“I was looking for a place in the downtown area, and I fell in love with this house,” says Tracie Calfee-Dalton, at ease on the first floor of her Battery Place pied-à-terre, a brick carriage house built less than a decade ago by TG Edwards Construction.
Though relatively new, the home’s traditional facade blends well with the neighborhood’s otherwise historic homes, but Tracie has made the interior undeniably her own with a flourish of taste that kowtows neither to tradition nor to anyone but herself. “This place is specifically to make me happy,” she says. “My style has definitely grown over the years, and I feel this home is a reflection of that. I made very personal choices here.”
Designer Jimmy Adams of Nell’s signed on to help translate Tracie’s style into a tableau of uncommon furnishings and excellent use of space. “We started new. The footprint of the house was done very well, but there were changes she needed to make,” says Jimmy. Tracie used her home’s characteristic floor plan wisely, allocating the main level apartment for a guest house and entertaining space and the second level for her personal residence.
The goal of incorporating art wherever she could was central to Tracie’s vision for her home. “I wanted everything to have symbolism, not just be filling space,” she says. Now, an eclectic blend of old and new pieces from both local and foreign sources gives dimension to every room.
A chandelier of intertwined crystal grapes, purchased from an Atlanta dealer, lights the stairwell from the main entrance to the second level where Tracie displays a collection of black-and-white photos of the Walnut Street Bridge.