G
ibson likes Hotel Domestique and thought the home should be built like a boutique hotel. Even the kids’ bedrooms open to the outdoors with easy access to a French-inspired landscape designed by J. Dabney Peeples, and significant installations by Dabney Collins. The exterior blends two types of stone. Texas limestone makes up the main entrance, which is flanked on the left and right by a more rustic stone called Doggett Mountain. Martin views the home as a homestead and carriage house connected by what looks like a section that was added later. Atop it all is a handmade terracotta tile roof by Ludowici. Inside, plaster walls curve artfully towards 12-foot ceilings and most rooms connect via archway. “I brought in the arches to pull the walls down, so you don’t feel like you’re in a big corridor,” Martin says.
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at Home | WINTER 2021
A substantial amount of reclaimed timber was utilized and Martin’s favorite part, what he calls the “eye candy,” are the home’s eighteen gas lamps. The Heirloom Companies crafted many of the interior and exterior fixtures and upfitted others reclaimed from France; several are a couple hundred years old and were rewired for the home. They also fabricated a massive peaked outdoor dining pavilion. It is the centerpiece for Peeples' inspired French country landscape; the terraced stone and handcrafted water features seem as though plucked from Provence, though everything was made to order and placed to maximize the Upcountry’s sight lines. As plaster was applied by hand and the house began to take shape, Gibson began collecting art for the home. She went to Blue Spiral 1 in downtown Asheville to commission several pieces for hallways and a grand living area, and she engaged gallerist and