From the curb, the grandeur of Stacy Hyde’s palatial abode is striking. Crisply painted white, the 1920s-era brick home stretches across a vast plot of grass with shady trees. Topped with a clay tile roof, the exterior tones of the home mirror its indoor color scheme: cool whites, muted pinks and grays all marked by original black ironwork.
Mom-of-three Hyde, owner of the self-named Dallas interior design shop, greets visitors with the same presence as her home’s lovely front door — with grace and a whole lot of style. The front door’s weighty ironwork (that also traces along the foyer’s staircase) hints at the home’s history. The ironwork, original to the home, was made decades ago by Potter Art Iron.
Entering into the foyer, visitors first step foot onto painted wood floors, bedecked with a tile pattern that’s as cool as the scenery. Without question, the star of this opening act is the carved console table greeting visitors with style and a story. This piece (like many used in Hyde’s décor) was snatched up from a shipment diverted from the New Orleans-located Tara Shaw store after Hurricane Katrina. “After the hurricane, many New Orleans shop owners were forced to route their shipments to Houston or other cities,” Hyde explains. “Tara Shaw set up another store in Houston, which is where I found several items (such as the console table) for my home.”
An emblazoned mirror adds a flash of color to the entryway, along with the twinkle of the overhead crystal chandelier.
Turning to the right, visitors enter Hyde’s sanctuary: an elongated sitting room that’s immersed in natural light. Glimmering into the room through the home’s original leaded-glass windows, light bounces off coved ceilings and plush surfaces. It’s difficult to choose a seat — but the family pooch doesn’t seem to have the same trouble. She delicately snatches a familiar spot on the gray-toned chaise lounge in the center of the room.
Also dotting the room is a set of four 19th-century chairs (upholstered in Rodgers & Goffigon pink-and-white striped silk) that Hyde snagged from one of Gerry Bremermann’s post-Katrina shipments sold in Houston. Hyde certainly pounces on the opportunity to pick up imported items, many of which she totes to her store and to her home (and back again!). “The chandelier in the foyer is something that could be sold in my store, but I love it where it is. And, that would mean that I’d have to get an electrician out to the house to remove it, but that’s how things work sometimes,” she laughs. “It’s not uncommon that I scoop up something from the store and put it on display in my own home.”
Such is the motivation that spurred Hyde into starting her own interior design store. “It’s not to say that there wasn’t anything to my liking in Dallas, but for the most part, I shopped for antiques and interior pieces outside of the city — in places like Houston and New Orleans. I wanted to bring some of the items I found elsewhere to the Dallas market,” exclaims Hyde, who has a background in interior design.
To keep the home kid-friendly for Hyde’s brood (12-year-old Emma, 8-year-old Holden and 5-year-old Lily), Hyde says she and her husband decided to wait several years before reconstructing parts of their older home. “We moved in about 10 years ago and only began the renovation to the house about two years ago,” she says. “This allowed for us to discover our family’s needs and plan accordingly.”
Although it’s tempting to sit for a (long) while in the airy sitting room, Hyde and her family spend most of their time on the flip side of the house in the kitchen, dining and living quarters. Upstairs they flock to four bedrooms and a master suite. “I spend a great deal of time in the kitchen; I love to cook,” adds Hyde. “And the kids like sit at the kitchen table while they do their homework.”
A family room, filled with comfy couches that encircle a flat-screen TV, also serves as a sanctuary to the kid-oriented mom. The room originally served as the house’s garage, but now it’s a hidden spot where the family can put their feet up and have some fun — something Hyde explains is an added bonus of the newly renovated home. She adds, “There are rooms in the house that we can dress up and entertain in and there are rooms that we can sit back and hang out in with the kids. There’s both a formal and a comfortable aspect to our home.”
