| |

Clever Ep. 211: The Soulful Renovations of House of Rolison

ByMyProperty Life

Tune in to the latest episode of the Clever podcast as host Amy Devers sits down with the co-founders of House of Rolison, Amanda Leigh and Taylor Hahn, to talk about how they inject soul into every renovation project they touch.

Two women standing at a modern kitchen island with green chain-link lighting hanging above.

Amanda Leigh + Taylor Hahn

Though they grew up on opposite coasts, both Leigh and Hahn identified themselves as angsty teens. Each had a deep love for art and architecture but took different professional paths until they met online, and their fates intertwined. The duo’s first date turned into a road trip, followed by quarantine-based cohabitation.

Read another article:Design Trends for Creating a Vacation Vibe at Home

Leigh has been building for clients for nearly a decade, with a background in ground-up construction, while Hahn’s experience is in software development and architecture. The couple fell in love with preserving and reimagining history in the homes around them, and together they formed House of Rolison. That meant breaking into a male-dominated industry and doing their part to change it. Since the beginning, they’ve renovated a number of forgotten old homes into warm, elegant, modern beauties. Their complementary strengths and deep reverence for their crafts and trades crew ensure each new project has room for magic and a whole lot of soul.

Listen:

Listen and subscribe to Clever on any app.

Modern dining room with wooden furniture, a plant on the table, and large windows showing outdoor trees.

Coldwater Photo: Gavin Cater

Elegant bathroom with a freestanding tub, marble floors, and a small wooden table, flanked by greenery and framed by multiple windows.

Lloydcrest Photo: Nils Timm

A rustic curved wooden wall featuring built-in shelving decorated with vases and plants, adjacent to a dining table and chairs.

Rhodes Photo: Gavin Cater

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.

Similar Posts

  • Jungle Keva

    Situated in Tulum, this small boutique hotel rises between the trees, in which the main concept consisted in preserving 70% of the existing vegetation in order to build around it. By achieving this, every space of the project is always in relation to its natural surroundings. The hotel has five 50m2 lodges, formed by a double height room, a mezzanine or “tapanco”, a terrace and an indoor-outdoor bathroom. At the back of the lot the social areas are located, with a dining space and yoga pavilion hanging in cantilever over the pool. The main idea of this water element is to be extruded from the ground in between the vegetation. For this reason, two old zapote trees were preserved, which look as they were rising from the pool itself. All the project is composed by local materials, as well as low maintenance and natural textures, which provide a warm atmosphere to the buildings. A particular finish found on the walls is “chukum”, a Mayan stucco characteristic of the region, which uses a tree resin to give its distinctive color, appearance and durability. The objective was to use materials that age with dignity, so that with the passing of time the architecture acquires character and a deeper sense of belonging. The different volumes of the complex are scattered along the lot, between the trees and stone paths, which provide a sensation of being in a small village in the Mayan jungle. Throughout the design process there was a search for pure forms and natural materials that could blend with the surrounding context. In a sense, Jungle Keva is like an abstraction or simplification of vernacular architecture, easy to read, simple and with a social, natural and economic conscience.