Tour a Family Lodge in Georgia That Celebrates the Sporting Life

This handsome farmhouse in Elko, Georgia is two hours from the owners’ main residence outside Atlanta. And it’s just down the road from Perry, Georgia — designer James Farmer’s hometown and headquarters. He’s also fluent in the hunting vernacular they envisioned for their family’s weekend retreat. “I feel like the hunting theme is congruent with nature,” James explains. "Old books, brown furniture, trophies and taxidermy — it can all flow together effortlessly. It’s not a theme… it’s a lifestyle!”

The warm pine paneling that crowns the ceiling just inside the front door in the foyer is more than just a pretty face. It’s also a time-honored, durable material that builders would have used to add architectural detail to properties like this one centuries ago.

It’s no accident that the pine paneling on the foyer ceiling carries down into palm-patterned grasscloth on the walls. In that juxtaposition James pays tribute to a geologic feature known as the Fall Line, which cuts diagonally across Georgia and divides the evergreens of the Piedmont (to the north) from the more tropical vegetation of the Coastal Plain (to the south).

James made the most of the narrow foyer by arranging interactions between the pieces positioned against its walls. Peer into the Italian mirror on this side, for example, and a table lamp appears to stand between two of its fellows on this English brandy board. Similarly, a pair of hunt paintings are framed within the mirror's frame.