Caribbean outpost in East Cobb

Whether it’s a condo styled a la Crate & Barrel or a marble-and-chandelier-filled McMansion, every home tells a story about the lives and aspirations of its owners.

In the case of Echo and Kevin Garrett, their East Cobb abode is more like a mirror reflecting everything they’ve lived and love.

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SEAN DRAKES/Special

Kevin Garrett, a photographer, has filled the home with art. ‘I wanted to create a house that was a real backdrop for [Kevin’s] work,’ Echo Garrett says.

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SEAN DRAKES/Special

Seashells and colored glass overlook a garden with tropical plants.

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When the couple moved here in 1996, their career focus was the Caribbean. Together, Echo, 48, a writer, and Kevin, 50, a photographer, produced three guidebooks on the area. Now, with two teenage boys, they’ve moved on to other projects — he shoots for hotels and company ads and sells his fine art; she’s writing memoirs. But their home, a three-bedroom under 3,000 square feet, recalls their island days.

In fact, it’s kind of like a Caribbean outpost in Georgia.

Brightly colored doorways with crystal knobs, walls painted to affect nature and a collection of Kevin’s artwork mixed with family heirlooms from their Southern roots fill their home with the magic of a faraway place and the warmth of memories.

Take, for example, the kitchen — what Echo calls “the heart of our home.”

“We wanted it to look like you were driving through the banana plantations of St. Lucia really fast,” Echo says. They tried to describe to their painter “the blur of color that you would see.”

The result is a room walled with the whirring color of a not quite ripe banana. Anchoring the space is her parent’s broad table crafted from the gnarled wood of century-old California grapevines. It’s topped with an old “biscuit bowl” owned by Kevin’s family since before the Civil War. The eclectic decor includes chairs from India and a lamp from Morocco along with relics from Kevin’s childhood, like a framed collection of the arrowheads he used to dig up with his father after a good rainfall on Saturday mornings.

A deep bay window has shelves adorned with seashells and starfish and overlooks a fenced-in garden (where tropical plants bloom in the summer) and a deck painted a pale blue color common to the Caribbean, she says. Adding to the rustic, wind-blown effect are blue and yellow patio chairs from each of their grandmothers.

The couple found that the Caribbean, with its influences from Europe and Asia, fit their “aesthetic of just having an eclectic blend of design styles,” Echo says. At the same time, “I wanted to create a house that was a real backdrop for [Kevin’s] work,” she says.

It’s about “blending our world with that of the people who we love and have gone before us,” Echo explains — “a really profound thing.”

The look: Caribbean casual and, with all that color, very happy.

Favorite room: The living room, in large part, because it contains the varied artwork of her husband, Echo says. “It makes me happy; I’m just really proud of him because he’s self-taught on everything.” The room was designed to complement her husband’s mixed-media piece featuring photos of ostriches in Curacao. It hangs over a mantel painted “French marine blue” that pops against the hue of the walls, which were painted to look like a sunset.

Innovative design: The first-floor bathroom features the “fossilized” look the couple had seen in billionaire Richard Branson’s home on Necker Island. The walls were “stamped” with tropical leaves from their garden, and the Jamaican limestone floor contains fossilized shells. They also affixed shells to a sconce to recreate a look they’d seen at a Jamaican resort.

Tips for good living: The Garretts love re-creating designs that inspired them in their travels. “A lot of times, you hear people say, ‘I love that and I wish I had that at home,’ ” she says. “Well if there’s a way to do that at home or mimic it in some way, why not?”

Echo also suggests “looking at things with a fresh eye” by considering whether an unused family item would work with your style. “We have history from our families incorporated into our home as well as just what we consider the best of our travels,” she says. “We’ve built a life together, and our home reflects that.”