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Adam Hunter’s Nashville project is called a “modern barn” in the designer’s own description, not as a formal architectural classification. The 350-acre Tennessee property pairs cottage-like stone and organic texture with steel doors, gunmetal tones, saturated color, custom fabrication and theatrical lighting. Hunter and architect Steve Giannetti began with the site itself, locating the house by tracking the sun and staking out the brightest position for the living room.
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The project is presented in an INTERIORS® feature by Arianne Nardo, photographed by Trevor Tondro, in the publication’s December + January 2023 issue. It profiles a bespoke Nashville-area estate for a stylish Los Angeles couple. The feature does not publish a street address, floor area, construction cost or completion year, so the house is best understood through its design decisions rather than through a conventional specification sheet.
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The house begins with daylight, not a style label
Hunter and Giannetti chose the building site by sitting on the land and watching how the sun moved. They marked the point where the living room would receive the most light. Hunter recalls, “We would sit out on the property and choose the location of the house based on where the sun would hit. We marked with stakes where the living room would be brightest. It really was a magical experience,”
That decision explains why the project resists a purely decorative reading. The interiors are not a collection of barn references applied after construction. Orientation, view and changing daylight establish the framework; materials, color and furnishings then make the architecture feel personal. Hunter describes the surrounding landscape as “an organic and textural backdrop” that “really allowed me to create.”
The 350-acre setting is described as an ambling idyll, but the feature does not provide a more precise Nashville location. The acreage is a project description, not a measure of the house or grounds that should be extrapolated into a site plan.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchWhat “modern barn” means in this project
Here, “modern barn” means a deliberate tension between substantial architecture and tactile, almost cottage-like warmth. Steel doors and gunmetal tones supply an industrial edge. Stone, cerused oak and layered textiles keep that edge from becoming austere. The effect is contemporary without relying on a single period vocabulary.
Hunter’s approach is bespoke rather than catalog-driven. Metal and glass cabinets are made for the kitchen; a dining table and a family-room light fixture are custom pieces; wallpapers, leather coverings, drapery and upholstery are selected to give each room a distinct emotional register. The result is less a repeatable package than a method: start with the land, build a restrained architectural shell, and use crafted surfaces and strong color to establish identity.
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A material and color system that moves from room to room
| Design element | Where it appears | What it contributes |
|---|---|---|
| Steel doors and gunmetal tones | Throughout the architecture | A crisp, industrial counterpoint to stone and wood |
| Gray-washed, cerused white oak | Great room, kitchen, dining and living areas | Continuity, visible grain and a pale, weathered foundation |
| Root-beer-colored cabinetry | Kitchen | Dark warmth against glass, metal and marble |
| Calacatta Viola and an all-marble hood | Kitchen | Veined stone used as architecture rather than a small accent |
| Batman blue | Family room | A deliberately saturated, enveloping color requested by the homeowner |
| Oxblood | Club lounge | Depth and intimacy, reinforced by Pierre Frey drapery |
| Silk embroidered wallpaper and leather | Primary bedroom | A continuous surface that turns into the custom headboard |
| Blue tile with an ombré pool floor | Pool house and pool | A graduated water palette that links bath, pool and sky |
The gray-washed, cerused white oak is especially important because it runs through the great room, kitchen, dining area and living spaces. Instead of treating every room as an isolated composition, Hunter uses one pale, tactile material to make the main sequence legible. Stronger colors can then change the mood without making the house feel fragmented.
The kitchen turns utility into a view
The kitchen’s custom metal-and-glass cabinets are mounted in front of windows, allowing storage to coexist with views rather than blocking them. Amuneal is credited as the metal specialist. The arrangement makes the cabinetry read as a transparent architectural layer: metal provides structure, glass preserves light, and the landscape remains part of the composition.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesRoot-beer-colored cabinets bring a deep brown warmth to that framework. Their sheen is carefully tuned rather than left as a generic gloss or matte finish. Holly Hunt pendants add a decorative focal point above, while stools use a geometric Rosemary Hallgarten fabric. Calacatta Viola introduces pronounced veining, and the hood is made entirely of marble. These choices make the kitchen substantial without abandoning its connection to the windows.
The lesson is not to copy a particular brown or stone. It is to coordinate finish, reflection and pattern: a dark cabinet can feel lighter when glass and windows sit behind it; a dramatic marble hood can feel intentional when its scale is matched by the room’s architecture; and a patterned stool fabric can repeat geometry without turning the kitchen into a theme.
Great room and living areas: quiet continuity, oversized gestures
Gray-washed cerused oak carries into the great room and living spaces, where triple-height ceilings provide the project’s largest vertical gesture. Bronze double fireplaces give the room weight at that scale. The metal is warm enough to sit with the oak, yet dark enough to preserve the house’s gunmetal thread.
A custom teal lacquered dining table by Bespoke Furniture supplies a concentrated flash of color. Lacquer reflects light differently from the porous oak and textured stone, so the table reads as a deliberate object rather than another architectural surface. In a room with very high ceilings, that kind of horizontal punctuation helps define the zone where people gather.
Rooms with intentionally different personalities
The Batman-blue family room
The homeowner requested “Batman blue,” and Hunter used the color for the family room. The phrase describes a specific, assertive blue rather than a neutral navy. It gives the room a memorable identity and demonstrates how a client’s direct preference can become an organizing principle when the surrounding materials are controlled.
The family room also contains a custom geometric fixture by Bespoke Furniture, inspired by French 1940s lighting. Its geometry brings a period reference into a room whose color is unmistakably contemporary. Hunter’s lighting philosophy is captured in his statement, “I love huge fixtures that are translucent—that’s my Wonder Woman invisible jet mode.”
The oxblood club lounge
The club lounge shifts to oxblood, with Pierre Frey drapery reinforcing the deep red-brown atmosphere. In contrast to the bright, daylight-oriented common areas, this palette suggests a more enclosed retreat. The feature does not identify a paint formula or wall construction, so the useful takeaway is the relationship between color and mood, not a claim about a specific finish.
The primary bedroom
In the primary bedroom, silk embroidered wallpaper by Janet Yonaty transitions directly onto a custom leather headboard. Continuing one pattern across wall and bed removes a hard visual stop and makes the headboard feel built into the room. It is a graphic example of Hunter’s broader strategy: custom surfaces are allowed to cross conventional boundaries between architecture, furniture and decoration.
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Lighting is the project’s connective signature
Hunter identifies lighting as a signature of his work, and the feature documents fixtures across several scales and settings:
- Urban Electric Beacon pendants mark the entry.
- Holly Hunt swing-arm sconces sit beside the primary bed.
- An A. Rudin crystal fixture brightens the wife’s primary bath.
- A custom geometric Bespoke Furniture fixture anchors the family room and draws on French 1940s design.
Together, these examples show why the lighting does more than provide illumination. The entry pendants establish arrival; bedside sconces provide a practical, intimate scale; the crystal fixture adds sparkle to a private bath; and the family-room piece acts almost like sculpture. Hunter’s preference for large, translucent fixtures lets daylight and artificial light participate in the same material conversation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The pool house treats outdoor furniture as upholstery
The pool house extends the interior language outdoors while giving the setting its own technical feature: a motorized glass ceiling for viewing the stars. Blue tile appears in the pool and bath, and the pool floor shifts through an ombré pattern rather than stopping at one flat color.
Holly Hunt Manta Ray daybeds and Dedon Swing chairs furnish the space. Hunter says, “We wanted pieces to feel upholstered and not at all like pool furniture,” The statement clarifies the design objective: comfort and visual softness should survive in a wet, open setting. The pieces are selected to read as proper furnishings, not temporary equipment arranged around water.
The blue palette, the glass ceiling and the ombré floor also create a sequence of changing surfaces. Water, tile and sky can look different as daylight moves, so the pool house participates in the same sun-conscious design logic that determined the living room’s location.
How to read the project as a painting-minded palette
For a painter or color-led designer, the house offers a useful hierarchy rather than a shopping list. Begin with a large, relatively quiet field: the gray-washed cerused oak, stone and daylight. Add dark structural notes through steel, gunmetal and bronze. Reserve the strongest chromatic statements for rooms or objects that should be remembered—Batman blue, oxblood, teal lacquer and the blue ombré pool.
Texture prevents those colors from becoming flat blocks. Cerused grain, leather, silk embroidery, marble veining, patterned fabric and translucent glass each scatter light differently. A saturated hue therefore changes as it crosses a material, even when the nominal color remains constant. That is why the project feels layered rather than merely colorful.
Scale matters as much as hue. Triple-height ceilings can absorb a small decorative gesture, so Hunter answers with double fireplaces and oversized lighting. Conversely, a bedside swing-arm sconce can be modest because it operates close to the user. Matching the scale of the intervention to the volume of the room is one of the project’s clearest transferable principles.
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What the published feature establishes—and what it does not
The feature establishes the property’s approximate acreage, the daylight-led siting process, the named materials, suppliers, rooms and quoted design intentions. It does not establish a precise address, floor area, budget, construction schedule, completion year or performance data. Those omissions matter: the project can be analyzed as a designed experience, but its costs and technical specifications should not be inferred from the photographs or from the names of individual makers.
The “modern barn” wording is Hunter’s characterization of the look. It should not be treated as proof that the building belongs to a regulated architectural type or that every barn-inspired house shares these details. This particular project is defined by its bespoke response to a large rural site, not by a standard plan.
The central design idea
Adam Hunter’s Nashville house is coherent because its decisions happen in sequence. The team first found the site’s best light, then built a substantial architectural backdrop, then used custom metalwork, stone, oak, color, textiles and lighting to give each room a distinct role. The pool house carries the same logic into an indoor-outdoor setting, where a motorized glass ceiling and upholstered-looking furnishings make the experience feel intentional after dark as well as during the day.
That is the useful meaning of this particular “modern barn”: not a rustic costume, but a site-led home in which industrial structure, organic texture and expressive color are allowed to coexist. The materials are rich, yet the organizing principle remains simple—let the landscape and light establish the conditions, then make every visible surface earn its place.
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