It was August 21, 2017, the day of the Great American Eclipse. For musicians Christina Cone and Andrew Doherty, it was an auspicious event, marking their move to Nashville and the start of a new journey into the designed life.

The couple—who perform together as the indie band Frances Cone—had loved their life in Brooklyn, but the reality was that New York is a tough place for touring musicians. “Having a big tour van was just not tenable,” says Andrew. So, they packed up their guitars and headed to Music City for more space to roam.

With the help of New York-based architect Brandon Dean of Dean Works Architecture and Design, a 110-year-old home in East Nashville’s Historic District became a place for both relaxation and inspiration—and a place to park that van.

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The quaint Southern cottage had its charms, but the cramped galley kitchen just wasn’t working. “Every house we’ve lived in, the kitchen is where people hang out,” says Andrew. “The kitchen just felt too separate, with not a lot of room for cooking and no room for anyone else.”

So Dean left the front half of the home intact—including the all-important front porch—but blew out the back into an open-concept entertaining space more suited to the modern couple’s needs and style.

The modern addition—an extra 650 square feet that brings the grand total of the home up to 1,800—is a light and airy space that mixes warm woods and whites, with windows that wrap around the perimeter to soak the space in sunlight. “We wanted it to feel like it was outside,” says Christina. “Tennessee is beautiful in the summer, but so hot. I wanted to live in the green, not the heat.”

Dean and Andrew had traveled in the same circles back in college in Oregon (they met in a rock-climbing course), and even wound up living in the same house, though at different times. “It felt like a mansion, this acid blue house,” recalls Andrew. “There was this room in a loft space with plexiglass overhead where you could just see the rain coming down.” The skylights over Andrew and Christina's porch are an homage to that same space.

The earliest sketches of the property tapped into solutions for how to fill the north-facing building with brightness, from skylights to strategically angled windows. The key to keeping it “nice and glowy,” says Dean, was to bring in not just straight-on sunshine, but indirect natural light, as well.

Amplified by crisp white walls, it’s a truly serene space—just what the two busy musicians were hoping for. After living in New York for 12 years, Christina and Andrew have developed a taste for quiet, calm interior design.

“The emotional takeaway was that the city was so busy, so I always wanted to come home to something clean-looking and quiet. I wanted my home to be the contrast,” says Christina. “It took us so long to put stuff on the walls here. I just wanted to keep that a blank slate.”

Related Reading: Before & After: A Nashville Midcentury Now Gleams With Natural Light

Project Credits:

Architect of Record/Interior Design: Dean Works Architecture / @dean_works

Builder/General Contractor: Bootstrap Architecture and Construction/@bootstrap_nashville

Landscape Design Company: Mad Landscapes / @madlandscapes

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A Modern Addition Makes This 110-Year-Old Nashville House Sing