Kathryn Nash Of Chattanooga Purchases Nashville Interiors

A Chattanooga woman who has completed more than $5 million in repurposing residential and unique historic projects will bring a new voice and energy to an established magazine, Nashville Interiors. As the new owner and publisher, Kathryn Nash has developed an enhanced online presence to complement the print design publication. The website that launched May 1 is http://nashvilleinteriors.com and staffer Benjamin Trotter, who is also proprietor of Globetrotter Designs, is the Nashville Interiors webmaster.  

Nashville Interiors has been in print since 2000 and will continue to inspire its established Middle Tennessee audience with a sense of place and style. The full-color print magazine design will now be handled by Nashville branding firm Cronin Creative.

Karen Cronin began her career in New York with Interiors magazine after graduating from Parson’s School of Design. Since moving to Nashville in 1993, she has been providing award-winning design services for clients in the entertainment, real estate, non-profit and medical fields. Her partner, Peter Cronin, a former editor for both Musician and Billboard magazine, is also the person Madonna hired to establish a Nashville office for her Maverick Music publishing company. He has also served as editor for CloseUp, the publication of the Country Music Association. Mr. Cronin often plays at venues around the city, performing with his band, The One Hitters. 

The new tagline for Nashville Interiors is “Elevating the Interior Life.” “The phrase offers a subtle shift toward mindfulness,” said Laurie Perry Vaughen, the new managing editor and lead writer. “Ultimately, we want our content to touch the soul, that word we often use to describe our interior thought life.  We will do this by elevating original art and personal artifacts, handmade items, local history, antiques, and offering professional advice from our partners.”

If Ms. Vaughen sounds poetic, well there’s a reason. She has a master’s degree in poetry, and is an MFA candidate with the Sewanee School of Letters. She also brings years of experience in managing award-winning publications for civic and Fortune 500 companies.   

“This idea that a room can connect with a person’s emotions and aspirations is precisely why we’ve chosen to complete a philanthropic community project,” said Ms. Nash. “Environment elevates or defeats quality of life, so we have a goal of transforming a small public space that might not otherwise get much attention."  Ms. Nash is in the process of selecting a public school classroom or school music room for the Nashville Interiors staff to redesign. “We want to create a learning space that is inspiring for both students and teachers,” said Ms. Nash. “We look forward to working on this civic project alongside several of our Nashville area interior design professionals and other partners. We are pleased to be a part of the Nashville community and wanted our commitment to be tangible.”    

Ms. Nash brings to her publishing role many successful experiences in transforming historic homes, commercial spaces, and working with architects and millworkers. Her portfolio includes redevelopment of two historic properties that stood vacant for years off Chattanooga’s Main Street prior to the revitalization the city’s Southside. Today, a former three-story historic Masonic Lodge, originally purchased by Ms. Nash and business partner Robert Gustafson, is home to DeBarge Winery with individually-owned condos upstairs. Jay Caughman was the architect on that project and also worked with Ms. Nash on another historic mercantile-era building just around the corner from DeBarge near Main and Market. That space was resold during the interior restructuring and is now a high-end private residence ‘live-work’ space. A pottery studio on the ground floor adds to the synergy of the block’s gallery scene.

Ms. Nash’s ‘day job’ includes work with large public energy companies in the region as a manager of civil projects. Beyond this, her interest in Nashville, like most, comes from a love of music. She’s a fine mandolin player and throughout her home, musical instruments shine along with the other fine woodwork.  

“Nash’s 1885 wood frame home in downtown Chattanooga offers guests a visual journal of locally-sourced finishes and furnishings,” says Ms. Vaughen. She notes that the craftsman who completed Ms. Nash’s home last year used repurposed hardwoods to create the custom kitchen cabinetry that gleams with clean lines. Father-and-son team, Roy and Jason Dorn from Sale Creek, managed the downtown property’s return to single-family status from a commercial use. The Dorns will be featured in the next issue of Nashville Interiors.  

In Ms. Nash’s home, the repurposed wood used in floors, cabinetry, and the dining table, includes other local materials. The marble kitchen countertops are from a supplier named Rocky Tops Custom Countertops. The antique brick from the home’s crumbling chimneys that barely survived a fire decades ago, were repurposed in a herringbone pattern alongside the backyard pool and fountains. The light fixtures over the marble island are from Merchants on Main, and the vintage typewriter table from the 1940s was a find at the recently opened Refindery. Mango’s sourced the slate blue sofa that anchors the room. You can even see the old vintage sign from Ms. Nash’s formerly owned Main Street department store on the separate carriage house that borders the pool. The carriage house is now a garage and workshop for Ms. Nash’s husband, Ben Phillips.  

“Even a brand new energy-efficient house or condo can make a connection with materials that endure and bring their own history,” said Ms. Nash. “I’ve worked with the Dorns on quite a few intense projects and we are pleased to introduce them for the first time in print. They have worked on saving historic cabins on Signal Mountain as well as constructing new homes. They are excellent problem solvers, which you need when approaching any older structure that comes with surprises good and bad. Their attention to detail and love of the work is unmatched.”  

“Our stories are told visually,” says Ms. Vaughen. “We recently pulled in award-winning photographer Billy Weeks to do the portrait of the Dorns. Ms. Vaughen first met Mr. Weeks when they were on staff at The Chattanooga Times. “Billy brings that soulful element to his work,” said Ms. Vaughen. “He’s a person who travels to document poverty in Honduras and Nepal, and recently did profiles of clients served by the Episcopal Metropolitan Ministries in Chattanooga as an advocate for those without a safety net. Just last month his international work was discussed in a TED talk. His images are compelling and we look forward to working around his travel schedule to bring this level of mindfulness to our readers.”

Mr. Weeks had several cameo appearances portraying a sports photographer in the Jackie Robinson bio flick 42 filmed in Chattanooga and released as a box office hit in 2013. And beyond his brief acting career, Mr. Weeks has received the Gordon Parks International Photography Award twice as well as the Associated Press Freedom of Information Award.  

“Our magazine will take our audience over the threshold of rooms that inspire,” said Ms. Vaughen. “Our stories and photographs offer the intimacy that comes from any such personal invitation; it’s like getting to go to a house concert or small dinner party. You get to know people when you enter their space, because ultimately our rooms are the significant backdrop of our lives."

Benjamin Trotter, behind Nashville Interiors’ expanded web services, understands how print and web can complement each other. “The new website is already proving to offer added value for our advertisers,” said Pam Harper who manages ad sales in the Middle Tennessee area. “Our designers and others enthusiastically endorse the new format in print and web that tells their stories, and helps connect new clients with their specialty products and services.”  

A new online feature, Market, will feature the staff’s fun ‘finds’ and favorite shopping districts across the region. The web will also feature a section on Events from across the Southeast related to green building, home trends, fine art, historic preservation and designer showcase homes.  

“While Nashville is the magazine’s focus,” said Ms. Nash, “we recognize that our design savvy homeowners who turn to us for ideas, will welcome a regional approach to content. We look forward to being a publication that supports regional artisans, fine artists and the galleries who represent them.”  

“Like the Dorn family, many of the people we plan to interview are engaged in what could easily become ‘lost arts,’” adds Ms. Vaughen. “Our readership isn’t interested in a cookie-cutter lifestyles or mass production, so I think they will be pleased to turn our pages or scroll through our online gallery of images. In a South where many of us want to ‘know our farmer’ who grows our food, we know that the relationship with a builder or artisan offers a similar important connection. We look forward to making those introductions.”  

For further information visit http://nashvilleinteriors.com.