An Alabama Cottage Blends Old-School Charm + Modern Ingenuity

Those who go house hunting in Fairhope, Alabama’s Fruit and Nut District expect to be charmed by their options, and rightfully so. Brimming with moss-laden trees and quaint cottages built for front-porch hellos, the enclave embodies a quiet charm that has drawn dreamers—such as interior designer Aileen Warren—to the town since its establishment as a colony more than a century ago.

But one particular Craftsman cottage, still a relatively new addition to the neighborhood, stopped Warren in her tracks. She made an offer before her husband, Jordan Chaisson—a cardiologist whose job had brought them from Houston—even had a chance to peek inside.

This was a quintessential Fairhope abode, complete with a tidy yard and wraparound screened porch. Inside were transoms and cove moldings that drew the eye up toward 10-foot-high ceilings. There was also plenty of room for improvement, which Warren embraced.

“The house has great views that you couldn’t appreciate because there were wooden shutters on all the windows,” she recalls. “We removed them, filling the rooms with light.” Restoring the stained red oak floors to their natural finish and washing every inch of wall and trim with a warm white paint amplified the effect, readying each space for an infusion of Warren’s old-meets-new style.

Builder Cameron Reehl and his team of subcontractors worked with the designer to customize the kitchen—first by replacing its nondescript granite countertops with classic Calacatta Gold marble on the perimeter and rich walnut on the island. After considering a pure-white tile for the backsplash, “which felt too clean for the space,” Warren notes, she opted for “dirty-white” zellige squares, “which add warmth with the right amount of shimmer,” she says. “It’s like jewelry.”

Rather than replace the existing Craftsman-inspired cabinetry, Warren leaned into the look, painting the lower cupboards a cozy blue-green. “When my business partner, Kiley Jackson, and I pick colors, we look for what we call ‘chameleon colors’ that change with the light and function like neutrals, complementing the rooms around them,” the designer explains. “You can’t quite put your finger on what the color is, but it’s a great supporting character.”

The view from the kitchen into the adjacent dining room, for example, juxtaposes the blue-green cabinets with purple-felt upholstery on the sculptural, midcentury-style dining chairs. Warren then bravely paired the arrangement with an antique French trestle table and a long, lean, black-metal chandelier.

From the living room’s perspective, the kitchen’s strong color statement provides an anchor for linen-upholstered sofas and shearling-swathed, swiveling ottomans that seem to float atop a vintage rug. “I wanted it to be welcoming,” Warren says of the room’s neutral, texture-heavy mix, which also includes a reclaimed-wood coffee table, pastel-on-satin artwork and gilded antique mirror above a sleek modern fireplace. “We often have houseguests, and I wanted it to be comfortable for them; a place they’d want to visit.”

Nowhere is that ethos more apparent than from the home’s curb, where a new brick path leads visitors to the front porch through an array of native plants imagined by Warren and landscape architect Kent H. Broom, including Carolina jessamine and evergreen sweetbay magnolias. There, a teak swing awaits, along with the opportunity to indulge in a pastime as quintessentially Fairhope as the cottage itself: watching and waving hello as the world passes by.