/ by Brendan Blowers
/ photography by Inspiro 8 Studios
At First Impression
Materials differ, but what architect and artist create is kindred. James Neal and Carl Blair wrestled with things wild– or phantom– until their ideas could be contained into careful arrangement of form and line. The result impacted not just the culture of Greenville in its day, but the city’s aesthetic and landscape evermore.
Charles Eames once said, “the role of the designer is that of a very good thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.” James Neal is often noted for this, anticipating the needs of the occupants who would live in the homes he planned.
Specifically, when designing a home for Carl Blair, Neal created a place where the Blair family flourished. Neal accepted partial payment for his work in-kind from Blair: plans for art, art for plans, art for art when all is considered. Two immense talents, putting in the work, a collaboration that turned into a life-long friendship.
During an illustrious career, Neal designed hundreds of places in the Upstate of South Carolina– schools, offices, churches and municipalities– but it’s the residences he shaped in the mid-century epoch that reveal his most personal work. When designing a home, Neal never included style without substance, wouldn’t trade practicality to impress. He believed everyone deserved a well-designed home and it’s a testament to his talent that the mid-mods he built more than half a century ago continue to be celebrated today, lived in and cherished for what they are: thoughtful, timeless and homes of good design.
Blair-Lair Residence
designed by James Neal
Paris Mountain was a favorite place to traverse for Carl and Margaret Blair. As newlyweds they’d barrel up narrow Altamont Rd in their Chevy Impala until the steep mountain rock face glowed with the brilliant orange reflection of the setting sun. It was on one of these drives that the Blairs found a 1.25 acre lot with a for sale sign. It was a private densely wooded parcel, in the mountain’s lush valley, tucked between mature trees and bordered by a steep ravine.
“They decided this was their dream place,” says Ruth Lair, Carl and Margaret’s only child. She remembers hearing the story of how her parents had acquired the land as one of many recalled miracles in Blair family lore. “They loved the mountains, the trees, the terrain of the Upstate,” Ruth says.
As a boy, Carl, who often had to sleep on the couch so his Mother could offer room and board to his Depression-era relatives, would go outside to lie in brown fields under the Midwestern sky, watching swirling storms form over the horizon. He took in the world in a sensory way. Years later, as he majored in art at the University of Kansas, Carl’s connection to nature– the land, trees and animals— emerged to become celebrated paintings.
Carl and Margaret Blair moved to Greenville in the summer of 1957 to teach at Bob Jones University. Carl had earned an M.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute and collected some life experience as a member of the Army Core of Engineers when drafted to serve in the Korean War. “My Dad saw a lot of hurt around him. He wanted to be realistic in his art that life was good, but hard. He didn’t sugar coat anything,” Ruth says.
When Carl discovered that the down payment for the plot on Oakleaf Road was $500, Ruth remembers her mother retelling how her dad had said, “Margaret, we don’t have $500.”
In truth, the Blairs had come to Greenville with very little but faithful optimism. As Ruth describes it, “they didn’t have two nickels to rub together.” Initially, they lived in faculty housing while Carl took a second job working nights at the Greenville Art Museum. Then, something miraculous happened. Carl won an art contest with exactly $500 in prize money.
During that time, Carl Blair and James Neal became friends. The two families would often see each other at various Greenville community events as Margaret was a member of many local clubs and organizations. When the time came to build, the Blairs knew that Neal was the best choice to design their home and Ruth recalls her father calling his association with James Neal “the mutual admiration society.” He considered Neal one of the most respected and sought-after architects in the region. The only issue that remained was payment and, while Neal was an advocate for building affordable houses, he didn’t work for free.
But Neal liked Carl’s art so the “mutual admiration society” worked out a deal: Neal would trade architectural plans, and even oversee the building process, in exchange for paintings.
The home Neal conceived for the Blairs was quite possibly the most affordable residence he ever designed, but to Carl and Margaret it was a palace. “My parents held Neal in the highest esteem, he impacted our daily lives in a profound way with the environment he created,” Ruth says.
Neal knew about Carl’s affinity for the land and nature here and made sure to make it central to the home’s design. “The home blends in and rises up from nature,” Ruth says. Organic designs that are one with nature are an element in many mid-century homes, and Neal realized that goal as well as anyone could.
There was only one thing missing from Neal’s layout. Carl worked many hours in the studio at Bob Jones, with fellow artists Emery Bopp and Darell Koons (together, the three members of the art faculty department founded Hampton III, one of the first commercial galleries in the Upstate) but that didn’t mean he didn’t need a home studio for cutting, framing, sculpture and general inspiration-gathering.
Together, one wheelbarrow-full at a time, Carl and Margaret dug out the crawl space to make room for Carl’s paints, canvases and cuts of wood. “Whether it was digging out this studio space or working in the yard, they were very connected people. They did it together,” Ruth says.
Carl leaned on his experience in the Army Core of Engineers to mix and pour the studio’s concrete floor. The carpet that covered that floor has been removed, but Ruth and her husband, Mike Lair, have left the rest of the belongings much as they were when her father would use his bandsaw to cut and shape boards into the whimsically ironic bird and dog sculptures he became known for later in his career.
The Blair home studio is a treasure trove, demonstrating Carl’s lifelong devotion to the elements of art– both in action and in countless lessons to his students– many of whom also have significant careers in art. In 2016, the Greenville Metropolitan Arts Council honored Blair with the exhibition “Artists Touched by Carl R. Blair”, which featured the work of 55 Upstate artists (a sample of the hundreds) he had inspired including Dave Appleman, Diane Kilgore Condon, Amy Price Panosian and Raymond Giddens.
While the shape of the home studio is narrow and compact, the space feels much deeper. In addition to his dried paint palette and framing supplies, there are stacks of music CDs, finished canvases leaning against the walls, handwritten notes to Margaret and others collaged with old portraits of the artist; in one, Carl looks boyish and academic in his glasses, too young and innocent to be holding the Army-issued rifle slung over one shoulder. In another photo, taken much later in his life, he appears on a stage in South Carolina accepting the Verner Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.
Neal designed a home to fit the Blair family’s simple, yet artistic life. It was outfitted with two master bedrooms, so Ruth’s Aunt Gladys, known in the family as “Auntie G” and the woman who raised Margaret for much of her life, could live with the Blairs when she retired from teaching.
Ruth has fond memories of a peaceful, playful homelife on Paris Mountain. “It was a very artsy house that also had art everywhere. The environment was always fun.” She remembers putting her shoes on in the morning and finding a laughing Carl had stuffed socks in the toes.
Margaret, who held a masters degree and also taught at BJU, loved to read. A prized reading spot was the outdoor screened gazebo Carl gifted his wife shortly before her death from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Margaret could often be found in the gazebo, surrounded by flowers and trees, reading her Bible.
The Blairs spent a lot of time outdoors. “He liked to go outside and walk around the yard, that was Carl’s thing,” Mike says, remembering when his father-in-law was at home in his element. The Blairs also loved gardening. In their time, the yard was pristine and had paths cut through the grass, a picnic table, an art-covered patio and little stone retaining walls to designate different areas.
Carl had a special emotional connection to boulder-sized rocks. He’d spy them on his long meandering drives and pay to have them shipped to the property where they’d take a prominent place in the yard. “Every time I’d come home, there’d be one more rock,” Ruth says. As a boy Carl and his cousins would clamber up a large rock quarry in his backyard.
After Margaret died, Carl told his neighbor, Don Knapp, “I’ve been eyeing this stone.” Sure enough, a few days later it was delivered to the house to take its place among the rest. During their marriage, Margaret had been Carl’s rock. “My Mom was an inspirational person. My Dad would always say she was the strongest person he’d met,” says Ruth.
The Blairs were hardy people; they had lived through the Depression and didn’t take things for granted. When an ice storm hit Greenville in 1993, pine branches pummeled the house and damaged the roof. The front-page headline from the Greenville News on March 14th read: High Wind, Cold Spread Misery Across the State. Instead of evacuating, the Blairs, who lost power for days, took refuge in their bedroom. When it happened again in 2005, they refused an offer to stay at the Knapps and be warmed by a gas log fireplace.
Knapp recalls bringing Carl a long twisted branch he had found in the yard. He knew the artist liked to craft snakes out of them. To Knapp’s surprise, Carl took the stick and turned it into one of his signature snakes, gifting it back to his neighbor. Today, the piece hangs in Knapp’s living room. “He was a genuine man who knew what was important in life. I think he had it all figured out,” Knapp says.
A few years ago, when Carl was battling Parkinson’s Dementia, Ruth left Ohio to stay with her father. She noticed his physical decline, but his artist’s soul was still very much alive. She awoke one morning to find her dad in the den, staring out the window at the patio. “Ruth, Ruth, come here,” he said, “Look how the light is hitting the furniture like golden lightning.” Carl was still creating paintings in his mind.
“He was always noticing the thing that the ordinary person would not notice,” Ruth says. “He wasn’t interested in painting mountains and trees realistically. He was trying to capture the wind blowing, the movement of light, all of the elements that are there.” Whether it was an early morning fog on the mountain, a late snowfall or a hazy evening in October, they were all captured in Carl Blair’s vapor-like brush strokes.
Blair died just two years ago and today the responsibility of preserving his art and the family home falls squarely on the shoulders of Ruth and Mike. The couple share the Blair’s admiration for the home’s designer. “Jim was a genius,” Ruth says of Neal. “He was so virtuous and the most humble person ever. My dad would have considered Jim Neal an artist.”
The Lairs plan to make this home their permanent residence and some renovations have been made. “We need to be true to ourselves like my parents were. They always had elements of different styles mixed together,” Ruth says.
Working with the contractor Greg Wilburn and interior designer Sherry Stanley, the Lairs have opened the interior rooms up a bit, painted the walls a clean paper white, but retained Neal’s original dark molding and driftwood grey accents. They’ve added an additional bathroom, laundry and closet without changing the parameters of the roofline.
They’ve also redone the floors. Sounding much like an artist herself Ruth says, “I researched all the woods and I just fell in love with walnut. It was speaking to me. I loved the grain, the tone.”
She also selected a striking granite for countertops in the bathrooms and kitchen. The natural stone has striations of color, blues, grays and an earthy rust. “For me, it looks very artistic,” Ruth says.
With the renovations coming to a close, the couple have begun hanging several of Blair’s paintings, in addition to showcasing a wooden John Acorn sculpture he had acquired in trade. Aside from its lineage, the home has everything the Lairs were looking for: one story, a great location and plenty of spare bedrooms for their grown kids or guests.
Ruth has taken on the task of digitally cataloging the thousands of pieces of art her father left behind. She and Mike also hope to eventually make the home studio suitable to show more of his work, including his first self-portrait. It’s the piece that revealed his color blindness to his Kansas art instructors when they asked Carl why he had painted himself green.
The home in its new iteration still feels a little abstract to the Lairs, “like one of Dad’s paintings,” Ruth says, but the couple are looking forward to its next chapter. They even took a drive up to the Altamont Club where Carl and Margaret were longtime members.
“You’re way up on the mountain, being with a whole group of people in one room that have something in common, living on the mountain,” Ruth says. “Sometimes Dad would paint a bright red sky and people would think ‘that’s not realistic,’ but then we saw that red sky going across and it was gorgeous.”
A look around the house
The renovation was accomplished by Wilburn Inc with the help and input of Designers Choice Cabinetry, CSW Design, Above All Plumbing, Current Electrical Services and Metal Works, Clayton Tile, Gallery of Lighting, Jeff Lynch Appliances, ProSource, Stacy’s Flooring, Suburban Paint, The Tile Shop, Upstate Granite Solutions, Windows, Inc., Interior Designers Amy Emery and Candace Morgan, Rhonda Grimberg & Jim Douglas, Jose Perez, TMP of Greenville, Stylist Laurilyn Davis Hall, Thrive Interiors and art installation by Lewis Carl.
Art in the Lair’s home is part of the Permanent Collection of Carl & Margaret Blair. Work outside of this collection is represented by Mary Praytor Gallery in Greenville, If Art Gallery in Columbia and Elder Gallery of Contemporary Art in Charlotte.
The World According to James Neal
James “Jim” Neal was part of a group of progressive and like-minded architects in the 1950s to the 1970s who studied the work of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and E. Fay Jones and shared their ideas about good design.
Neal succinctly grew an architecture firm that for 50 years has left an indelible mark on the Upcountry of our state. Neal opened his studio in 1969 with a focus on residential construction and light professional buildings. No job was too small, no client too unimportant, to deserve his full attention. He believed in the highest quality of architecture regardless of scale.
He and his wife, Margaret “Leonette” Neal, actively contributed to the community and culture of downtown Greenville. They were engaged members of First Baptist Church, the Poinsett Club and on many boards and committees that worked towards the betterment of the county at large.
“A lot of the legacy values that Jim had he got from his dad,” says Scott May who first joined Neal’s firm in 1988 and today is the Greenville Office Lead of LS3P. May recalls that Neal’s father ran a local lumber company and his business values ran deep with Neal. “Treating people right, doing the right thing, making sure people got what they paid for, Jim Neal was a generous but shrewd businessman,” says May. “He would call on a Friday afternoon at five-thirty just to see who was still in the office.”
John Edwards, Associate Principal with LS3P, remembers Neal as someone people in Greenville sought out for his perspective and guidance on major decisions in the development community or life in general.
Again and again, Neal was called “a true gentleman” and “a man of character;” he was referred to as studious and organized. As an employer, adjectives such as fair, honest, kind, humorous and demanding were evoked, depending on the circumstances.
He served as chairman of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee and counted Greenville mayors William Workman III and Knox White among his friends. And while he encouraged local government to prioritize Greenville’s downtown redevelopment, he also never abandoned a personal campaign for affordable housing.
“I think he was most fond of his residential work from 1969 through the 1980’s, where he could apply the mid-century aesthetic principles that appealed to him on a personal level,” says Edwards. Today, mid-century architecture has many fans who enjoy its appeal, but at the time Neal was designing what at best could be called a growing movement. May says, “He was pushing the boundaries for Greenville designing homes of that style.”
Creating potential was something Neal relished. In 1990, he overtly moved his firm to a derelict building at 110 W. North St. “It was 20,000 square feet of space that needed to be loved on” says May.
Edwards recalls it this way, “Jim believed that architects had a duty to be deeply involved in service toward improving their community. A walk down Main Street in 1990 revealed that great things could be on the horizon for Greenville, but that horizon appeared pretty far away at the time.”
By the end of the century, Neal was managing the firm and his partner Robin Prince, was doing the majority of design work; but, Neal remained very collaborative. “He usually had a couple of good words and directions to make the project better. They called him the velvet hammer. He was pretty diplomatic,” May says, “even if he didn’t like something, he’d find something good to say about it and then he’d tell you what needed to be changed.”
Residential architecture often requires walking a tightrope of disagreements and disputes with homeowners and contractors. Nobody was better at knowing how to balance these hard conversations than Jim Neal. May says, “He exerted his will in a way where he’d get what he wanted but you never knew what hit you.”
One such time, when a mason hadn’t built a wall correctly on a residential jobsite, Neal decided to make a show of it. “He had this old plaid sport coat he would wear whenever he wanted to make a demonstration,” May says. It had been raining and Neal confronted the mason explaining the wall was “just not right, you need to do what needs to be done.” When the soft touch didn’t suffice Neal took the plaid coat off, threw it on the ground, stomping and pushing it into the mud. He walked off the job site without another word. “The next day the mason had the wall correct,” May says.
As the firm grew and evolved over the years, hundreds of churches and buildings including the Greenville Chamber of Commerce; the Billy Graham Chapel at the Cove in Black Mountain, North Carolina; and the Brooks Center at Clemson all began as drafts of innovation in the mind of James Neal.
Neal retired in 2005, leaving May in charge. “He wanted to step away at a time when he felt like he left the firm in good hands,” says May, “He was more about making sure that the next generation was going to be able to lead.”
Today the firm has a residential design studio within LS3P of four dedicated architects including Kirsten Schoettelkotte, who says Neal’s legacy is central to her day-to-day work life. “We will say ‘yes’ to anything because of Jim’s perspective on it all. Every client, even if they don’t have a massive budget deserves to have someone who knows a lot about architecture to take a look to see if they can help a little. That was how Jim looked at things.”
Edwards agrees. “He believed that the design of houses was an integral part of making a good design firm into a great design firm, and that all other areas of practice benefited from having residential design work in the office.”
Bottari Residence
designed by James Neal
Prato, a small Tuscan town near Florence, Italy is known for two things: the frescoes in the town’s cathedral by Italian Renaissance artist Filippo Lippi and a textile business dating back to ancient times.
It’s the history of textile production that Prato shares in common with Greenville. For nearly three decades, transplants from the Bottari family have lived in the Upstate, running the US operation of Mariplast. In 1993 Elena’s father, Tiziano, opened a manufacturing plant stateside. First Elena’s brother was tapped to run it, but after five years he moved back to Italy and Elena and Marco were asked if they were interested in taking over. “We thought, maybe a couple of years and still, here we are,” says Marco in his northern Italian accent.
Southern culture grew on the Bottaris. Living in a Cape Cod style house in 2003, it was photos of a James Neal designed home in the Parkins Mill neighborhood that caught their eye. The home was being sold by the original owners and the Bottaris were the first people to see it; they made an offer right away. It wasn’t until they moved in that they learned their home’s architect, James Neal, lived across the street. “It was a pleasant surprise. He shared a lot of information with us,” Marco says.
The Bottaris assured Neal that they wouldn’t change anything about the design of the house and even after Neal’s passing, they have kept their promise. “We really tried to preserve the style as much as we could,” Elena says.
The house rests on an ample landscaped yard abutting a small creek that runs across the home’s impressive glass-lined side. Its orientation ensures that the floor to ceiling windows never cast a glare or take in direct sunlight, making it both energy efficient and attractively lit any time of day.
Neal also designed the plane and levels to compliment the natural rise and fall of the creek’s bed, while the clustered roof continues the blunted cone shapes of the trees that border the backyard. The aesthetic touches were not coincidental, a testament to Neal’s meticulous attention to every detail.
“Each area of the house is totally different,” Elena says. For example, there are two separate rooms that open to the outdoors, but at a completely different level.
The size of the kitchen (small by new construction standards) is the only thing the Bottaris wish was different. They remedied it by adding a grande-size stone pizza oven to the outdoor patio by the garage. The outdoor oven not only offers a more spacious cooking area, but a physical connection to la famiglia as well; the Bottaris had the terracotta pizza slab and custom door imported from their hometown of Prato. It’s the closest they can get to the taste of a Tuscan pie 4,700 miles away.
They also replaced formica counters in the bathrooms with Carrera marble and removed carpet in the master bedroom. New locally milled hardwoods match the original hardwood present throughout the rest of the house, even down to the same oak pegs.
An interesting design feature of the master is separate “his” and “hers” attached bathrooms. “When we bought the house, we thought we would replace them with one bigger bathroom, then we started using them and thought, ‘No, let’s keep it!” Elena says.
Having at least one small space in the home to call their own might be a smart idea, considering the Bottaris run a business together and have known each other since grade school. “My older brother married her older sister, and that’s how I met her,” Marco says.
The Bottaris are excellent caretakers of their historic James Neal-designed home. Last year, they painted the entirety of the exterior, restored all of the wood accents and fixed a drainage problem in the basement.
Their next project will be to redo the driveway and potentially consider solar panels. They drive an electric car and take conservation seriously and Elena holds a natural wildlife habitat certification. “It’s something we care about,” she says, “trying to make improvements where we can for the environment.”
The house does feel a bit emptier now that their sons have moved out of the matching back bedrooms. Today, one room houses a studio desk designed by Rei Kawakubo, founder of the fashion house Comme des Garçons. One-part smooth granite, the other unrefined iron, the table dubbed “Grey Triangle” is a rare piece of experimental high fashion-meets industrial design. According to Elena, only a few were made in the late 1980s.
The table is one of several haute pieces the Bottaris have brought with them from the design houses of Europe, including two chandelier installations designed by famed German designer Ingo Maurer, referred to as the “poet of light.”
Bold lighting fixtures form a welcome contrast to the clean lines and unadorned molding in the rooms. An Italian designed wall-mounted lighting fixture called “The Torch” adorns the brick wall by the front door. “It looks like something from the Middle Ages,” Marco says. The living and dining rooms are furnished with pieces from England, Germany, Spain, Italy and Denmark.
An ornate cabinet in the living room is a 16th century English antique that belonged to Marco’s mother. “We were very concerned to move it from Italy,” he says, but it survived the shipping container undamaged.
The blend of old-world European with the avant-garde in a home grounded in mid-era aesthetics works surprisingly well, yet another reminder that good design is often versatile and timeless. Walking from room to room, it’s hard to believe the home is already fifty years old. “It shows how advanced they were; it’s incredible,” Marco says.
A subtle but useful Neal flourish is a gallery hanging track built into the top molding that runs throughout the home’s common areas. Several large abstract canvases painted by a family friend in Amsterdam hang from it. The couple calls it artfully designed.
“I could see the hand of the architect when I walked in the house,” Marco says, “It has character.”
Zurek Residence
The Home of James Neal
The term “time capsule” entered the public vernacular around 1938, a few years before the mid-century modern home movement would sweep across America, but stepping into James and Rebeca Zurek’s home in Greenville feels like stepping inside a life-sized time capsule. Almost everything in the home, from the curtains to the coasters, is from the mid-century mark. “I don’t think there is anything new in here,” says James.
For the Zureks, a passion for this time period is a way of life. The couple moved in January of 2019 to Greenville from San Diego, where they had lived for 13 years in a mid-century modern home near the beach. Now they rent that home, while enjoying the slower pace and southern hospitality of South Carolina.
They brought their twenty-plus year collection of mid-century ephemera with them; many pieces acquired at the renowned Pasadena Flea Market. “We used to go almost every month,” Rebeca says.
The Zureks looked for homes in Asheville but drives through Greenville revealed the type of home they were hunting for. “We were hip to the fact that there are several homes that have this style in the area,” James says.
One of those homes was architect James Neal’s former residence, a four-bedroom, three and a half bath house Neal designed for his own family. While the Zureks never met Neal personally (he died in 2014) the sellers knew what they had and “were very respectful of the style and didn’t try and make it something it wasn’t,” James says.
The home is a mid-century gem with multi-levels, wrap-around decking and extra designer flourishes like dark trim banding that hides overhead accent lighting (a feature that runs throughout the house.) It’s an ideal stage for the Zurek’s ever-expanding collection of vintage homeware.
Chairs and couches in the living room are from the early fifties, smattering the room in cherry reds and yellow gold. Much of the furniture still has the original upholstery, making the palette accurate to what would have originally been in a mid-century home. “When you look at the original fabrics and materials, there’s color all over the place, in upholstery and wallpaper– color was everywhere. Look at the cars with fins and turquoise and chrome.” James says.
Magazines from the era provide inspiration for the Zurek’s interior decorating. “We’ve got quite a collection of ‘60’s era Better Homes and Gardens and Architectural Digest, plus a lot of Sunset publications,” James says of the iconic California magazine that for over 120 years served as a tastemaker for mid-century design.
Asian artifacts were a popular motif in mid-century American homes. According to an art exhibition at the Asia Society Museum in 2009, the Rockefellers began acquiring pieces from Japan and China in the mid-mod era and by the 1960s had amassed more work from south and southeast Asia for their private collection.
On the Zurek’s bedroom dresser is an antique ceramic sculpture from China depicting a water carrier that they love. “We think we should be the guardians of this stuff. If it’s survived, we think ‘let’s get it’ because who knows what might happen to it?” James says.
James grew up on 50s rock and roll. He and his brother even played together in a popular Rockabilly band back in California called the “Palominos.” The back of the house is a shrine to early rock icons, and many more musicians such as Johnny Cash (whom James met twice). James’ extensive music catalog takes up two whole rooms and includes a working antique record player and a DJ booth where James records his “Gospel Boogie” radio show for Asheville’s WPVM.
Not to be outdone, Rebeca has an impressive collection of vintage Barbies from the 50s and 60s. Rebeca grew up in a mid-century modern home in Tijuana, Mexico. “My house I used to live in as a girl was a mid-century house, with two-tone wood inside and sliding doors,” she says. She knew there was something special about her parents’ home when a nine-year-old boy who was trick-or-treating one year for Halloween said, “Wow, your house is very cool, it looks like the Brady Bunch!”
The Zureks have plans to match and replace the dark trim banding which is missing from the master bedroom. They also put in a pocket door to convert the hallway bathroom into an en-suite to make the guest room more accommodating for overnight visitors.
Original laminate floors have been upgraded to a natural bamboo, which looks especially nice in the sunken den. Neal outfitted the den with a stunning cedar ceiling that continues down the hallway. The fireplace encourages lounging on the Eames chair or curling up in the similarly-low-slung two-seater sofa.
When the Zureks first arrived in Greenville, they discovered a mid-century painting in a local thrift store. It sits in the hallway across from their wedding portrait which, of course, has a vintage frame. But no picture can outdo the almost 180-degree view the Zureks enjoy of the neighboring woods via floor-to-ceiling glass sliders. Neal’s placement of the home’s foundation not only considered available light, but makes the home appear to hover among the trees when standing inside.
James knows his home may not be everyone’s “cup of tea” and he’s comfortable with that. “Whether it’s craftsman, mid-century modern or federalist, I appreciate when people have an interest in a particular style,” he says.
Style is something the Zureks have in abundance: a groovy blend of Googie space age, Southern California, South Pacific and swinging 1960s all neatly tied together in an impeccably designed mid-mod wrapper. And, while James knows they may not need more retro furniture or Sputnik light fixtures, like a true collector, he says with a spark in his eye, “We’re always on the hunt.”
