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“I could name the order of columns before I could say a sentence,” laughs Elizabeth Damrich, recalling a childhood surrounded by stately Greek Revival houses in sleepy Athens, Alabama. So naturally, when the creative director and fashion designer (she has a line of apparel and accessories with Southern department store Dillard’s) found herself house-hunting in her husband Michael’s hometown of Mobile, Alabama, after a stint in Charleston, she couldn’t resist touring an 1885 dwelling known as the Rapier House.
Damrich’s daughter Gigi climbs the front steps of their 1885 Greek Revival house.
William Waldron
An Aubusson tapestry is a romantic foil for an angular slipcovered sofa in the living room. Damrich, pictured, wears an Eleanor Shirt Dress by Eleanor Leftwich.
COURTESY OF ELIZABETH DAMRICH
“I love the strength of Greek Revival set against the wild landscape,” Damrich says. “It's what drew me to the Rapier House and its Ionic columns. Ionic is the feminine order and I just love what that represents.”
William WaldronCinematically perched on a palm-lined boulevard in the Oakleigh Garden Historic District, a quartet of white Ionic columns standing tall in front of its butter-yellow exterior, the Rapier House embodies a certain type of Southern graciousness. “You feel it in the architecture—the higher ceilings and tall windows that give you space to breathe and create, the drapes that puddle onto the floor in a generous way, objects from the past reminding you of where you came from,” says Damrich, who has spent the past several years turning the stately house into a modern-day home for her family with two young children.
Bare floors and clean white walls in the foyer are a pared-down foundation for a Julie Neill plaster chandelier and graphic tablecloth made from Even Stripe Indoor/Outdoor fabric by Caroline Z Hurley for Schumacher. The iron chair and shell mirror are antiques Damrich found in New Orleans.
William Waldron
A fragment of a Zuber scenic wallpaper is framed in the foyer; the antique iron chair once graced the halls of the Soniat House hotel in New Orleans.
William Waldron
The Aubusson tapestry that gives the “tapestry room” its name is a romantic foil for an angular slipcovered sofa and a low-slung cocktail table.
William WaldronHer approach honors that ethos of gracious living without being beholden to tradition: The curtains framing those towering windows aren’t formal silk but simple ivory linen; heirloom antiques are paired with clean-lined, modern furniture; floors are left bare or outfitted with humble jute rugs. “My approach requires some rule breaking but ultimately leans into finding ways to live well in the space,” she says. “A room could be used for cocktails one day and a children’s bouncy house the next. When we have parties, even if I’m wearing some fancy gown, I’m likely barefoot.”
For Damrich, watching a new generation marvel at their surroundings has been its own reward: “My children trace the intricate molding with their hands, and I’m hoping that love of design and appreciation of craft seeps into their bones as well.”
In the guest room, curtains and a bed canopy in Schumacher's Prestwick Wool Satin (the latter trimmed in Heraldic Trim by Happy Menocal for Schumacher) make for a cosseting refuge. The bedspread is Incomparable Moiré by Schumacher.
William WaldronTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 14 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
