enchanted garden

June 5th 2012 Comments: 17

When the collaboration is at its best, your host offers himself up and, in the end, teaches you more.  Such was the case of this client and his Lake Martin, Alabama home.   He came prepared for our first meeting with scores of sketches and even more ideas.  With this … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Gardens

ascending order

May 29th 2012 Comments: 4

On the contrary, stairs can be fluid, poetic gestures in the architectural landscape, waiting patiently to whisk you away. The act of ascending (or descending) stairs is really a vertical crossroads in the journey. Traversing to another viewpoint; a new perspective is added to the walk. Crawl atop to the … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Giles Home

on finding home

May 22nd 2012 Comments: 5

I rest along the way in this beautifully set camp of my making But it is only a marker of what I know now it is not meant to hold For I love to fall through water in the moments when rush parts And brushes back to touch and accept … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Fireplace

giveaway

May 15th 2012 Comments: 72

Thanks for being so interested in our ramblings, musings and images. To show gratitude to our readers, we’d like to welcome spring with our first giveaway. Everybody loves beautiful weather, budding life and free stuff. The prize is our little book, “Finding Home” (uncoincidentally the name of this blog ). … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Finding Home

changing hands

May 8th 2012 Comments: 3

This is not the rule; it’s actually a rare exception. Over the past 30 years we’ve had hundreds of our houses trade hands and it’s always interesting to watch into whose hands they fall. In the early 1990s, we designed a large, contemporary home for a couple on a difficult … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Press

redefining dining

May 1st 2012 Comments: 5

The dining room. It’s the space we were traditionally made to sit up straight and behave for a few excrutiating hours during holiday dinners.  It’s also the room we couldn’t wait to leave.  I think it’s because we seldom go in there; it’s simply not on our daily radar. Sometimes … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Gwinn Home

(Our) Houses of Veranda

April 24th 2012 Comments: 3

It’s a spectacular folio spotlighting homes from Veranda’s 25 year history in the publishing world. We are honored and humbled to have three of our homes included in this book. Two are located in Nashville, Tennessee and the third one is a second home in Rosemary Beach, Florida. We’d like … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Design Details

marrakech expressions

April 18th 2012 Comments: 3

No these aren’t scenes from HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones”. These are scenes I witnessed within the first thirty minutes of entering the souk (market) in the medina (city) in Marrakech last week. This ancient Moroccan city is claustrophobically compressed with indescribable textures, colors, odors and exoticisms. Being lost … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Travel

inspired life

April 10th 2012 Comments: 0

As a designer, that’s a question you get asked a lot. Truthfully, inspiration can be found everywhere: travel, poetry, songs, films… you name it. We tend to collect bits of life like magpies and store them away until the right recipient is sitting in front of us. The thing that … [read more]

McAlpine Journal: Home Architect

rock of ages

April 3rd 2012 Comments: 2

Maybe it recalls a time when a hole carved in the living rock was our ancestor’s first shelter. Whatever the call, being blanketed in the permanence of stone is like being embraced by the earth itself. Creating the look of an aged stone house in modern-day construction is always a … [read more]

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