Woman turns beloved grandmother’s house into her dream home
LOS ANGELES: We call it the urban family homestead,” Cate Dunning says of the house she now shares with her husband, Chris, and daughter, Mollie. “Whenever there’s a holiday, or any event, everyone is in our house.” That tradition dates back to long before the home belonged to Dunning, an interior designer by trade and cofounder of Atlanta design firm GordonDunning. The story begins in 1955, when her maternal grandparents moved from Maine to Decatur, Georgia, and settled into “773,” a loving nod to the “homestead’s” address.
They raised four children in the house, and, later, it was a hub for extended family. “We grew up going there all the time,” says Dunning, who was especially close with her grandmother. When Gram moved into assisted living, in 2012, she asked her granddaughter, “Can you take care of the house?” Dunning agreed, ultimately giving up her Atlanta apartment and relocating to Decatur. The day she moved in, her Gram passed away. While holding her memories of the home close, Dunning began to make it her own—with Chris’s help: Together, they removed cornflower blue Formica and installed IKEA butcher-block countertops in the kitchen. Days after their honeymoon, they tore a Kelly green rug from the family room floor. And one Christmas, Chris surprised Dunning with a repainted great room when she returned from a work trip.
In 2018, the couple decided it was time for a full-scale renovation. Working with Dunning’s business partner, Lathem Gordon, and architect Rodolfo Castro, the couple conceived an addition that opened up the kitchen to make room for a much-needed breakfast table, turned the screened porch into a larger great room, and added a primary suite and powder room.
Then Dunning reoutfitted the home, giving it the layered warmth for which GordonDunning is known. The welcoming space is dotted with family heirlooms from both her maternal and paternal grandparents, who were avid travelers, as well as a few nods to Dunning and Chris’s more DIY days (like a ceiling painted to match a mural and an erstwhile kitchen island revived as a dining table). “The vibe of the house,” Dunning says, “is still very much my grandmother’s. She was just so vibrant.”
