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Photo by Emily Dorio.
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Photo by Emily Dorio.
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Photo by Emily Dorio.
Driving down a quaint street in East Nashville, the house with a vibrant cobalt blue door tucked behind an archway of greenery might catch your eye.
Structurally it’s a charming residential home complete with all the features of a traditional house. But unlike a traditional home, no one actually lives in this picturesque residence. Instead, Note House is shared by its forty-five members who utilize the home for all of their content creating needs. Designed to accommodate everything from photo shoots to video and podcast recording, collaborative co-working to meetings and events, Note House serves as a one-stop-shop for influencers and brands alike. Designing a home for one resident is no easy task, but designing a home to accommodate the needs of everyone from content creators to brand partners, all with their own unique styles, presents an entirely different type of challenge. Luckily, public relations pros and Of Note (the agency behind Note House) founders India Mayer and Katy Shah knew the perfect person to help bring their vision to life—interior designer Katie Vance.
“In some ways we kind of have to be everything to everyone because we have so many different members with different points of view,” Shay says. “At the same time, we wanted, as a business, to have a point of view ourselves. So, it was working with Katie to find this balance between being neutral enough to go with everything, but also infusing our own personality. She got it right off the bat. She understood that each little area had to be its own vignette in terms of being able to be a photograph.”
As partner and chief creative officer of Powell Nashville, co-founder of Porter Flea, and the visionary behind some of Music City’s hottest restaurants, Vance is a design legend in her own right, with extensive experience in hospitality-driven projects and a passion for incorporating local makers into her projects. When the opportunity to work on Note House arose, Vance was just as excited to tackle the challenge as Mayer and Shah were to have her expertise. “I had worked with Katy and India before and they told me about this new venture they were doing and I was immediately like, ‘Oh my gosh what an amazing idea.’ I thought it was just so cool and immediately understood what they were going for and really wanted to be involved in the project,” says Vance. “It allowed us to have a little bit more fun and freedom considering that someone wasn’t living there twenty-four hours a day. We knew we wanted to still kind of be a functional home but had a little bit more freedom to explore some unique concepts and things that we knew would photograph really well and be really cool options for the members.”Upon entrance, the living room serves as the hub of the first floor and sets the tone for an influencers’ paradise. Bright white walls are illuminated by ample natural sunlight—a consistent theme throughout the home—and tasteful punches of color in décor accents bring the space to life. Two crisp white couches anchor the center of the room, placed back to back in a unique configuration for countless photo ops in one space alone. “The whole house is set up like a regular family home so that the influencer members can get photography that looks like they could be in someone’s home. [The living room] is envisioned as a place for them to shoot content, but also, in time when we can have events, as a place where we could host a cocktail party with lots of seating,” says Shah.
“The living room—the back-to-back couches—which was Katie Vance’s idea, is so unique. People love it and are always asking how we came up with that configuration. I think that’s such a cool design element and I think that’s consistently my favorite,” says Mayer.
Beyond the living room, the open floor concept gives way to a stylish bar and seating area, flowing into a bright, fully updated kitchen. The bar’s intricately designed tile wall, by local tile company Red Rock Tileworks, incorporates Note House’s signature cobalt blue into the heart of the home while inspiring consequent design choices throughout the house.“It was such a cool way to splash their signature color into the bar. It’s at the center of the house and I really feel like that just kind of set off all the other shapes and colors pulling from that,” says Vance. Unlike the process of designing a traditional residence, the concept behind Note House played a leading role in the design choices made. Not only did the house have to be designed for photos, it was also designed with brand partners in mind. Throughout the house, small labels identify partnerships that include artwork, décor accessories, products, clothing, plants, and more, signaling the products provided by partners in exchange for promotion from Note House and its social media-beloved members. Though brand partnerships are consistently featured throughout the home, these highly valued partnerships are on exceptional display in the Note House fashion closet room. In this gifting suite, members are welcome to try any of the products from brand partners every month and if they love a product and want to post about it, they tag the brand.
Racks of clothing and a shelf full of accessories line the perimeter of the room and are constantly rotating for fresh content and partnerships. A massive full-length mirror enables influencers to snap plenty of photos in the clothes and accessories they love, and a cobalt blue vanity station, complete with a wall full of partnered beauty products and a high-tech beauty blogger mirror from Glamcor, make for a content creating oasis.Because Note House aims to provide all the traditional spaces of a home in one photo-ready environment, the hallway leads to a stunning bedroom flooded with natural light and complete with countless vignettes in which to shoot content.“We heard from a lot of influencers in town that if they get a partnership to do bedding, or pajamas, or something that needs a bedroom set, they don’t want to shoot in their own home, so they’ll rent a hotel. So, we thought it was important to have that. A lot of our members shoot that content in here,” Shah explains.
Attached to the bedroom is a stunning master bathroom, another necessity for influencers partnering with shampoo or bath product brands. Since the primary purpose of this bathroom is content creation, design choices like a free-standing tub surrounded by beautiful custom tile work and accented with potted plants illustrate the freedom that comes with a home less concerned with everyday functionality and more so with creating a space for gorgeous photos. “I think one of my favorite things is that master bathroom design. It’s such a cool look with all the different tiles and the tub with the rain showerhead,” says Vance. “It’s such a unique material mix, and we did a really tall sink that is such a cool element: something that’s a little different than in a residential setting that just makes for really cool photography.”
A spiral staircase leads upstairs to what was once an attic but has since been renovated into an expansive coworking space with plenty of room for members to spread out and work, take private meetings in one of two conference rooms, or to host future events. And of course, with so much natural light and wide-open space, members are utilizing the space to shoot content as well. “We made this space intentionally super flexible,” Shah notes. But as beautifully decorated as Note House is now, don’t expect it to look the same with every visit. With a constant influx of new brand partnerships and ideas, the goal is to change the décor on a six-month basis to consistently refresh the space and provide new opportunities for members and partners alike.
“The goal is for it to change and evolve over time. We’re always looking for new partners and interesting ways to integrate them in the space whether that be the décor and the design of the space or physical product,” says Mayer. “We don’t want the space to look the same for too long because we don’t want people’s content to get stale. However, it’s interesting that each person’s style of photography and style of accessorizing their shoot make all of the photos look different.”
At Note House, every design choice is intentionally curated to meet the needs of its diverse collaborators. The space achieves a stunning balance of cohesive design that creates a canvas for members to make their own. “We don’t want it to have an aesthetic. I think that’s kind of the point,” says Mayer. “I don’t want anyone to be like, ‘it’s shabby chic’ or, ‘it’s mid-century.’ It’s not about our own brand—even though we like to infuse some of our own style. It’s really about all of our members’ individual brands and them being able to feature those in our space.”