House Beautiful Whole Home 2024: Asheville, North Carolina

Every year, we search the country for the next place we want to go and tell a great design story. We might be drawn to a beautiful location or a sensational city or just a spot that everybody is talking about. For our seventh annual Whole Home, we headed to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, to an area situated between the art-filled town of Asheville and the quaint city of Hendersonville. We were drawn here by everything we’d heard about the region: the outstanding culinary scene (believe the hype), a tantalizing claim to having the most breweries per capita (you’ll never be thirsty), and proximity to the iconic Biltmore Estate (a must-visit on any trip to this Appalachian region). We stuck around for the vibrant local art scene, the majestic views, and the exceptional salty chocolate chip cookies from a local bakery, The Rhu, that turned this avowed chocolate hater into a woman obsessed.

This year’s house was built in partnership with Sean Sullivan of Living Stone Design + Build, the 2023 National Custom Home Builder of the Year and Laura Sullivan—his wife—of ID.ology Interiors & Design, along with 11 other amazing design teams from across the country. Their mandate was to celebrate the joys of owning a vacation home and making space for downtime. What we didn’t expect and could never have predicted was that, on our final day there, Hurricane Helene would descend on this region of western North Carolina and uproot this amazing area. When the storm passed and the sun came out, the House Beautiful team, which was staying in downtown Asheville, had lost access to water, cell service, and Wi-Fi, but was otherwise okay. With no way to communicate with the outside world, we were unaware of the devastation just a few miles away. We didn’t know that the restaurant in the River Arts District that we had raved about two days before was gone (along with much of the district itself) or that the famed Biltmore Village was underwater. We didn’t know that people were trapped in their homes or about the lives lost to the storm. We were among the lucky ones.

This story will be featured in the November/December 2024 Issue of House Beautiful, which will hit newsstands on November 26.

This year’s energy-efficient home is in the conservation-minded community of Sprout, located on a private nature preserve in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The home’s interiors are kept comfortable with Trane heating and cooling systems, while window treatments from Hunter Douglas play a significant role in enhancing the home’s overall energy-efficiency. Outdoor rockers: Serena & Lily. Exterior paint: Pantalon and Off-Black, Farrow & Ball.

Our many thanks to all the teams that made this project a reality.

All of these tradespeople live and work in this region and all of them were affected by this storm. Thank you for the true hustle it took to get this done.

Sean and Laura Sullivan, thank you for going all in on this, building green before it was the thing to do, truly caring about the planet and being a real champion for your community.

Sarah Caldwell and Jill Jones, you were our chief “get-it-done” team. Truly leading the charge and being okay with being harassed by us daily. We appreciate everything you did.

Chris Culler, without your guidance and expertise in managing permits we would have never gotten there. Thank you for pitching in at every step of this process.

Matthew Jones and Will Hewitt, it felt like you two were there every day to make sure this project kept moving towards our completion date. Thank you for managing all the trades to get this done.

To the gentleman we fondly call Blackstone, you are your own full-service team and the ultimate problem solver. No one will ever know all the many solutions and random projects you managed for us.

To everyone involved in this house, we truly thank you for taking time out to bring this idea to reality. From our wallpaper installers who worked through the weekend to the painters that were there when we left and when we arrived every day, you are all true professionals.

Thank you to our 2024 Whole Home brand partners: Architectural Grille, Fabricut, Farrow & Ball, Feeney Railings, Fibreworks, Hunter Douglas, Lee Industries, Minted, Monogram, Harlequin, Serena & Lily, Spoonflower, The Container Store, Trane, Visual Comfort & Co., and Wayfair Professional.

Committed to the principle of helping everyone live beautifully at home, House Beautiful has also partnered with Wellness Within Your Walls, an internationally recognized resource group created to provide education and guidance on toxins in the living environment.

Builder: Living Stone Design + Build
Photographer: Brie Williams
Stylist: Lucy Bamman
Executive Content Editor: Jess Teves
Creative Director: Nicolas Neubeck