with dandridge sterne
Coleman Gutshall, co-founder of DANDRIDGE STERNE
DANDRIDGE STERNE was founded by Coleman and Tiffany Gutshall. We are passionate about architecture, interiors, and fine living. We aren’t design professionals, but we are always on the hunt for inspiration for our home and life. Coleman is an executive in the furniture industry and, before deciding to be a full-time mother to our two children, Tiffany was in higher education. We live in North Carolina in an historic Georgian Revival called Knollwood, that brims with inspiring architectural details and a plethora of home improvement projects.
Design Philosophy:
Tiff and I believe that houses are first and foremost for living and should reflect the personalities and needs of their owners. I don’t want to live in a show house or museum, and I don’t think most others do either. They’re fun to look at and get ideas, but that doesn’t mean they fit our needs.
Also, homes should evolve over time as a family’s needs and interests change and grow. Our house in a work in progress, and I love that.
How does your home embody this philosophy?
Growing up, I remember our house being quite formal, yet we used every inch of it. We had breakfast each morning in a sunny east-facing breakfast room. My father enjoyed his coffee, and we watched the evening news, in his library, and you could always find my mother reading books on a well-worn wing back in the large bay window of our living room. We played cards or colored at the dining room table and banged out newly formed masterpieces on the piano.
We had a family room with lots of cabinetry where our toys were meant to stay, but our house was hardly child-proofed. It was filled with oriental rugs, family antiques and art on the walls. I can’t say we were always perfect, or that some of those antiques didn’t have to get touched up from time to time, but the whole house was our playground and we learned from a young age how to properly navigate it.
With our own family today (7 yo girl and 2 yo boy), we’re lucky to have a lot of space, and with our house being old, a lot of spaces. We’ve striven to achieve the same lived-in effect, and we’ve made design choices to reflect that.
Our breakfast table is glass so it can easily be wiped down after morning cereal or an errant crayon streak. We tucked a TV into the bookshelves of our cozy library, so in the cold months, we can watch Disney movies together by the fire. And we often eat dinner in our dining room so we can get away from the clutter of the kitchen and focus on each other. It’s not perfect – there is usually a TV on somewhere playing Mickey Mouse or Bluey, and Tiff and I spend too much time on our phones – but, like my childhood home, the whole house is our playground.
Our dining room with Sheraton hunt board, Imari plates, and silver service, mid-century T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings chairs, Visual Comfort lamps, and portrait by Anna Jarrell.
We’ve incorporated furniture from our parents and grandparents and bought some fine pieces of our own. We’ve rearranged things, added and taken away as our family has grown. A home should never be “done,” and our house is a comfortable work in progress.
How would you define “fine living” or “living the good life”
Childhood memories aren’t of the paint colors or the fabric choices, they’re of what we did together and how we felt. They’re of things like trips to the beach or playing cards by candlelight during a thunderstorm.
Tiffany and our daughter at a Colorado ghost town.
Now as parents, we focus on memories and experiences. When our daughter was four, we took a summer trip to Aspen which she still talks about. But she also still laughs about the time last summer when I slipped and fell playing with her in the sprinkler. The first time we took our son to the zoo, we marveled more at his awe-struck face in front of the gorillas than at the animals themselves. We fondly remember these things, big and small, and that is proof of “living the good life”.
Inspiration currently?
Travel is always an inspiration.
I’m fascinated by history and inspired by art and craft, both contemporary and historic.
Tiff and I were recently in London and spent lots of time in the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum, which has us thinking of all things Egyptian. We’re about to redo our powder room and have decided to wallpaper it in the fabulous Hatshepsut pattern by Pierre Frey.
Powder room by R Runberg with Pierre Frey’s Hatshepsut wallpaper.
On a golf trip to Scotland with my father and brother, I saw Delft tiles used to line a fireplace at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, which was common during Georgian times. I’m working with Mary-Frances Carter to design tiles reflecting our roots in Virginia and North Carolina to line the fireplace in our library at home.
While in India, I picked up some beautiful little paintings that tell the story of the Buddha for a currently bare-walled guest room.
We’re lucky to have a family mountain house near the Greenbrier, and every visit has us looking at how to beef up our moldings and pattern choices at home.
The technicolor glory of Dorothy Draper’s interiors at The Greenbrier.
When we aren’t traveling, we love visiting shops that bring the world to us. In Charlotte, near where we live, we like Circa, Heritage Curated Décor & Antiques, and R Runberg Curiosities. In New York, Creel & Gow, John Derian, and The Gallery at 200 Lex are always on our hit-list. For antiques, we love three shops in a row in Charlottesville, VA – Helen Storey Antiques, Comer & Co, and Kenny Ball Antiques – as well as Gilded Age Antiques in Banner Elk, NC, and of course 1st Dibs. And in our old hometown of Roanoke, VA, Present Thyme is always inspiring.
Also, the internet is fabulous for armchair traveling – given that we collect contemporary photography, we love browsing sites like Artsy and galleries like Jackson Fine Art, Yossi Milo and Yancey Richardson.
Good art and design, whether contemporary or antique, American, European or Asian, work well together. Tiff and I train our eyes by looking and then trust our eyes. Our home is eclectic because of that, but somehow it works.
Moving forward, we’ll be sharing the work and opinions of design creatives much more skilled than we are. I hope you’ll follow along, and get some great ideas on how to create a “good life” at home.
Cheers,
Coleman Gutshall (aka Dandridge Sterne)