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welcome friends

Over the years, we’ve been honored with invitations into many lives. The process of designing and building a house is an intimate affair and one we don’t take lightly. Occasionally, those relationships continue long after the last box is unpacked. Such is the case with our partnerships with Cindy Smith and Jane Schwab, the wonderfully talented women who make up the interior design firm Circa. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina (they also have a satellite store in Birmingham, AL), this powerhouse duo has literally defined the cordial Southern interior.

Now, Jane and Cindy have a brand new book of their own to add to their immaculately chosen coffee tables. The premier publishing house of Rizzoli Books has just released The Welcoming House, a compendium of these ladies’ work. Included in this beautiful book are Cindy and Jane’s own personal residences (both of which we designed). These two lovely homes were previously published in the long-gone and oft-missed Southern Accents magazine. As a matter of fact, Cindy’s 28-foot-wide French stucco townhouse (published in 1993) was so popular in print, it was instrumental in providing our office with many phone calls and new jobs for most of the 1990s. Jane’s extensive renovation of a colonial farmhouse was featured in all its holiday finery in a 2005 Christmas issue. Reprints of their articles are included in this post.

Congratulations ladies on your new published accomplishment! May its pages spread the grace and style you both so grandly possess.

anniversary giveaway

This month our little blog, “Finding Home”, celebrates it’s first anniversary. During the past year, over 40,000 pairs of eyes from 150 countries have scanned over our ramblings and images. Thanks for being interested in our thoughts on design, architecture, interiors and life in general. At least we’ve spared you recipes (although we have some good ones if you like).

To applaud our fans and followers, we’ve decided to have our second giveaway. Our book, The Home Within Us, is now in its fourth printing by those wonderful folks at Rizzoli. We would like to offer a copy signed, not only by the author, Bobby McAlpine, but by the entire office! While many of Bobby’s signed copies exist (he did, after all, spend a year on the road on a nationwide book tour), not one copy exists bearing the marks of the entire creative McAlpine Tankersley clan.

Leave a comment and we’ll see who goes home with this book chock full of good design ju-ju.

All photos by Kris Kendrick
All Content on this Site is the Property of McAlpine Tankersley Architecture. Copyright © 2013 McAlpine Tankersley Architecture, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

cohort folios

Cold weather and the fireside beckon a good read. Being visual folk, we’re always drawn to those laden with photographs – tomes bearing the unfortunate label of “coffee table books.” Why is this, anyway? Are they expected to be large expensive coasters?

We have some dear friends and colleagues who have a new book coming out this spring called The Welcoming House. As I pondered Cindy and Jane’s work, I thought of other talented individuals with whom we’ve been fortunate to collaborate. So here’s a shameless plug for our friends.

If you’ve space in your library (or spare real estate atop that overburdened coffee table), may we recommend these three? (click on the book title to order):

The Welcoming House by Jane Schwab and Cindy Smith, Rizzoli Books

The book I alluded to above is the long awaited folio from the lovely ladies behind Circa Interiors (Charlotte, NC and Birmingham, AL). Over the years, we’ve had grand opportunities to work with both designers, including their own homes. It’s fated to be a Southern-charmed best seller. Speaking of collaborators, “The Welcoming House” was designed by Doug Turshen, the talented book designer who also did our book The Home Within Us. We welcome getting our hands on this beauty.

Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors Things We Made, Rizzoli Books

A few years ago we were hooked up with Robin Standerfer and Stephen Alesch, the creative alchemists behind the design firm Roman and Williams, to collaborate on a Manhattan penthouse. This pairing, orchestrated by the client, was an interesting blind date worthy of E-Harmony. Our sensibilities meshed beautifully and resulted in hours of fascinating pencil lead-fueled work sessions. This ominously colored black volume (I jokingly told Stephen it looked like a spell book) is one of the most beautiful design folios in recent memory. It’s filled not only with amazing photography, but with multiple examples of Stephen’s artful sketches. The combination of Robin’s heart and Stephen’s hand is sheer magic.

Houses With Charm, Susan Sully, Rizzoli Books

This collaborator is not a designer, but a wordsmith. Susan Sully, the successful author of many Southern-themed books, was introduced to us a few years ago by our publisher at Rizzoli. She became a natural choice to co-author our book, The Home Within Us. She and her husband, artist Thomas Sully, quickly became dear friends. Available in March, her new book focuses on the utter, simple beauty found in Southern houses. Our business manager Richard Norris’ Montgomery home is included in the eccentric mix. Susan is currently working on our next book and her welcome sweet presence frequently graces our Lake Martin, Alabama homes.

on finding home

I rest along the way in this beautifully set camp of my making

But it is only a marker of what I know now

it is not meant to hold

For I love to fall through water in the moments when rush parts

And brushes back to touch and accept and be with me

But I also love the lift out and pull away nakedness that a giles the next climb

These points of arrestment and assessment are the evidence I crave

Making physical these subtle fleeting truths is building me

I have no notion that I should possess the portrait only to enjoy it for a while

And search for its lesson

Read its screen and marvel at it temporanious plate as though I were an unvested visitor

Curious, amused, gathering, apprehensive, tentative and smart

I’ll take only what is good

This process

This distallation

Awakens me

Perhaps it’s just roughage

Does binging and purging bring about the light fantastic?

I had an old roommate that said

“I think the only reason I date these guys

is for the exhilarated feeing I get when I break up with them”

And so she cut her famous long hair each time

And was beautiful again

Things are expendable to me

So I’m kind of cocky in the acquisition of them

I revel in these choices knowing they are but sand castles

Temperal and important in the loss

There is a light and cumulative wealth

But then so would say

A gifted whore

Congratulations to Christina@greigedesign.com, who was the lucky winner of last week’s giveaway. The prize, a signed copy of our book “Finding Home” is on its way to you.

giveaway

We’ve had this blog going for a few months now and the response has been great – almost 10,000 views from over 50 countries! Thanks for being so interested in our ramblings, musings and images. To show gratitude to our readers, we’d like to welcome spring with our first giveaway. Everybody loves beautiful weather, budding life and free stuff.

The prize is our little book, “Finding Home” (uncoincidentally the name of this blog ). It’s a limited edition book we self-published a few years ago for our clients and friends. In its pages lie some of Bobby McAlpine’s poetry (which has been the focus of two posts on this blog) and sepia portraits of a bit of our work. We’ve only a handful of these gems left and we’d like to make one of the last copies available to one of our readers. To make the win even sweeter, the book will be personally autographed by Bobby.

For a chance at the prize, leave a comment, we’ll put the names in a stylish container and draw a winner. The contest is open for one week. Good luck and no pushing.

(Our) Houses of Veranda

Lisa Newsom, the founder and editor emeritus of Veranda magazine, has just released her first book, The Houses of Veranda. It’s a spectacular folio spotlighting homes from Veranda’s 25 year history in the publishing world. We are honored and humbled to have three of our homes included in this book. Two are located in Nashville, Tennessee and the third one is a second home in Rosemary Beach, Florida. We’d like to share a few pages from their original Veranda magazine publications. Thank you Lisa and Veranda for always being one of our most ardent cheerleaders.

We highly recommend this lovely book (not just because we’re in it). Its presence should grace every smart coffee table and library.

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