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STORY TERRI GLAZER | INTERIOR DESIGN HEATHER CRAY, WORLDS AWAY

PHOTOS ANNABELLA CHARLES PHOTOGRAPHY

SUCH goodENERGY

"We love this home so much. I just want to hug the door frames every time I walk in! It's the house of our dreams.” Lauren Parker can’t help gushing about the East Memphis house she and her husband Mike Parker have shared for just over a year. “For this to be our first home, it’s just been so wonderful. Having the pieces that we love and stuff that we want to keep forever—it’s just been so much fun.”

The couple bought the house in August of 2021, got married the next month, and set about combining their lives and belongings. They enlisted the help of a talented designer from one of their favorite stores. Lauren is a long-time fan and customer of Worlds Apart, the Midtown outlet for high-end furniture manufacturer Worlds Away, also based in Memphis. “I’d go in to find a gift for someone and come out with a coffee table and a new piece of art,” she jokes. “But I still needed someone to help me pull it all together.” Through her frequent visits, Lauren had become acquainted with Heather Cray, a stylist for the Worlds Away, and knew she could merge the couple’s styles and households to make sense. “The next thing I knew, I’m giving Heather a key to the house! Our relationship escalated quickly,” Lauren recalls. “The couple had a mix of industrial, modern, mid-century, antique and traditional pieces,” says Cray. “To achieve the look they wanted, I leaned on the use of negative space and committing to using only two to three styles per room.” The designer also says she realized from the moment she first came into the house that Lauren loves things that are meaningful to her. From family antiques to mementoes from her hometown of New Orleans to reminders of Mike’s days working on western dude ranches, personal treasures play into Cray’s design in every room. Punched up with the color and Hollywood-glam style of Worlds Away pieces, the decor is eclectic, energetic and the perfect reflection of the homeowners.

even the exterior of the house represents the couple, notes Cray, pointing out that it features the wrought iron often seen in New Orleans, but on ranch-style architecture.

The 1950s-era floor plan lacks the open concept found in newer construction, but Lauren says she appreciates its defined areas. “Even the formal living room; that's a room I think we might never have used. We wouldn’t have known really what to do with it.” Cray’s creative design and ingenious use of a family heirloom armoire saved the living room from irrelevance. The beautiful piece, meticulously restored by The Restoratory by Jess Ada, not only visually anchors the room, it holds the Parkers’ entertaining supplies. Says Lauren, “It’s our party chest. We keep all our wine glasses and napkins in it. Now, when friends come over we have cocktails in here.”

The rest of the living room decor is a melange of pieces the couple had—the rug, the armoire, the couch and a huge fiddle-leaf fig—and additions from Worlds Away, including a pair of the company’s Frisco wing chairs and a colorful, three dimensional painting. The room’s original millwork, floors and traditional marble fireplace blend seamlessly with the more modern design elements added by Cray, who collaborated with Peyton Woodson on the project. Among those contemporary components are books and trays by New Orleans pop artist Ashley Longshore.

In the dining room, the feel is more subdued. Hanging above the space like a crown is a Ballard Designs gold ginkgo-leaf chandelier that Lauren fell in love with from the moment she laid eyes on it. The lacquered wood table is from Restoration Hardware. Lauren recalls, “We had two other options for tables before and nothing seemed right. My mom was in town and when she saw this on the website she said, ‘This one. You're going to turn that chandelier on and it's just going to glow.’ And that's exactly what happened and it’s perfect!”

Cray added a Worlds Away Jonah console and camel Shaw dining chairs, all with the brand’s signature Hollywood regency style, for just the right amount of mid-century sophistication. “I didn’t want to be too glam and have it fight with the architecture of the home,” she explains. “So we just did little pieces with a pop, but then kept it neutral.”

simple silk drapery panels and a fawn print rug keep the decor from being so dressy that the room goes unused. On the contrary, Lauren says the dining room is one of her favorite spots in the home and it’s been the setting of many memorable evenings. “Even when we had a crawfish boil. We had all the doors open and we staged the dining table with a bunch of food and cocktails and wine buckets.”

As subdued as the dining room is, the owners’ bedroom is a study in color and pattern. The room design came together during a single meeting at Worlds Apart. “Aside from a couple of antique pieces we had, we knew we wanted to treat ourselves to a whole new bedroom suite, says Lauren. A traditional oushak rug was the first selection for the room. Next up was the choice of fabric for an upholstered bed.

Mike made the call, picking a bold leopard print fabric without hesitation. “When he chose that, I looked at him and I thought, ‘I am marrying the right man!’” Lauren remembers.

Cray concurs, “I love testing boundaries in design and when a client isn’t afraid to go bold. When Mike said he wanted the leopard print fabric I said, ‘Let’s do it!”

Accent pillows in a vivid Asian tiger print plus a navy velvet coverlet and shams punch up the drama. A pair of mint green Worlds Away bedside chests provide cool tones as well as much-needed storage. Cray topped the nightstands with matching lamps that repeat the deep blue of the bedding, overhung with Adina mirrors in sleek silver frames. Burnt orange silk drapes complete the look with an additional pop of color.

"it's never a bad thing to work from home here,” Lauren says, referring to the sunny office on the home’s north end. “It’s definitely a sanctuary. The dogs hang out in here with me and I’m in here from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.” The walls are painted in Sherwin Williams Iron Ore, but the space still has an airy feel, thanks to multiple north- and east-facing windows. Unlined bamboo shades provide privacy without blocking light. Again, the decor is a blend of pieces the couple brought together with their marriage and a few pieces added by Cray. Among those new acquisitions is a pair of end tables in vibrant orange. Mike’s framed vintage map of Crested Butte, CO, and Lauren’s Mardi Gras souvenirs find harmony in the room, also home to several thriving plants, beneficiaries of Lauren’s green thumb.

The Parkers’ experience in making their first house together a true home came about with remarkably little renovation; a fact for which Lauren is quick to credit the former homeowners. “The family before had great taste and it made moving in so simple. The only thing we had to do was paint the walls. Even the color of the doors and the old hardware, all of that has been here since before we moved in. The bathrooms and kitchen, everything was already done.”

They also dodged a common Covid-era roadblock by working with Cray and Woodson. As the outlet for Worlds Away, which sells to the trade and to luxury retailers like Neiman Marcus, Worlds Apart’s inventory is available for immediate purchase. In a time when homeowners undertaking renovations wait an eternity for furniture to arrive, the Parkers were able to make their dream home a reality in a very short span of time.

It’s just one more aspect of a concept that becomes evident in hearing Lauren talk about her home. The real reason she feels like “hugging the door frames” of her new home goes deeper than floor plans or furnishings. She declares, “The whole house has such good energy.”