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Alyssa Rosenheck
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Alyssa Rosenheck
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Alyssa Rosenheck
“People who are afraid of color are afraid of life.” So says Jonathan Adler—and Nashville’s Kendall Simmons is another interior designer located in that camp. As with others of her stripe – Miles Redd, with his Schiaparelli pink living room, or the late Dorothy Draper, whose colorful makeover of The Greenbrier Hotel was dubbed “Scarlett O’Hara drops acid”—Simmons throws together saturated hues with giddy abandon.
“I’m a ‘more is more’ person,” says the self-proclaimed maximalist. “And I am not into colors needing to match. I am happiest when color combinations are unexpected.”
Unlike Draper and Redd, who have blanketed entire rooms in Chinese red, cobalt blue, and grass green, Simmons prefers to paint spaces in one of two favorite shades of white— Sherwin Williams Snowbound or Benjamin Moore’s White Dove—before folding in artful pops of color via furnishings.
She did so with her condo at Werthan Mills Lofts in Germantown, which offers fabulous bones: A wide-open floor plan, exposed brick interior walls, arched windows and 14.5-foot ceilings. The one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo is 700 square feet, so Simmons used the combined dining room/kitchen/living space to make a big statement. Her first step was to paint the space Sherwin Williams Snowbound.
“It is the crisper, cleaner, fresher white of my two favorite whites,” Simmons explains. “White walls are the truest way for all of the other colors that you bring into a space to pop.”
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Alyssa Rosenheck
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Alyssa Rosenheck
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Alyssa Rosenheck
Simmons adorned the space with brightly colored furniture and a full-height gallery wall. Among the furnishings that “pop” against the white walls is an electric blue Jean Luc sofa by Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. Another highlight is a pair of antique, hot pink silk-upholstered stools in triangular shapes that sit on a black-and-white striped rug (an ode to Dorothy Draper if ever there was one).
“They had to have an incredibly graphic, black-and-white backdrop,” Simmons says. “That way the hot pink shines to the best of its ability.”
When examining Simmons’ work in general, two trademarks, beyond an imaginative use of color, rise to the surface: Her love of a bar cart and her knack for art placement. Both are on exhibit in the main living space of this condo, which features a bright orange bar cart.
“I take a lot of pride in putting together gallery walls that can really tell an interesting story with the juxtaposing of different pieces you would never normally see put together,” she says.
Alyssa Rosenheck
One gallery standout is Jesse Frohman’s iconic photo of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain wearing a big, white sunglasses and a leopard-print coat. Another piece, a bright aqua sign that says simply, “Ask more questions,” infuses vibrancy. Then there is a charming pair of brass guns that Simmons found at GasLamp Antiques, a local hotspot for designers.
“I love that country-western vibe, as well as the little punch of shiny, brassy gold,” Simmons says. “It adds something special to the mix.”
Simmons fully renovated the kitchen, adding a white marble island, a ’50s-style Smeg refrigerator in pastel blue and a Fireclay Tile backsplash in cobalt blue that covers one entire wall.
The bedroom is a counterpoint to the colorful living space. There, one accent wall features the impossibly chic Cities Toile wallpaper from Hygge & West that creates an ebony background topped by international cities sketched in metallic gold. The remaining walls are painted a matching ebony.
“In the bedroom, I embraced the darker, moodier feeling,” Simmons says.
And in the living room, there is a 5-by-7-foot watercolor piece created in grayscale, another counterpoint to the kaleidoscope of color.
“Not everything gets to be a superstar in my spaces,” says Simmons—who, in our book, is undeniably a superstar.