Private Quarters: A peek inside metro Atlanta’s finest homes: Castleberry loft a happy fusion of eras

Nothing says fixer-upper like a converted loft.

When done well, it evokes a modern nest grounded in history and authenticity. And Ian and Holli Hines Easton’s Castleberry Hill home captures the beauty in joining old with new.

In 1996, when Ian, a partner with the Norcross-based IT company Canvas Systems, bought the 2,800-square-foot condo, he gutted the place “down to the studs,” leaving some original beams and flooring of what he says was an old Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid factory. Together with his stepfather, B.J. Sharp, a local builder who specializes in renovation, they designed the space, fitting it with and around an industrial staircase they designed. The project involved off-site manufacturing and a crane to deliver it, in sections, through a downstairs window.

The home’s first level, which features the original flooring and exposed brick, houses a clean, white Bulthaup kitchen and several signature pieces throughout the great room that blend decorating periods and styles. For example, the seating area includes a set of square Minotti sofas paired with re-covered Louis XIV-style chairs that belonged to Ian’s grandmother. Above a custom-made oversize steel and travertine coffee table hangs a bronze chandelier by the French designer Herve Van der Straeten that looks both hip and slightly medieval.

Topping a console are red lamps by Christopher Spitzmiller, whose clients have included President George W. Bush and Oprah Winfrey.

Surrounding the staircase are abstract works from local artists David Peterson, Woody Cornwell and Ian’s mother, Rosemary Sharp, a fourth-generation Atlantan.

The first threshold leads to an open sitting room, to the right, which the couple calls its “Zen den.”

Here, a splash of fuchsia, orange and aqua adorn a low Roche-Bobois sofa and mobs of pillows that seem to make standing a lost cause. True to its nickname, this room —- with its wall-hung Indonesian bed frame, for example —- carries an Asian influence that reflects the couple’s lives. They were married by a Shambhala high priestess, and Ian’s mother and stepfather are Buddhist.

But this room also seems the home’s most casual quarters. Propped against the wall is a simple photo collage of friends and family members and special moments, such as a shot of Holli running the Pikes Peak Marathon in Colorado (she’s run 14). There are rows of brown and blue canvas magazine holders from West Elm, and a drawing of a lion from Ian’s childhood home. The family had found the piece, dating to the 1800s, in the basement of their Brooklyn brownstone. “It’s got all the original energy to it,” said Holli, 37 and vice president of an ad agency, Origen Partners.

Across the hall, the master suite fuses modern and worn elements with elegance. An acrylic-legged sofa by Philippe Starck is flanked by antique French side tables with gold leafing. These came from Belvedere, a local decorating haunt of theirs. A pastel rug that Ian’s great-grandmother had custom-made in France blankets the original wood floor.

Topping their home like the dollop of whipped cream you didn’t expect, a rooftop terrace features a bar and hot tub and Japanese trees below a canopy of sails that provide shade. “They are function first and form second,” Ian, 38, said of the sail system. The same could be said for the entire home.

> Coolest feature: Windows cut from an interior bathroom onto the atrium to let in natural light.

But if you ask Ian, it’s the stairwell, what he calls “the spinal cord of the space.” It also connected the first floor to the skylight. Previously, the great room “felt very cavelike,” he said.

> Decorating style: “Eclectic, definitely,” Ian said.

> Future project: The couple is in the midst of moving to make room for a baby on the way. Ian says they’re working to “re-create a space equally as amazing in a single-family house.”

> Tips for good living: In life and in decorating, Ian said: “Pick your battles.”

And which ones are worth picking?

“The ones I can win,” he said, with a chuckle.