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In 2020, life handed Knoxville, Tenn., interior designer Shannon Roberts some particularly sour lemons: a cancer diagnosis just as Covid-19 began swirling the globe. “I got a call from my doctor on his cell phone on Friday afternoon, which is never great,” he recalls. “What we thought was a thyroid issue turned out to be lymphoma that happened to be in my thyroid.”
Talk about terrifying—especially given the timing. “I had been given a one way ticket to chemotherapy and radiation, smack dab in the middle of a worldwide pandemic,” says Roberts, a designer for G&G Interiors. And yet he turned those lemons into Instagrammable limoncello cocktails—and fast. “Two weeks before the world shut down, my husband and I purchased a second home in Savannah, Georgia,” says Roberts. The 1920 European Revival house in Ardsley Park sits just beyond the historic district, but came with long-term tenants. “The carriage house (all 800 square feet it), however, was fair game for a renovation.”
Aesthetically, it was in rough shape: The structure was sound, but “inside, it was awful,” Roberts recalls. “It had been a rental, and the landlords apparently just went to Home Depot to get whatever they could on the shelf, so nothing matched anything. Each room had a different ‘theme.’ It was basically a barren nothing.”
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To transform her into a jewel box worthy of the cinematic city of Savannah, Roberts worked remotely with his contractor— Koncul Construction—to put his visions in place from afar. The project “literally saved my life,” he says. “And I say that in all seriousness."
Since chemotherapy wreaks havoc on the immune system, "I was not even allowed out of the house except to go to treatment," says Roberts. "So that became my saving grace and my hold to sanity in being able to, what is certainly the worst period of my life, create something beautiful.”
For design inspiration, Roberts looked close to home: "I wanted to have a familial familiarity to it," he says. "Because for me, when I think of my happiest moments, it's always visiting my grandmother or my aunts who always had beautiful homes. And this is sort of my nod to them."
Now, the diminutive property plays host to events galore—Roberts, who is now cancer-free and planning his revamp of the main house, is more than happy to welcome them. "I wanted to have something that when you walked in the room, you immediately felt happy as soon as you opened the door." Suffice it to say, mission accomplished.
Entrance
“My grandmother’s favorite color was pink, and I really wanted to pay a little bit of tribute to her,” he says of the foyer, painted in Farrow & Ball’s Nancy’s Blushes. “I wanted it to be something special and something as soon as I walked through the door, it would remind me of her.
Kitchen
Roberts went big in the kitchen with Schumacher’s Pyne Hollyhock wallcovering. “I knew that I didn’t want to live with this much color in my everyday life, but going to visit would be great,” he says.
Primary Bedroom
“I live for the D. Porthault sale each year,” Roberts says. In the 10’ x 12’ primary bedroom, he combined Lee Jofa wallcovering with comparatively calm Schumacher draperies in blue as a backdrop for the Porthault sheets. “You have to have a place for the eye to rest.”
Living Room
“The artwork above the sofa by Paul Lange is my favorite thing in the entire house,” he says, adding that it encapsulates the mood of the home’s interiors. “The sideboard is a $100 Facebook marketplace that I sent my dutiful partner to pick up while I was sick.”
Bath
Old Hollywood portraits pop against the graphic Schumacher wallcovering. “These are my epitome of who I think are elegant people—Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.”
Guest Bedroom
“The wallpaper in the second bedroom is Schumacher’s Hydrangea Drape—I first saw it coming down the stairs in ‘Gone with the Wind,’” he says.
