Interior design is all about telling stories: the furnishings and finishes speak of times and places that are singularly significant to the occupants of the spaces.
The tale told by this eclectic Tulsa house is one of world travel and old-world adventure, spoken eloquently with a modern accent. “This is the first house the couple has owned together, and they wanted it to reflect both of them,” explains interior designer Melissa Davis, whose Haven Design Studio is based in Tulsa. “They also wanted it to reflect their life together.”
That meant incorporating some of the souvenirs they had collected on their journeys abroad, as well as a variety of taxidermic trophies that the husband has bagged on big-game hunting trips. “They appreciate authentic products,” Davis avers. “Things that have a story.”
The storyline for the design begins with the architecture of the two-story residence itself, which is called the Tree House in homage to the enormous silver maple on the property. With its banks of steel-framed windows and a manually operated glass garage door that magnanimously opens interior spaces to the outdoors, the newly constructed house shakes its neighbors all the way to their traditional foundations with its audacious design.
Yet it was precisely these unusual-for-Tulsa features that laid the groundwork for Davis and her design colleague, Aubree Bunch. By pairing a neutral palette of earth tones with organic forms, they imbued the spaces with a 19th-century African-safari-camp vibe that somehow reads as 21st-century chic.
The juxtapositions are as judicious as they are delicious. In the formal living room, there’s an oryx’s head over the sleek, limestone-stacked fireplace and a zebra-skin rug layered over a sisal rug, atop which sits a contemporary sofa. The formal dining room is defined by a new ebony table whose picnic-table-like crossed legs mirror those of the iron, camp-style chairs surrounding it like sentinels. The scene is surveyed by a mounted oribi, head cocked, no doubt, to catch the convivial conversation its presence provokes.
“Each of the rooms is different, but they all work together and blend,” Davis notes, adding that the couple’s collection includes paintings, such as a trio of small, picturesque landscapes they bought in South Africa, antique furniture and a variety of art photographs. Bunch adds that “the modern and organic materials are a good balance for the style of the house.”
Accents are as subtle as whispers: a primitive terracotta vase on a simple white plinth is sited below a pair of contemporary sketches; a cubed, acrylic end table, situated between a pair of leather and stainless-steel camp chairs, is a repository for tomes on art; a sleek ebony glass-front metal cabinet is filled with country pottery.
“We brought in things that blend with the homeowners’ items,” Davis states, adding that the new one-of-a-kind bleached root table in the foyer sets the tone for the addition of organic forms through the home. “The front door is glass, and you can see it from the street.”
The main living space, which incorporates a dining room, living room and the kitchen, has high ceilings, concrete floors and the garage door, features that give it an industrial feel. “We used layers of textures, including a colorful antique runner on the kitchen floor and a wooden dining table and chairs that reference the wood ceiling, to soften things,” Bunch adds.
The memories made at Tree House will, of course, enrich the plot. “The couple is worldly,” Davis notes, “but they are still young. The freshness and stylishness of the residence represents them.”
Photography by Kacey Gilpin.
For more like this eclectic Tulsa home, be sure to check out this artfully curated oasis in Cape Town.
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