In Site Designs lead residential Designer Chisana Hice-Smith creates a room around a special piano
Like the last notes of a lively concert, a special piano was the pivotal coda in Chisana Hice-Smith’s design of her clients’ downtown Greenville condo.
Yet the In Site Designs lead residential designer didn’t know about the musical instrument’s unique history until the end of the lengthy project. An antique Foster & Co. baby grand piano that dates to the mid-1800s, it once sat in the historic Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Iconic musicians Billy Joel and Sir Elton John have tickled its ivories.
It somehow made its way to a local piano store, where the music-loving homeowners found and purchased it. Not only did it bring back memories of past concerts they experienced at the Fox, but it also connected them to John, a favorite musician.
Having a piano in the condo was a wish list item they’d voiced when “we were conceptualizing their floor plan with the architect,” Hice-Smith says. She initially sourced one in an oxblood lacquer finish to make a statement. During the furniture selection presentation, the couple told her about their find, but they kept the piano’s provenance from her, only revealing that they had recently purchased a walnut one.
“The fact that it was antique was hidden from me as a surprise,” says Hice-Smith, an antiques aficionado. “The piano installers told me the age of the piece during the installation, and the client told me the rest of its story when we were celebrating the reveal of their finished space.”
Insite Designs Hits the Right Notes
Paired with a locally made, hammered-brass and woven-linen bench draped with a cashmere throw, the piano now commands a corner of an expansive room that includes the kitchen, dining space, and living area. Meant for both entertaining and relaxing, it features panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains from multiple floor-to-ceiling windows.
Brick-covered walls and tile floors meant to look like concrete, along with polished nickel elements and cozy custom seating, create the “feeling of a Brooklyn loft,” Hice-Smith says, adding that the stained white oak ceilings “bring warmth to the space to balance the brick walls and tile flooring.”
The piano’s circular decorative carvings, sculpted legs with metal details, and rich walnut finish add another layer to the room’s juxtaposition of soft, transitional pieces with a contemporary three-sided open fireplace made of custom hot-rolled steel and concrete. Overhead, a plaster and polished-nickel chandelier from Visual Comfort diffuses “light around the piano versus shining directly on it,” Hice-Smith says.
While it doesn’t get played, the piano has been tuned and is dusted regularly to keep it glistening. “It truly was always about it being sculptural in the room,” she says. “It’s its own beautiful destination. It draws you in.”
