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This place is so personal for us,” says Atlanta-based interior designer Carolyn Malone of Summershade, the “quietly unassuming” collection of 19th-century cabins she and her nurseryman husband, John, have gathered on 55 acres of former cow pasture in east central Georgia. Together, they have been finessing the idyllic scene as a “work in progress” for the last 48 years.
The dogtrot cabin was the last to be built; it holds the couple’s offices as well as a bedroom and bath.
Laura Resen
A ticking-covered chair provides a rare glimpse of pattern.
Laura Resen
John and Carolyn Malone.
Laura Resen“When John bought the land, the weeds were bigger than our children,” Carolyn explains. The family would go to the farm for day trips and picnics, but after a while, “we wanted a roof over our heads.” On a whim, they bought an 1840s log cabin via a newspaper ad; it arrived from Kentucky on the back of a flatbed truck as a pile of disassembled logs with an instructional diagram. “We had neighbors who were carpenters and masons, so they came over to help us, but with no time frame or deadline, it just went when it went,” she recalls in her upbeat Alabama-raised drawl.
A folding picnic table acts as a desk in Carolyn’s office. The large opening on the back wall was supposed to hold a fireplace, but the Malones turned it into a wood-slat window.
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A fringe tree from the nursery—Carolyn’s favorite—grows outside the entrance to her office.
Laura Resen
A New England newel post becomes an objet d’art in Carolyn’s office. The pendant light is from Bobo Intriguing Objects.
Laura ResenOver the years, four more historical cabins of various sizes have been added; now they have four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms among them. Apart from help with the foundations and the roofs, “we’ve done it all ourselves,” Carolyn says of the patient toil they’ve poured into every window and door, floor and ceiling, table and chair, pendant light and throw cushion for almost half a century. “My husband is miraculous—he’s always been good at making things. We wouldn’t have anything here without him.”
In John’s office, a shade made from a baling basket and grapevines hangs above the table.
Laura ResenCarolyn has filled the cabins with a soothing spectrum of greens, khakis, camels, and creams, and a little bit of black and white. Some spaces lean more rustic, playing off “the texture, coloration, and interest of the logs,” she says; others feel light and airy, “as if floating.” Flea market finds such as portable French produce tables anchoring the main room, a small table fashioned from old horseshoes, and an Alabama pie safe used as a side cabinet (the couple’s first purchase for the original cabin) are mixed with family heirlooms, some freshened with a coat of paint.
A painting of a Magnolia macrophylla by Mary Morant hangs in John’s office.
Laura Resen
Marcel Breuer’s sleek Wassily chair contrasts with the rough-hewn cabin walls and a pierced-tin wall light.
Laura ResenThere are ceramics by local artists and a tuxedo sofa from John’s 1970s apartment alongside light fixtures fashioned from salvaged copper and tin, an inverted baling basket wound with vines, and a bed from a felled cedar tree. “There is nothing fine here—just things we’ve picked up and cared for, but nothing exquisite,” says Carolyn. With few rugs or curtains—“it feels good to know the floors can be swept and the windows can be opened wide”—Carolyn has embraced the sense of freedom in every room that “too much decoration doesn’t allow.”
Fig vines have crept through ceiling cracks in the kitchen cabin, which is connected to the main house via a covered walkway. An old zinc-topped potting table serves as an island, while a curtain of Perennials ticking-striped fabric creates hidden storage under the counter. The copper pendant lights were constructed by John.
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In the kitchen cabin, a beechwood stag’s head hangs above the fireplace, which has an iron bracket to hold pots over the open flame. Stairs lead to a guest room above.
Laura Resen
“In contrast to the rest of the cabins, I wanted this to be a bright and fresh space,” says Carolyn of the primary suite, which she painted white; antique fringed cotton curtains from Louisiana enclose the bed, which John made from cedar trees on the farm.
Laura ResenFig vines that creep in through cracks in the ceiling are welcomed; the designer cuts large branches and flowers from the garden to “bring in color and interest in a different way.” She tried bringing in pattern as well, but apart from a few ticking stripes, “the rooms didn’t seem to want it.”
Carolyn finds the way the cabins sit harmoniously within the landscape comforting. “A friend once said they could feel the stress slipping away when they walked in. I loved that,” she says. Will the project ever be finished? “My husband is 88. I’m 80. John is always thinking of something to do, but really, I’m okay with not doing any more,” Carolyn says.
The antique heart pine beds are from John’s childhood home; the pair of chairs at each end once belonged to Carolyn’s mother and are covered in a Pierre Frey toile from the 1960s. The white quilts are from West Elm and the patterned bed throws are Les Indiennes.
Laura Resen"The logs and wood boards create their own natural pattern and you don’t need a lot in there with it.”
Carolyn Malone
A simple waffle-weave shower curtain surrounds the bathroom’s clawfoot tub. A section of an old balustrade was cut down and painted to make the table lamp.
Laura Resen
Antique French linen napkins that hang from brass cup hooks act as window treatments in the primary bathroom, which was originally part of an older cabin dating to 1824.
Laura ResenAt the end of a long day of work—Carolyn sweeping, gardening, and weeding; John tending to the mature oak, maple, and beech trees he raises for landscaping—the couple walk around Summershade (so named after their first cabin’s original location in Kentucky) “to see what we’ve done, to see the effect of our hands, and to feel good about it,” she says. “The cabins give a lot and ask for very little.”
Lanterns made by John illuminate the breezeway at night.
Laura ResenTHIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 17 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
