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Three years ago, Colorado-born model Taylor Hill was considering buying her first Manhattan apartment. Then a fateful visit to see a friend in Nashville changed everything. “I was like, What is this city? I loved it,” says Hill. “And I started looking for houses then.”
After being underwhelmed by other homes on the market, Hill was stopped in her tracks when she stepped inside what ended up being her dream home—a rustic-looking 1936 log cabin with a rich Nashville pedigree. It was built by Wold | HFR Design, the architecture firm responsible for renovating iconic local buildings, including the Ryman Auditorium and the Parthenon.
Hill’s house sits back from the street on a lush, tree-filled 1.29-acre corner lot, with thick bamboo groves shielding the home from the busy 12South neighborhood just blocks away. With abundant outdoor living space and a shaded pool, it’s a verdant oasis in what has become one of the country’s quickest growing cities.
Inside, the 3,622-square-foot, four-bedroom home has a warm mountain vibe that recalls the architecture prevalent in Hill’s native Rockies. “That’s a reason I felt so connected to this house,” she explains. “When I walked in here, I thought, This is like home.”
Entering through the front door—a pop of red on the otherwise classic cabin construction—visitors land in a cozy living room featuring exposed log-and-mortar walls, original oak floors, and a fireplace surrounded by a stacked stone mantle. “I call it the Ralph Lauren room because it reminds me of Ralph’s Telluride house,” she says. “I’ve never been, but I’m obsessed with it.”
New purchases like fuzzy shearling-covered chairs from Pottery Barn and a brown leather Chesterfield sofa by Sarreid mingle with an eclectic mix of secondhand finds and family hand-me-downs. “There are things from all over,” Hill says. However, “all of the art is from Nashville—some pieces are by local artists and some are from antique stores.” The majority of the rugs used throughout the home are from the Southern Loom, an antique rug company in Austin that Hill found on Instagram.
Hill is far from pretentious when it comes to her decor scheme. Affordable furniture sourced via Google searches shares space with family heirlooms and finer antiques. Her furniture resources range from RH to Walmart, and the sheepskins she scatters throughout the home come from Costco. “They make great ones,” Hill says. “You don’t have to spend a million dollars to make things look cool, so I tried not to.”
She didn’t use an interior designer, preferring to follow her own instincts—and the guidance of her mother, Jennifer. “My mom has always done our homes from the bottom up by herself,” Hill says. “I remember vividly coming home from school and seeing mom in her denim overalls, just painting the entire house all by herself. I learned how to ‘do it myself’ from her.”
The living room flows into the dining room, which initially challenged Hill’s design chops. “It was empty for like a year. I waited forever to put it together. But once I started finding things, it all just kind of exploded. And the next thing I knew, it was completely done.”
One of the main missions: finding a round table, without leaves, to comfortably sit her visiting family members, often a group of 10. “I love a round table because everybody can see each other, and nobody feels like they’re at the end of the table or left out,” she says.
Hill ultimately scored a new reclaimed oak table from Riverside Franklin, a home store outside Nashville. She picked up the mismatched chairs from the well-loved local antique store Patina + Co. and the Nashville Flea Market and had her mother spray-paint them with Rust-Oleum’s Midnight Blue.
Elsewhere, Hill’s late grandmother’s Blue Willow china fills two corner cabinets, yard sale finds she painted white. On the walls, copper frames surround the home’s original cerulean blueprints, signed by the architects. “When I saw them, I was like, You know where those would look good? In my giant, empty, white-walled dining room,” Hill laughs.
In contrast to the shadowy front rooms, the giant den that occupies the home’s innermost corner provides a blast of sunshine. “The living and dining rooms are dark and cozy, and then there’s this big, modern space,” Hill says of the room, a 588-square-foot ’80s addition that has two long walls of windows. Her challenge: finding a throughline with paint. A glossy coat of Naval by Sherwin-Williams covers a wall of built-in shelves, filled with books, bar accouterments, and her collection of elephants, which Hill says is her spirit animal.
An oversized RH couch provides lounging space. “This is where we watch movies and have morning hangouts when my whole family’s here,” Hill says. “The couch is 13 by 9 feet and people still have to sit on the floor.” Poufs, pillows, and throws from brands like Hermès, Pendleton, and Ugg help make it a cozier endeavor.
Upstairs, the airy primary bedroom is anchored by a metal bed by Novogratz that Hill found on Wayfair. “I love it in here,” she says. “I wanted this room to feel very mountain-y. I wake up and I feel like I’m on vacation in a log cabin.” The bedside tables and rug were scored from Dealer’s Choice, a nearby auction house.
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Heading out of the primary bedroom, visitors pass a pleasantly incongruous modern black-and-white striped bathroom (“I call it the Beetlejuice room,” says Hill) on their way to the main event, Hill’s closet: a light-filled, pink jolt of femininity.
“This room is girly: It reminds me to not wear black every day,” she says of the space, with its pink chairs (scores from Chairish) and a wood floor layered with more rugs. “I come in here and I’m like, let’s have fun.”
Hill wanted her closet to look like a store, with everything on view, which meant no doors and no drawers. Sundresses and dressier pieces—luxurious gifts from some of the many high-fashion designers she’s worked with—hang near exposed shelves holding vintage cowboy boots and designer bags. But the pièce de résistance is across the room: Hill’s personal denim bar, where dozens of pairs of jeans hang from tree branches instead of metal rods. She gives credit for the tree concept to Moo Country, a store in nearby Leipers Fork. Hill scouted the vintage walking sticks at Nashville’s monthly flea market.
Like other models of her status, Taylor Hill travels—a lot. The pandemic gave her a great excuse to spend time getting to know her new home, a well-known landmark for local architecture buffs. “Everybody kind of knows about it,” she muses. “A lot of people have been through here at some point in their lives. I love feeling like a part of it.”
