Tom Atkinson sees things not as they are, but as they could be. Standing in front of a vacant lot in downtown Greenville twelve years ago, Atkinson saw potential for a new life. “The falls are a five-minute walk,” he says.
The Greenville native shared his plan to build a home there with friends and family, but they saw rows of ratty mill houses and too many police reports. Even the economics didn’t add up. “It was at the bottom of the recession, and nobody was building,” Atkinson recalls.
Trey Cole, a custom homebuilder with O’Leary-Cole Construction, had originally planned to build his own house on the site, but instead, he sold it to Atkinson, who then hired Cole to do a design/build. “I fell in love with the Arts and Crafts style when I was looking at Trey’s houses,” Atkinson says.
The home took six months to build. “It was the only house they were working on,” Atkinson says. “They worked sunup to sundown, seven days a week.”
During construction, Atkinson drove up to Boone, North Carolina, and found a pair of 150-year-old chimney pots for the roof. While there, he noticed that “buildings in Boone had bark siding on them.” Atkinson asked Cole to add bark siding to his house—it would be the only house in Greenville to have it.
A Place to Congregate
The warm, inviting interior encourages free circular movement. There are numerous places to congregate. An open kitchen flows into a great room, ideal for entertaining. A door past a corner bar leads outside to a covered porch and multilevel patio. Atkinson built the pergola himself; he also laid the patio stones and installed all the tiles on the outdoor fireplace. Recently, he built a swing for his wife, Karen.
“I’ve been creating all of my life,” Atkinson says. He sees the potential in antiques long buried under piles of dust and layers of chipped paint and rebuilds them into heirloom-quality pieces. “Everything’s a project,” he notes.
Karen encourages her husband’s passion for making distinctive furnishings. The couple makes annual pilgrimages to the National Arts and Crafts Convention at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn and Greenville’s Artisphere, hunting for Tom’s next project.
“I don’t mind having something that isn’t new,” Atkinson says, opening a pair of centuries-old Asian doors to reveal a bedroom suite. “[The doors] were discovered in a little tiny antique shop on Main Street in Hendersonville,” he says. “Someone cared about them a lot; they’re hand-carved.” Asian art and Japanese art in particular influenced the Arts and Crafts movement, which celebrates the beauty of the natural world. As a case in point, Tobin Hines of Concrete Canvas Inc. used real ginkgo leaves to form a motif pattern in the bathroom’s concrete countertops and shower.
While the main level is for casual fun and entertaining, the lower level is a craftsman’s realm. “We designed the downstairs around my shop,” Atkinson says. In the woodshop, the retired orthodontist turned his father’s old dentist’s case into a jewelry box for Karen.
When asked what attracts him so much to the Arts and Crafts style, Atkinson’s eyes light up. “The craftsmanship,” he says, “because that’s what I do.”
What is Arts and Crafts style?
It’s a design philosophy that was a rejection of ornamented Victorian design, and was made popular in the US by furniture maker Gustav Stickley, according to Architectural Digest magazine. The style led to Craftsman design, typically showcasing handcrafted items, natural materials, built-ins, and exposed beams
