from the beach on the Isle of Palms, tucked back on a great jungle-y lot with a huge winding oak tree covered in fern,” Kate says. “We knew we could create something we would love.” It’s a fitting idyll for recharging from an otherwise jam-packed life. As one half of Basic Projects, the firm she and her chef/restaurateur/hospitality industry veteran husband, Ben, launched a few years ago after relocating to Charleston from New York City, Kate has applied her training as a set designer for the likes of Wes Anderson to interior and commercial design projects on two continents, including restaurants, hotels and two resurrected old school inns anchored by taverns, one in Charleston and the other in Ben’s native Cornwall, England. The kitchen and dining area are the center of life at home, as well. “Heather Wilson, our fantastic architect, said something to me early on that I’ll always remember and that I now pass on to clients: ‘Put your money in the area you spend the most time and let the other parts come later.’ And I’m so happy we listened to her. Being in my kitchen makes me so happy,” Kate continues, “starting when I wake up and the light is intense and bright or at night when I’m cooking with the music going. It’s my little heaven.”
KAT E TOW I L L B AS I C P R OJ E C TS
DESIGN