BETH CONANT KEIM is no different from her clients. Trends come and go, styles and tastes change, and people long for something more. When Conant Keim and her husband Keith purchased their 102-year-old Plaza Midwood home in 2001, the designer was just tapping into the Charlotte market and the niche of upscale kids’ bedrooms was hers to claim. “For years, when my own kids were younger, I did the fun, crazy color and pattern, and that became my calling card as a designer,” she says. “My own house went through its late nineties red-and-yellow color scheme to a multicolor scheme where it was very bright and saturated. And my interior design work was no different.”
But when the economy took a hit in 2008, Conant Keim, owner and lead designer of Lucy and Company, felt the stress, and the bold, strong colors in her home left her feeling exhausted. “I needed calm in my life,” she explains. “All of those bright colors were stressing me out so I painted everything white and changed everything to neutral tones because it made it feel calmer to come home to. I have been on the neutral bandwagon ever since. And as I got older, my style evolved and it became more classic and timeless with more lasting power.”
The most recent iteration of her home’s design began with the renovation of “a makeshift porch we enclosed when we moved in,” says Conant Keim. The couple ripped it off the house and “built a proper sunroom, which is now my most favorite room in the home.” At the same time, the designer was working on a project in London for a client and “became obsessed with this British vibe, and that’s what bled into what I was doing at the time. It’s all about nostalgia, sentimental pieces, moody colors, timeless unlacquered brass. It inspired the entire redesign of my downstairs living spaces.”
Conant Keim’s biggest focus, not only for her clients but also for her own home, is a collected, timeless aesthetic. To achieve this in her home she relied on auction sites such as 1stDibs and Chairish as well as flea markets and estate sales to find one-of-a-kind items. “I never want a home full of things that are mass produced,” she says. “It’s all about the hunt to find something different, something that means something to you, something that your next-door neighbor won’t have.”
Such was the case with the custom plaid paper by The Detroit Wallpaper Company that Conant Keim hung in her guest bedroom. “While in the UK, I fell even more in love with Burberry plaid, so I designed a wallpaper that reminded me of my time overseas.” Similarly, hanging on a metal coat rack Conant Keim found at Bobo Intriguing Objects is a striped blazer with a crest on the pocket that reminds her of the Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames in England. “My UK project is on the Thames, so this coat rack and blazer are a nod to that,” she explains.
But it’s not just the furnishings and accessories that trigger happy memories for the designer. Unsurprisingly, artwork plays a major role in her work and in her home’s interior design. “There are all sorts of pieces that have sentimental meaning to me,” she says. “My feeling is that you have to fall in love with a piece of art before buying it for your home. Every piece in my home means something to me.” She especially loves to work with local galleries like Hidell Brooks Gallery and Shain Gallery when helping clients find pieces for their homes as well as for her own.
Like most designers, Conant Keim’s home is constantly evolving with subtle tweaks here and there, yet the calm, neutral, classic aesthetic remains the same throughout. “It took a lot of years of traveling and researching and working on different design jobs before I could really hone in on what was my personal style,” she explains. “You just grow into your aesthetic.” As for another major renovation and redesign down the road, Conant Keim says that’s not on the horizon anytime soon. “I’m not going to change this house. I have it exactly where I want it.”