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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Fox Country Farmhouse
Country crooner Hank Williams always wore a hat atop his lanky frame, usually a pale-colored Stetson cowboy style. It was his trademark, as key to his iconic look as his Nudie suit festooned with musical notes.
Singer-songwriter Holly Williams, the granddaughter and daughter of country legends Hank Williams, Sr. and Hank Williams, Jr., has inherited more than music from her dapper great-grandfather. A style bellwether, she opened H. Audrey in 2007, just when Nashville badly needed a purveyor of cutting-edge fashion.
In recent years, she has revealed an eye for retail by opening three modern-day general stores called White’s Mercantile: One in Nashville’s 12 South, another in nearby Franklin, and a third in Wilson, Arkansas.
But it wasn’t her most famous grandparent that inspired her latest venture, White’s Mercantile Room and Board, a hospitality company that allows vacationers to soak up Southern charm by renting historic homes she has rehabbed. Rather, as with White’s Mercantile, Williams channels her maternal grandparents, Warren and June White.
“Their aesthetic really impacted me,” Williams says. “Everything in their home was quality over quantity. They were really simple cotton farmers, but they chose items made of quality, whether it was furnishings or food. Their style wasn't modern and it wasn’t shabby chic; it was just warm and Southern with traditional family heirlooms mixed with modern and flea market pieces.”
The historic properties Williams has converted into vacation rentals include two 19th-century charmers: the 1,200-square-foot Sweeney Cottage, an 1890s Victorian cottage in Leiper’s Fork, and the two-story Fox Country Farmhouse in Cornersville, built in 1862. A third getaway, Centerhill Cabins, consists of a main cabin, a smaller cabin, and a tree house.
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Sweeney Cottage
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Sweeney Cottage
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Sweeney Cottage
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Sweeney Cottage
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Sweeney Cottage
White’s Mercantile Room and Board began inauspiciously, when Williams sought an inexpensive farmhouse on Craigslist. She wanted a spot where her family—musician-artist husband Chris Coleman and three children—could relax, but which could double as a rental.
“I wanted to be able to hang out on some weekends,” she says. “We just needed to offset the costs of the second property. This was never any kind of fancy business plan.”
Williams’ retail stores already showcase her knack for interior décor and her distinct point of view, which is a chic mélange of new and old, decadent and thrifty. Like a magpie feathering its eclectic nest, Williams pulls from an array of resources for her rentals’ furnishings, including GasLamp Antiques in Nashville, Scarlett Scales Antiques in Franklin, and eBay. She finds new art prints via internet retailer One Kings Lane.
“I love searching and finding the treasure,” she says. “It’s very natural for me to mix the old with the new. It just feels collected and curated and that’s always felt very important to me.”
Williams could conduct a master class in splurging versus saving.
“I’m a Target girl for bedding, kitchen plates, forks, and knives,” she says. “A lot of things you can pick up on the cheap. I just try to pick my moments.”
What moments they are. Williams’ penchant for luxury is seen in items that stay put, such as a clawfoot bath, Kohler sinks, and Omega custom cabinets.
And then, there’s the wallpaper, for which she has a passion.
“Something like wallpaper is there forever,” she says.
Just past the double doors that swing open into Sweeney Cottage, the ceiling above is papered with Cole & Son’s Nuvolette print, a dreamscape of smoky clouds. The kitchen features an accent wall papered in another gray-toned print, London Rose from House of Hackney. Thibaut’s Isabelle, a blue-and-white toile, papers the kitchen at Fox Country Farmhouse.
Of course, there are also life’s little luxuries that can’t be bought: Rain pitter-pattering on a tin roof, dappled sunlight under a canopy of trees, laughter at a timeworn tale. These can be found among the houses, too, as lucky guests are invited to discover.
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Photos courtesy of White's Mercantile Room and Board
Centerhill Cabins
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Centerhill Cabins
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Centerhill Cabins
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Centerhill Cabins
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Centerhill Cabins