HAVE YOURSELF A MODERN LITTLE CHRISTMAS Interior Designer Bethany Adams employs a whimsical, less-is-more approach to decking the halls.
Written by Bridget Cottrell / Photos by J. L. Jordan Photography To the casual design enthusiast, Victorian and modern styles may seem to be at odds with one another, with the former notable for its indulgence in grand excess of ornamentation and the latter known as a less-is-better approach. However, interior designer and selfproclaimed modernist Bethany Adams has harmoniously melded these disparate designs in her circa 1890s Old Louisville home. The paint had barely dried in her previous home—a 1,600-square-foot Italianate—following an extensive four-month renovation, when just five blocks due east, a much larger Victorian hit the market. With her family already feeling a bit cramped even before the birth of her second daughter, Adams remarked that it was
a golden opportunity that "was just too good to pass up." The game was once again afoot. While the property had avoided the fate befalling many of the neighborhood's grand homes—being divided into a multitude of apartments—it still required extensive restoration. "There was just the notion of a kitchen with a solitary cabinet," recalled Adams. Having spent a decade living in Chicago's culturally diverse Hyde Park neighborhood—broken up by a year in Paris, where her eldest daughter was born—Adams said she was drawn to Old Louisville for its similarities to the Windy City, as well as her own "small town upbringing” in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. slmag.net
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