Lindley Arthur Making Old Homes New Again

Designer: Restoration adds value to Park Cities neighborhoods

Preservation is close to Lindley Arthur’s heart.

Not only does she live and work in the Park Cities, but she also grew up here and joined what’s now Preservation Park Cities last year.

“As an interior designer, I work on new construction jobs a lot,” she said. “But if it were up to me, I would prefer to restore an original home because I think it adds so much value to the neighborhood.”

Many Lindley Arthur Interiors clients live in original homes in the Park Cities. 

One has a restored Tudor on Beverly. Lindley and her team are updating the decor with antiques and traditional furnishings, making it fresh with artisan textiles, modern lighting, and walls textured with unusual grasscloths.

“Every room can’t be painted,” she insisted.

Another client lives on Shenandoah Street, where nine houses have received landmark designations from Preservation Park Cities. Twelve years ago, Meredith Farrell and her husband, Corbin, bought their 1946 home just one block from where the sales agent for Compass grew up and wanted to raise her daughters.

“Just because a house is old does not mean that it needs to be torn down,” she said. “There are so many designers, architects, craftsmen, and landscape architects that can breathe new life into a property.”

The Farrells have done three remodels and are working with Carolyn Isler of Isler Homes for the second time. Brian Swallen handled the hardscapes, and Lindley rounded out the team.

“She has a great eye for traditional interiors, but she decorates with clean-lined furnishings and with a great sense of color,” Meredith said.

Isler had preserved the original rosette moldings in the entrance hall and the dining room, the chair rails in the dining room, and the mantle with its floral swag and urn ornaments in the living room.

“These elements are expensive to recreate today,” Lindley explained. “But I am passionate about antiques and about these architectural details, which give a house character and keep it from looking like everybody else’s.”

Lindley and her team focused on the powder room, kitchen, and dining room.

The team added beautiful new marble mosaic tile in the powder bath and papered the walls in a printed grasscloth from Schumacher – it looks like cherry blossom branches.

The remodel opened the kitchen up to the den and borrowed space from the dining room to allow for a butler’s pantry. 

In the dining room, the team used fabric from Colfax and Fowler.

“Meredith loved the look of Gracie’s hand-painted wallpapers for the dining room, but it was not in the budget,” Lindley said. “Our workroom crafted draperies out of this Chinoiserie floral, and these colors became our jumping-off point for the rest of the house.”

Lindley found a “funky piece of geometric art” during an antique buying trip. 

“We popped that unexpected piece into the room,” she said. “I love the juxtaposition of contemporary items with older things.”

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