It started with the slate roof.
Keenan Nix was driving past a turn-of-the-century home in Atlanta’s East Lake neighborhood and struck by the roof’s beauty. His wife, Danielle, wasn’t as impressed by the unoccupied home with no heat and no air.
“There was no appeal to me. It was very cold, drab and old,” she said.
But Keenan believed it was a signature piece of property in the historic neighborhood.
“That’s what I told my wife: ‘All it needs is love and money. We’ve got a lot of love and a little money,’ ” he said. “I promised her, ‘If you would be patient with me, I would restore it to its former glory.’ And she trusted me.”
The couple raised their children in the DeKalb County fixer upper, which they spent 20 years restoring.
Snapshot
Residents: Keenan and Danielle Nix, now are empty nesters. Keenan is an attorney with Morgan & Morgan Atlanta.
Location: Atlanta's East Lake neighborhood
Size: 4,500 square feet, five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths
Year built/bought: 1906/1994
Architectural style: Tudor Revival
Favorite architectural elements: Limestone fireplace, oak hardwood floors and door casings, and stained oak coffered ceilings. "All of those things were well preserved but only important if you were looking at the house with a vision for the future. In the meantime, everything needed work," Keenan said.
Project consultants: Interior designer Donna Campbell of Donna Campbell Home; Rebecca Fincher of J. Tribble; John Gilbert of John Wesley Hammer Construction; Greg Deaver of Deaver and Associates Construction; Joe Bahamonde; Jane Bath, retired owner of Land Arts Nursery and Garden
Renovations: "The home had basically been unoccupied or marginally occupied for probably 20 years," Keenan said. The kitchen stove had been used to heat the home. They first installed central air and central heat, removed the asbestos boiler in the basement and did an asbestos abatement. Then they began the slow, tedious restoration process. The home has been completely renovated in four phases. The master bedroom and bathroom and carriage house were completed in spring 2015. The home was on the 2015 East Lake Tour of Homes.
Interior design style: Classic traditional
Favorite outdoor elements: Keenan designed the formal English gardens and installed the plants on the 1.4-acre lot. The property was so overgrown that they originally didn't see a 20-foot handcrafted stone fireplace, four terraces and granite stone walls. "Once you saw there were four terraces, then you had the outline for the garden in those four terraces. Then it evolved," Keenan said. A pool and water features join over 150 varieties of perennial plants and shrubs that bring in color year-round. He dedicated the garden to his mother, Yolanda Nix Jackson, who died in 2001.
Resources: Furniture and lighting from Lamp Arts, Joseph Konrad, Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts and Circa Lighting. Wallcoverings by Zuber & Cie. Garden art from JAM'n Designs and Intown Ace Garden Center.
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