Dreaming in Colour

Designer Grant Gribble lives the way in which he designs—with fashionable charisma and joie de vivre.

Ensconced within the Edgewater Heights space of School Park, inside designer Grant Gribble and Jack Hanson, proprietor of The Melrose Company, reside amid environment of self-expression. It’s the guiding pressure of the décor of their house and their store—expression of the colourful variety.

“Folks truly ask me if I dream in colour, and that’s a good query, as a result of every part I do design-wise is influenced by my love for colour. You step into my home or any home I’ve designed, and that resonates instantly,” says Gribble.

Collage Dwelling, the couple’s house décor and life-style store on Edgewater Drive, is an entry level into Gribble’s creativeness, providing locals the chance to rethink their interiors, whether or not or not Gribble is their designer. The store’s tagline? It’s the combo, not the match.

“The shop is a collage, very like my house, and we match issues collectively that you just may not consider will work till you see it. So the shop reveals individuals one other mind-set about rooms—it isn’t only a place to purchase issues,” he says.

A curated assortment at Collage Dwelling, the Edgewater Avenue store.

Adjoining to the store is Gribble’s design headquarters. The agency, Gribble Inside Group, was based by his mom, Alice Gribble, who nonetheless has an lively function. In 2012, Gribble and Hanson purchased the constructing and the corporate, with Hanson directing enterprise growth. Whereas they’re rising in new instructions, they proceed to attract inspiration from the inspiration Alice constructed. And when sitting and speaking with mom and son, it’s obvious the place Grant inherited his ardour for interiors and his fantastic means with shoppers. 

Transferring ahead, Gribble Inside Group plans to place extra emphasis on industrial and hospitality work.“Folks need their places of work to have extra of a residential really feel as an alternative of being chilly and stark, so who higher to design these areas than somebody who has such a protracted historical past of residential design?” asks Hanson. With the addition of Collage Dwelling and the expanded vary of business providers, Gribble Inside Group will proceed to fulfill adventurous design palates in Central Florida and past. 

The character of those design adventures is completely portrayed by Gribble and Hanson’s home. From the surface, the pink Spanish manse is demure, tidy, even conventional. Formed hedges and topiary, neatly planted blooms and standard Florida timber like magnolia and palm compose the panorama. However inside, a cacophony of colour awaits. Each floor and object sings out like a wonderful choir demanding to be heard.

From the house’s facade to the lobby and bedrooms, Gribble mixes colour, patterns and prints.

Within the lobby, Gribble begins his tour, like he has many occasions earlier than. He factors out the ceiling fixture with matching sconces, whereas he and Hanson inform the story of how they discovered the lights on a shopping for journey in Atlanta. “We had been sitting within the showroom, and I regarded up above the desk the place we had been, and stated, ‘That chandelier would look superb in our lobby,’ ” says Hanson. 

Then there’s the massive majolica compote bowl, one in every of Hanson’s favorites; the grand piano; the distinctive wall coverings—all of them include tales. The couple is particularly keen on the desk lamps on both aspect of the entryway to the remainder of the home. Unique Agathon Leonard gilt items from the flip of the century, the lamps are Artwork Nouveau “Scarf Dancers,” original after the American theatrical dancer Loïe Fuller. The unique sculpture was displayed on the 1900 World’s Truthful in Paris.

 Wherever your eye falls in the home, there’s an object, print or materials with a historical past of its personal. Pulling these tales collectively to type one grand symphony is the magic of Gribble’s design work. 

“After we had the open home for the Dwelling Builder’s Affiliation, and we had been on the Parade of Houses, I used to be standing on the door, and Grant was doing what Grant does, give the excursions, which he likes to do,” says Hanson. “What individuals have stated again and again is that you just stroll right into a room, and you’ll simply by no means think about that the subsequent room may really feel prefer it matched with the final room, as a result of they’re all so completely different. But one way or the other, all of it goes collectively, and makes you are feeling such as you’re at house.”

Within the neighborhood, their home is named the Reynolds house. William Reynolds, a earlier proprietor, whereas not the unique proprietor of the home, was the brother of R. J. Reynolds, the tobacco magnate. William was essentially the most prestigious of all of the householders, so the home bears his title. 

Earlier than shopping for the Reynolds house, Gribble and Hanson lived throughout the road. However they knew they needed the home and waited for it to come back in the marketplace. Finally, they grew to become the fortunate new homeowners, “however we couldn’t transfer in for a yr as a result of a lot work needed to be performed,” says Gribble. 

Fifteen years later, they couldn’t be extra settled in. Each room is a small universe, designed to the hilt with no floor left untouched.

Gribble approached every room intentionally and regarded its perform, the items he and Hanson already had or had been keen to herald, the infinite catalog of colour and textile swatches amassing in his mind, and the feelings he needed every house to elicit. And the rooms have morphed by way of the years to accommodate new acquisitions and concepts.

When Gribble or Hanson uncover a bit they will’t reside with out on one in every of their shopping for journeys, they could must rethink a room’s décor to accommodate it, or simply change out a couple of gadgets. All the things’s in play; the home has change into the designer’s laboratory.

The yard encompasses a Mediterranean-style fountain, a swimming pool, and fanciful elf sculptures.

The identical will be stated for Collage Dwelling. As a result of Gribble is in New York each month to buy shoppers—in addition to in Atlanta, Excessive Level, N.C., and furnishings reveals across the nation—his publicity to furnishings and décor is intensive. A lot of what he sees could not match his shoppers’ tasks, however he is aware of that the items will probably discover a house if he buys them. A few of these items go straight to his home, however many land on the store. There, they’re staged in vignettes that frequently rotate and refresh, suggestive of a designerly life-style. Spending time with Gribble and exploring the locations he creates, it’s onerous to withstand reimagining your personal house as a greater, extra attention-grabbing model of itself.