Step Inside Louisa Pierce’s Century-Old Tudor in Birmingham, Alabama

In the fall of 2020, as many young families found themselves reevaluating their dwellings, designer Louisa Pierce, her husband, writer-musician Austin Scaggs, and their children, Levon, now 12 years old, and Poet, 9, hopped into an RV without the faintest idea where they were heading. They had sold the Nashville house they called home for the past decade, a place Pierce had designed from the ground up and which became the catalyst for the sought-after AD100 practice she cofounded with close friend Emily Ward. The family had decamped to Whidbey Island early on in the pandemic, and even bought land there to build what they imagined would be their dream home before having a reckoning of sorts and scratching that plan. They tried out Florida for a while, and crossed it off their list. At the persuasion of Ward and Pierce’s two sisters, who all live in Los Angeles, they set off in that direction, but a month or two in, they determined it wasn’t a fit either. “We were nomads,” Pierce explains.

Jeanne Vase

$115at Sharland England

Lampshade Pendant

$695at Pierce & Ward

Sunwashed Riviera Rattan Dining Chair

$328at Serena & Lily

Jack Welbourne x Toast Herringbone Cup

$55at Toast

Meanwhile, Pierce’s parents had just moved back to Birmingham, and marveled at how much it had changed for the better. Pierce had grown up there but hadn’t returned since she was 18. Now, there was a thriving culinary scene, a creative community, abundant golf courses for Scaggs, and a poetic beauty to feed Pierce’s eye. “So we said, let’s give it a shot.” She flew down with the kids, and Scaggs drove their car. “It felt chaotic and scary, but looking back we were definitely alive at that moment.” Upon arrival, she happily reports, “all four of us were like, this feels right.”

The couple gave their real estate agent a list of must-haves and searched unsuccessfully, until one day while taking a walk, they saw a sign for an open house and decided to check it out. The Tudor-style home was perched on a bluff overlooking downtown in a neighborhood filled with stately properties dating to the 1920s. Its exterior dripped in ivy, and an antique fountain in the courtyard held undeniable charm. “Both of us immediately looked at each other like, ‘This is it. This is the house,’ ” Pierce recalls. In a funny twist of fate, “it was everything we said we didn’t want,” she notes with amusement. “But I was like, I can fix all this. It’s really the feel of a house that makes it yours,” she asserts. They put in an offer that day.

Louisa Club Chair

$4,300at Pierce & Ward

Avena Table Lamp

$179at Crate & Barrel

Goatskin Console Table

$2,850at 1stdibs

The family moved in a month later, though the complete renovation unfolded in phases over the next two years. A signature of Pierce and Ward’s approach to design is their ability to create rooms that feel like they’ve been there forever, imbuing old-world charm with a fresh eye and utter lack of pretension. It is no doubt why clients like Dakota Johnson (AD,April 2020), Leonardo DiCaprio, Blake Lively, and NBA superagent Rich Paul have all entrusted the designers with their private sanctuaries. And it is ever on display chez Pierce, where vintage pieces collected over decades (three truckloads traveled from Nashville) commingle with family heirlooms, junkyard finds, and custom creations from Pierce & Ward’s growing furniture collection.

越-is-more granny-chic vibe has become de rigueur in recent years, but Pierce and Ward manage to put their own spin on it. Chintzy wall coverings exploding with paintings in mismatched gilded frames, overstuffed sofas and armchairs that beckon to be sunk into, fabric pendants, fringe-trimmed lamps, and layers of antique Persian rugs are hallmarks of their practice. Pierce likens decorating to composing a painting, playing with colors and textures to strike a harmonious balance. “All of the furniture has been moved from room to room probably 10 times,” she says. “I sometimes feel like I’m playing chess.”

Tapered Candles by Mystic by Esme

$38at Pierce & Ward

Tabouret Table

$1,850at Lawson-Fenning

Louis Philippe Gilt Mirror

$821at RH

这里的奶奶氛围,值得注意的是,authentic. The brass-and-iron bed in Poet’s room belonged to her grandmother. The portraits that adorn the walls in the designer’s dressing room and office were painted by her great-grandmother—and the female heroines depicted are her mother and grandmother. Scaggs’s late mother, the San Francisco society fixture Carmella Scaggs, also bequeathed a king’s ransom to the couple. “I’ll never forget walking into her house for the first time—I almost passed out,” says Pierce, who developed a close bond with her mother-in-law. “It was chock-full of treasures. It makes my house look like a minimalist’s,” she deadpans. In the den—or “snug,” as Pierce calls it— a portion of Carmella’s books line the library shelves and her Esther Hunt busts perch overhead. (“All her girls watching over us,” Pierce sweetly observes.)

Pierce takes a live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to the objects in her life. “Nothing is precious,” she says, and that inviting feeling permeates the house. She converted the formal living room into a music and art room, where Scaggs can play his instruments and she and the kids paint. “I was like, ‘Why do I need another sitting room with couches?’ You’re more inclined to use things when they’re out, and as I’m getting older I’ve realized I don’t want a room to look perfect. I find so much beauty in the mess.”

一旦小,狭窄的厨房都是connect it to the sunroom and allow for the addition of a dining table as well as a bar. (“It feels very European” hosting dinners in there, she says.) She tore out the upper cabinets, added beadboard, painted the walls and millwork cozy shades of brown, and wallpapered the refrigerator herself. Upstairs, Pierce paid homage to Renzo Mongiardino with a tent-scape in the primary bedroom of a custom House of Hackney x Pierce & Ward wall covering and matching drapery. “When you’re in there with the curtains closed, you feel like you’ve gone to another realm,” she says. An outsize Akari lamp by Isamu Noguchi punctuates the otherworldly effect.

Of her easygoing approach, the imperturbable designer says, “My house is my test lab—I do wacky things all the time. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I want my home to be luxurious and beautiful, but I want anyone who comes in to feel comfortable.

Phantasia Wallpaper by Piece & Ward

$325at House of Hackney

Chest of Drawers

$3,089at Chelsea Textiles

Solomon’s Seal Wallpaper

$450at Lonesome Pictopia

This tour of Louisa Pierce’s home appears inAD’s April issue. Never miss an issue when yousubscribe toAD.