Celebrity Homes: Inside Fashion Model Taylor Hill’s Nashville House

Fashion icon and jet-setting American model, Taylor Hill, is a force to be reckoned with. Her latest acquisition, a large Nashville home, is far from pretentious and its rustic charm is what sold it to the model as a personal sanctuary from the outside world.

Taylor wasn’t always planning to purchase a home in Nashville. In fact, she was set on finding the perfect property in New York when a visit to a friend in Nashville steered her totally off course. Taylor fell in love with the city of Nashville and was more convinced than ever that she could make her home for herself here.

She immediately went on the hunt for the ideal residence, but as with most things in life, a big vision and some TLC was needed to realise this dream. As such, after being underwhelmed by numerous homes on the market, Taylor was stopped in her tracks when she stepped inside what ended up being her dream home. This was a rustic-looking 1936 log cabin with a rich Nashville pedigree. The home was originally built by Wold | HFR Design, the architecture firm responsible for renovating iconic local buildings, including the Ryman Auditorium and the Parthenon.

The log cabin sits on a 1.29-acre lot in the trendy 12South neighbourhood. The grounds feature a swimming pool, outside dining space, bamboo groves for privacy, and plenty of space for Taylor to let her Labradoodle, Tate, run wild.

Warm and Rustic Charm

Inside, the 3,622-square-foot, four-bedroom home had a warm mountain vibe that recalls the architecture prevalent in Taylor’s native Rockies. She explains in an interview with Architectural Digest: “That’s a reason I felt so connected to this house. When I walked in here, I thought, This is like home.”

Taylor is far from pretentious when it comes to her decor scheme. Affordable furniture sourced via Google searches shares space with family heirlooms and finer antiques. Her furniture resources range from RH to Walmart, and the sheepskins she scatters throughout the home come from Costco. “They make great ones,” she says. “You don’t have to spend a million dollars to make things look cool, so I tried not to.”

A Family Affair

She didn’t use an interior designer, preferring to follow her own instincts—and the guidance of her mother, Jennifer. “My mom has always done our homes from the bottom up by herself,” she says. “I remember vividly coming home from school and seeing mom in her denim overalls, just painting the entire house all by herself. I learned how to ‘do it myself’ from her.”

The living room flows into the dining room, which initially challenged Taylor’s design chops. “It was empty for like a year. I waited forever to put it together. But once I started finding things, it all just kind of exploded. And the next thing I knew, it was completely done.”

A celebration of blue

The dining room is also a central space in the home. Exposed wooden beams create a sense of geometry here. The room features a round wood table large enough to fit her visiting family. Furthermore, blue is a colour that reoccurs throughout the room, from the framed blueprints of the home to the mismatched chairs (painted by her mother) to the Blue Willow china displayed in the corner cabinets. “All of the dishware is my Grandma Gloria’s,” she explains. “My mom has hung on to all of her things.”

In contrast to the shadowy front rooms, the giant den that occupies the home’s innermost corner provides a blast of sunshine. “The living and dining rooms are dark and cosy, and then there’s this big, modern space,” Taylor says of the room. It is a 588-square-foot ’80s addition that has two long walls of windows.

Her challenge: finding a throughline with paint. A glossy coat of Naval by Sherwin-Williams therefore covers a wall of built-in shelves. Furthermore, it is complete with books, bar accoutrements, and her collection of elephants, which Taylor says is her spirit animal.