The couple—a busy, high-powered CEO and her retired husband—loved many things about the property at first sight. Visiting friends in South Carolina, they fell for Lake Keowee and its mountain setting. When they found the stone-covered 10,000-square-foot shorefront house, the two were ready to choose it as their ultimate retirement haven.
But first, a few changes had to be made. That’s where Cynthia Masters, founder and creative director of the Greenville-based interior design firm Panageries, came in.
“They loved the quality of the home,” says Masters. “The husband loved all the stone on the exterior and inside. He loved the heavy timbers. He loved the solidity and the masculinity of the home.”
Husband and wife also loved the capacious rooms with high ceilings, deeming it perfect for the way they would live and entertain. They saw plenty of room for children and grandchildren to visit, and space where an elderly relative could live.
But they also saw a lot they didn’t love.
“A lot of the design decisions made by the previous homeowners, who built the house, really didn’t work,” Masters says. “The walls were gold, and many of them were heavily faux-finished. All of the beams, the timbers, the windows, the doors, the paneling, the molding, even the floors were staying a sort of burnt orange, and that just did not align with [the new owners’] taste. We really stripped things down to the bare bones and built back from there.”
The goal: Casual elegance and rustic masculinity with some understated feminine touches.
“That juxtaposition was our directive the entire time,” says Masters. “If we kept something that was heavy or masculine, we would add in something that felt feminine and played with that back-and-forth.”
Designing a Generational Home
The designer and her team stained the timbers, beams, and doors a rich brown and installed new white-oak floors similarly stained. Off-white paint on most of the paneling helped offset the robust, dark woodwork. Taking inspiration from the tonal colors of the stonework, Masters developed a palette of lighter tones that she added to other features inside and outside. Throughout, Masters weaved her own signature touches and design motifs that helped unite the spaces aesthetically.
The result is a home that the owners plan to keep in the family for generation after generation.
“With the interiors we create, we’re careful not to give them a ‘born-on’ or a potential expiration date,” Masters says. “We try to select things that are classic and timeless. When clients are doing these high-end homes and spending money to create these beautiful interiors, we want to make sure that they’ve got a lot of long life in them, and I feel like this one will withstand the test of time.”
Panageries Digital Tour
Exterior
The exterior of their Lake Keowee shorefront house already featured architectural stonework that the new homeowners loved. Cynthia Masters and her team “got rid of a lot of orange tones” by painting the trim and shutters, re-staining wood, adding new light fixtures, and cleaning up the metal doors. The designer pulled her palette from the tonal colors—blush, salmon, and copper—from the stone and used many of the same hues inside to complement the weighty darkness of the woodwork.
Great Room
In the home’s great room, Masters stained the timbers and beams a dark brown while maintaining the original stonework. Ceramics and pottery, tactile fabrics, and furnishings made of iron and wood help keep the space from being “too formal, too elevated,” she says. “We wanted it to feel not rustic, but natural and comfortable and casually elegant.” On the face of the room’s bookshelves, Masters included the diamond pattern that appears as a design motif throughout the house.
Kitchen
Masters’ diamond motif subtly asserts itself again in the kitchen, as seen in the herringbone backsplash and the island’s door panels. “The room just naturally wanted to be dark,” says Masters, who met the challenge by painting cabinets off-white and bouncing available light off of reflective surfaces. The stainless-steel Wolf Sub-Zero appliances and the island’s pewter countertop also helps “keep the space from being too heavy,” she says. High ceilings allow more cabinet space, and a library ladder provides access to the upper reaches.
Primary Bedroom
In the home’s primary bedroom, Masters again stained the wooden beam a dark brown while painting the tongue-in-groove ceiling a white color matching the trim. The diamond pattern motif makes an understated appearance on the coverlet and in the ceiling light fixture, and the kitchen’s salmon color is used again here. Acorn-shaped pulls on the bureau add to the organic feel of the space.
Office
For a home office for a female CEO in what Masters describes as “a very manly business,” the designer again kept the heavy timbers a dark brown while using furnishings with more elegance and curves—“almost a fretwork feeling,” she says. Velvet fabrics add some reflectivity and botanicals and other elements provide more feminine grace notes.
Primary Bedroom
A copper tub in the primary bathroom was another way for Masters to lighten a room by utilizing reflective surfaces.
Powder Room
In the powder room, Masters created a custom vanity with a stained maple base and solid limestone counter and sink. The faucets and sconce are set directly into an ingenious herringbone arrangement of antique mirror tiles, bringing reflectivity to the space. “It feels like it’s been there forever,” Masters says.
Lower Level
In what was originally a full kitchen and dining room on the lower level below the main kitchen, Masters created a space with a pub “for the husband to entertain his golf buddies—a pool-playing, whiskey-sipping hangout.” The aesthetic balance definitely tips toward heavy masculine tones here, but light touches such as the limestone tile floor and copper bar top keep the area from being overwhelmingly dark. The lower level also boasts a bedroom with an ensuite bath and a bunkroom that sleeps eight—perfect for a couple who plans to entertain lots of family and other guests.
