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LITTLE HOUSETall Order An interior designer takes on the monumental task of designing a guesthouse—as well as

the main home and party barn—for Luke Bryan’s new property.

BY KRISTIN LUNA. PHOTOS BY SHANNON FONTAINE.

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t takes a special kind of visionary to be up for craft-ing three permanent structures comprising the estate of a musician as prominent as Luke Bryan. Even more challenging is building a cohesive compound in rural Williamson County that consists of new construction yet has a weathered farmhouse feel to it, as if it were always a part of the land. But Chad James was up for the challenge.

The Muscle Shoals, Ala. native has called Music City home since 1997, though he spends an ample amount of time on the road traveling for work. “I’ve loved Nashville ever since I was a kid,” James says. “I love that there are four seasons, that it doesn’t get crazy cold or crazy hot, and I love the outdoors. The economy is strong, there’s main industry, and the work-force—there’s a group of talented individuals who come here with the idea of what the ‘Nashville experience’ is, and I’ve had success in seeking out those people.”

In 2011, he recruited a handful of these creatives to start his own design firm, Chad James Group. While the seven-man team is based in Midtown, it serves clients all over the country. (At press time, CJG was collaborating on 13 projects, only two of which were in Nashville.) “We’re more than interior designers, we’re a lifestyles brand. Our clients come to us because they want that experience,” James says. “On a Chi-cago home we just finished, when [the clients] walked in, their clothes were in the closet, there was candy in this dish, flowers in the vases, every single bed had been made. Anything and everything that you need to live your life was put in that house by CJG. That’s what we offer—we of-fer more than architectural consulting and interior design; we offer that service of a brand and of a lifestyle.”

In 2012, Luke and his wife Caroline became subscribers to this CJG lifestyle, as well. Mutual acquaintances connected them with James, the three hit it off on a blind lunch date, and the rest is recent history: The Bryans liked James’ style and direct business approach—”I’m a straight shooter,” he admits—so much that they hired the firm as both the consul-tant and interior designer for the project.

Because the farm, which sits on more than 150 acres, was going to take a couple years to complete from concept to execution, James started with the 1,800-square-foot guesthouse so the Bryan family could move in while the 7,000-square-foot barn and just under 10,000-square-foot main house were being built. Even though the three are separate entities, they all mimic the same style and feel. “It’s definitely like a tapestry,” James explains. “The barn, the guesthouse, and the main house all are woven together by a common gold thread. When you see a big tapestry, you don’t want it be all the same thread. There’s got to be that one odd color that weaves it all together. And that’s how this happened.”

For James, in order to create a home, first there had to be a story. The script that wrote itself in his head went like this: At one time, the property housed a handful of buildings. There was a little farmhouse that was >>>

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originally by a primitive carpenter; all of the trim and details are skillful, but simple. From there, the barn happened next and has carpentry elements that are similar to the guesthouse. The story continues, in James’ head, when a small family living in this little farmhouse decides to add a main house. The main house—the finest quality of the three buildings—is where they employed the master craftsman. “In my head, I’m always telling that story, and that little story seems to be of age and of how this property came to be,” James says. “The way the guest house was designed, it looks like it’s been sitting on this property forever.”

Nailing the vision the Bryans had in mind for such an extensive project wasn’t as tricky as it could have been, as Luke was clear upfront about the feel the property should exude. “One day, we were out there and Luke said, ‘Have you ever been to Blackberry Farm? If you can make this farm look like Blackberry Farm, I’ll be the happiest man on this planet,’” James recalls. Luckily for the Bryans, James had spent many Thanksgivings as a child at the East Tennessee resort and was also a fan of the Farm’s design. When he pre-sented the completed guesthouse to them after they returned from vacation earlier this year, the Bryans told James it was far beyond what they ever dreamed. “I said, ‘Does that meet the standard of Blackberry?’ and [Luke] said, ‘Man, that’s even better than Black-berry,’” James says.

The two-story structure has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, an upstairs media room, a front porch, and a screened-in porch on the side. The walkway from the guesthouse leads down to a catfish pond.

Luke named the property “Redbird” after his late

sister, with whom he was extremely close. (The Bryans’ beach house, which James also designed, is called “Snowman” for Luke’s brother, who also passed away.) For James, the redbird—“a sign that everything was going to ok,” something his grandmother had always told him—also hit close to home. It’s only fitting then that every time he’s driven onto the property, James has been greeted by a handful of redbirds.

When the designer began conceptualizing the interior of the guesthouse, he reverted back to his own upbringing. “There’s this dynamic of what we do that has a contemporary edge to it, but yet there’s a root of my passion in there. With the kitchen, there’s all this planking that totally goes back to my child-hood—this old house with these planked walls that were encrusted with layer upon layer of paint. I believe there is beauty in imperfection, and I interject that in interiors all the time.

“It’s important to me that everything not look ‘Made in China’ yesterday—or so sleek and refined, because that’s not how we live,” he continues. “People want it to be beautiful, but so many times we think that means the mentality of the front room in Mom and Dad’s house that you weren’t ever allowed to go into. That’s not how we live today. We live in homes where we utilize every bit of the space.”

While functionality is important to James, he doesn’t believe in utilizing trends, but rather imple-ments clean lines and builds his design scheme upon lighting and background. “There’s a classic element to that guesthouse that will never go out of style,” he says. “Fabrics will go out of style, sure, but the founda-tion of that house will never go out of style.”

Still, he was able to have some fun with the project, even going against Caroline’s initial wishes to not use taxidermy as a design element. “Sometimes clients will say no to stuff and I know they don’t really mean no—they just don’t understand how I’d use it,” he explains. While the Bryans were on vacation, James called Luke and said he’d found some things in the hunting room he wanted to use. The singer told James that he was a brave man—and that Caroline would never go for that. But James knew what he was doing. He picked the two most important deer mounts to Luke and his collection of antlers, and worked them into the guest-house. Luke and Caroline both loved it. “There’s a way to do things so it doesn’t look macabre,” says James.

At the end of the day, James’ goal was to create a welcoming, homey environment for the four Bryans—Luke, Caroline, and their two sons—since they will reside in the guesthouse until their main home is complete in the next year or two. “I’m this kid from Alabama, and I love the whole cottage mentality,” James says. “I want that farmhouse to be a place of refuge for them [for now]. It’s a fun little house with a lot of memories to be made.”

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41. Chad James Group developed the interior elevations, the trim, the doors, and much more for the Bryans’ guesthouse. “Basically, anything on the inside of the house that's aesthetic, we've done it,” says James. 2. James’ design philosophy is to go heavy on the neutrals and add a punch of color to jazz up a space. In the case of the living room, he used a piece of art Luke bought Caroline early in their relationship as inspiration for the color palette. 3. CJG had a hand in planning the exterior, such as how the brick was laid. Before the Bryans moved in, James also “outfi ted every single thing in there—except for their clothing—right down to the shampoo,” he says. “The house is definitely a efuge and a place not only where they're living but they're having this amazing time with their boys. It's a fun little house, a lot of memories to be made there."

4. Caroline was initially opposed to using Luke’s deer trophies as décor, but James knew he could weave them into the background in a subtle and tasteful way.

5. Luke and Caroline Bryan’s property eventually will be expanded to include a guesthouse, a main house, a party barn, and a catfish pond 6. Chad James in front of the Bryans’ new guesthouse.

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When envisioning the overall feel of Redbird, James aimed to create a farm that felt “like it had always been a part of the

land” while outfi ting the inside with timeless furnishings. Next up: He’ll tackle the design of the 7,000-square-foot barn.

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