The Loyd Home
Story by Lee Rennick
Photos by Erin Kosko and Lee Rennick
Beth and Jeff Loyd have totally transformed their new home in Riverview Cove to create the feel of something with a much longer history. Over the two years since moving in, they have slowly been giving their home a look that is all them, blending heirloom antique pieces with new transitional takes on traditional style to produce a space that is both relaxing and inviting.
“Jeff’s grandfather had a farm on Loyd Lane in the old Riverview,” explained Beth.” We had talked for years about buying an older home in the area and redoing it. Jeff’s not a re-doer. So, when we heard John Jones was building this development, we were, I think, the first customers to go talk to them about building a home over here. Jeff’s thoughts were that it was still in Riverview and close to the golf course so he would be able to get in his golf cart and drive over to play golf and still be close to his grandfather’s farm.”
They both went all in on building a new home to be tailored to their tastes and needs. After selling their house in Breckenridge in a month, they moved into an Airbnb for a year. They create their new home based on a rendering Beth had found in a magazine that reminded her of homes in Charleston and Savannah, and along The Trace in Mississippi, where she is from.
“I sat down with Joey and his architect first,” explained Beth. “I had a picture of a home I really liked, and it had a floor plan with it. It was all on one level with four bedrooms, but our lot is not that wide, so we had to cut back. Joey suggested we put two guest bedrooms upstairs for resale purposes and for our daughter, Maggie. Because in this neighborhood there are not just two-bedroom homes. We put two bedrooms up there with full baths and walk-in closets.”
Building Their New Home Offered Unique Challenges
The home building process was not without its difficulties. A major problem occurred while they were on a family vacation. Their daughter, Maggie, had just graduated from pharmacy school and her best friend from law school. Beth, Jeff, Maggie and her friend wanted to go somewhere to celebrate their achievement where they could all be together, including Kitty, the family dog. They chose to stay in one of those old wooden shotgun houses on the beach in Florida. The stairs were really steep with a 90-degree turn and no banister after the turn.
As they were loading up the car in preparation of returning home, Beth started down the stairs pulling Kitty’s bed behind her, after making the turn on the stairs she lost her balance and went rolling down the stairs with nothing to hold on to. She broke her neck.
Two months later, in July, they moved into their new home.
“All I could do was sit in a chair in my collar and tell people where to put things,” said Beth.
The move took longer than they expected due to Beth’s recovery. She had also cut her forehead and above her eye, damaging a nerve. Her forehead drooped for 12 weeks. Even after she came out of the neck brace, she still had issues with her arm for some time. Her thumb still bothers her.
“It was quite an ordeal,” explained Beth, “especially since we were finishing the build. I couldn’t drive. When they needed a decision, someone would drive me over and then Conrad would hold my hand and walk me up the driveway.”
Jeff’s cousin, Chuck Loyd, who is an interior decorator, helped Beth from the start. Between Chuck, and Joey Richardson with Richardson Group, who built the house, and Conrad Kristinus, his supervisor, Beth found the dream team she needed to help her through the process.
“All three of them were amazing, and they all brought something different to the table,” Beth shared.” They were like, ‘let’s do this, let’s do that.’”
Each suggestion helped the couple employ every space to the fullest, while providing them with cozy touches like a coffee bar in the pantry. There, Beth has antique pieces on display that have been passed down through both sides of the family, including a piggy salt and pepper shaker with a matching cookie jar, as well as delicate flower embroidery on silk collected by her stepmother that originally came from cigarette and cigar packages from the early 1900s. Each card has the history of the flower on the back.
“Most of our family heirlooms are pictures,” added Jeff.
Blending Old and New is About Balance
As you walk into the foyer of the home, to the right is the formal dining room. It features a table and chairs that once belonged to Jeff’s parents. The antique sideboard and dresser in the room were two of the first pieces they acquired as a couple after they first got married. The dresser came from The Peddler.
Beth calls her style “comfortable classic.” She enjoys blending new pieces with their heirloom antiques. As Chuck calls it, “throwing it all together.” But it takes an eye to blend new pieces with the old. Sometimes you have to live with it awhile and experiment before everything all comes together. That is exactly what they have been doing.
Preferring warm colors to the gray that has been so prominent, Chuck helped Beth find some one-of-a-kind pieces which draw from a warm color pallet, like a cow hide ottoman that he had commissioned for their living room. They call the piece “Beulah.”
Currently, Beth is experimenting with artwork. Recently, Designer-Builder Rachelle Rodriguez sourced four new paintings from Gallery 48 out of Columbia, Tennessee. The unique pieces were created by Kim Hayes and Shirley Lewis.
The rug in the living room was also a chance they took based on a suggestion by Chuck. Originally, they had a different, less colorful rug in the room. Once they had the book shelves painted Lacquer Red, the new rug popped and the entire room came together with new chairs and some contemporary accessories. Miller Caudle arranged the bookshelves.
The new lighting is all from Ferguson’s. Beth and Chuck took a trip up to the larger gallery in Nashville, and then ordered all the lights from the local store.
“We have bought new furniture gradually,” explained Jeff. “The stools from the other house didn’t make it. Beth bought these stools after moving in here. Then she bought one of the couches, after we got rid of the big sectional sofa we had in the other house. And she bought big chairs, that are now in the dining room. Then we got the chairs we have now.”
Much of the new furniture has come from Merridan Home Furnishings in Nashville. Other pieces have come from The Marketplace on Murfreesboro’s Square. Many of the antique pieces not from family came from Jean Keathley. These items were purchased about 30 years ago, including the desk in the master bedroom. Beth has even found items on Facebook Marketplace.
Furniture inherited by Beth and Jeff came from his mother, her mother and their son. At one point they had so much hand me down furniture that you could open the door to every attic space in their old house and it was filled with furniture. Moving it to their garage filled it from floor to ceiling, back to front.
“Anything that wasn’t going to come to this house we gave away, because we had to be out of our old house in a month,” said Beth. “We didn’t have time for an estate sale. We told everyone we knew to come pick out what they wanted, but the deal was you had to bring an empty box and then walk through my kitchen, and you had to fill your box up, because nothing left in the kitchen was coming with me.”
With Beth loving peachy red, Chuck suggested using pops of the color in the master bedroom, including a chair she had recovered in a muted floral print and a matching pillow for the bed.
Everything from the architectural design to the interior design has exceeded their expectations. It has made them both more relaxed in their home.
“We spend more time here than we do anywhere now,” noted Beth.
Jeff’s Favorite Room
To the left, off the foyer, is Jeff’s office. “This is his sanctuary,” exclaimed Beth. “He is the music man, and the golf man, and Jeff knows a little bit about a lot of things. I know a lot about a few things.”
Chuck purchased the furniture for this room from Sally Michaelson at Quality Furniture. One of his favorite pieces in his office is a puzzle that was made from a photo a friend took in 2008 to commemorate a “perfect shot” Jeff made that was headed straight into the hole, until it wasn’t. It ended up in a bunker with an appropriate name for the frustration it caused.
Photos and mementos from the golf courses Jeff has played and the tournaments he has watched hang on the walls, including a shot of St. Andrews in Scotland where he watched the British Open in 2005.
“It was Jack Nicklaus’ last major tournament,” said Jeff. “I have been to all the major golf tournaments including The Masters, the U.S Open and the British Open.”
Another favorite golf course is Old Waverly in West Point, Mississippi. Harry, their son loved to play down there with his father, or go fishing. A very family-oriented place, they have great memories of enjoying their time in the area with their son, who passed away five years ago.
Music memorabilia from bands of the 1960s, like The Doors, and the 1970s, like Pink Floyd, as well as favorite country artist Johnny Cash serve as a backdrop to Jeff’s desk. He even has a needlepoint pillow made from the cover of the Rolling Stone’s Some Girls album.
Beth Loves the Porches
“We can sit on one of our two porches and have a glass of wine,” said Beth. “A friend of ours told me, that I needed to choose whether to have a front porch or back porch. I said, ‘I don’t have to pick. It’s my house and I want both.’ He said, ‘You won’t even sit on that front porch.’ And I replied, ‘betcha.’ Kitty and I sit on one or the other all the time.”
Kitty loves the front porch where she can watch people and other dogs walk by, and Beth loves to sit with her in the mornings with a cup of coffee.
The back patio is easily accessed from the master bedroom, as well as from the French doors opening to it from the living room and open floor-plan kitchen.
Beth fills the outdoor spaces with planter gardens and massive ferns she has purchased from Evan’s Plant Farm. She is still working on the garden and hopes to eventually have a rose and wildflower garden.
“I love plants,” she added.
Maggie’s Room Celebrates Horses
Their daughter Maggie is a former International Grand Champion and Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration World Champion Walking Horse rider. She has a painting by Mary Frances Way over her bed of her International Champion black horse, Primero, known as “Sticky” for his long legs. The gray horse, Peligro “Dinero,” belonging to Phyllis Langley, was the horse that Maggie won the International Championship riding.
They Met Through Friends
Beth’s mother’s family comes from Mississippi, but she also lived in Maryland at one point with her father. Her father worked in communications for the Apollo program and travelled all over the world. He was with NASA/Bendix in Colorado and that is where he and Beth’s stepmother chose to stay instead of coming back to the humidity of the South in Huntsville. He gave his notice, took training in construction and began a second career building homes. Beth lived with them in Colorado through middle school and high school. He currently lives in Murfreesboro in Assisted Living.
“He could do anything,” said Beth. “He could take anything apart and put it back together again. No one does that anymore.”
Jeff grew up in Middle Tennessee and was one of the original founders of Auto Glass Service. He was in Oxford, Mississippi, where Beth was going to Ole Miss Pharmacy School, working for a company that was buying the glass business down there where she worked in the office. A friend who worked with both of them introduced them. After a long distance courtship, they married in 1987 the day Beth graduated from Pharmacy School.
Building this house has reminded them of their first home, a condominium. As it was being built, they would get dinner to go and then just sit on the floor and enjoy the space taking shape around them. They did the same thing throughout this building process. And they are so glad to call it their forever home.