PHOTOGRAPHY BY STACEY BEWKES

My infatuation with ATJ (aka “All Things Jill”) started when our paths briefly crossed in Atlanta years ago on a job for Ballard Designs, where she was creative director and I was styling for one of their catalogue shoots. My new book, At Home With Designers and Tastemakers, Creating Beautiful and Personal Interiors, features the homes of friends and designers who have impacted my own personal aesthetic. I instantly wanted to emulate her artistic yet gamine style, from her shearling clogs (which I bought via my phone while literally standing in front of her) to her pixie-like haircut, which, lucky for me, I realised I could not pull off. Cut to almost ten years later: I am in Charleston for a book signing, strolling past its iconic historic homes, when I stop in front of one in particular – its traditional 18th-century brick facade had been wedded to a sleek, beguiling modern addition, punctuated by a massive outdoor lantern and three 40-foot-tall sycamore trees. It’s all so unexpected yet completely appropriate, respecting its surroundings while raising the bar to whatever can be imagined. ‘I want to meet whoever would do this,’ I think. Later, while signing books, I hear that it is Jill Sharp Weeks who lives behind that beacon of fabulousness. ‘Of course, who else?!’ I think.

A few years later, when I finally get to go inside the 1790s house to capture her life there for the video series [Quintessence at Home with on YouTube], I learn that the large L-shaped addition used to be a parking lot. Now it houses the Weeks’ sublime kitchen, pantry, fireplace sitting area, powder room, and guest bedroom spaces. Jill walks down the staircase of the now-soaring two-storey space to greet us wearing a boldly striped ticking cotton caftan. “I live for a good stripe, both on my body and in rooms and gardens,” she says. Around her neck is her signature layering of three necklaces: Some shells from Papua New Guinea, a custom-made piece by her nieces, and an oversized African tribal adornment. Everything in Week’s world is a kind of talisman, and the vibe is palpable. Growing up surrounded by her great-great-uncle’s paintings (American impressionist William S Robinson), an intensely creative mother with a penchant for throwing wild dinner parties, a father (chemical engineer) with a strong passion for photography, and a stint living in Japan as a teenager, Jill’s unique styling is obviously rooted firmly in her DNA. But it’s how utterly personally she expresses it that resonates – the way dozens of potted myrtle plants populate the counter in the outdoor bar, which is lined in shimmering tiles handmade in Morocco; the way Dyptique candle holders now contain vintage hotel silverware Weeks collects and then monograms with numbers to delight dinner guests; the way a rock from Maine coexists on a Belgian bureau next to a bowl of the couple’s wedding matches, their backs inscribed with the following mantras: WE LOVE: CLEVER WORDSMITHS, FORAGERS, BEAUTIFUL PROBLEM SOLVERS, CARING URBANISTS, ARCHITECTURE FREAKS, DOG LOVERS + PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE, GET YOUR VEG ON GET YOUR LOVE ON.

We sit down in the Eames moulded shell chairs for a lunch of salad and fresh fish, with mango, mint, and lime zest. I ask Weeks what the material is on the addition’s facade. “It’s new brick hand-applied with brick slurry, which is crushed oyster shells, lime, and a little magic,” she says. Only in Weeks’ world does brick coating sound like an elixir, yummy enough to drink.”

From: At Home With Designers and Tastemakers, Creating Beautiful and Personal Interiors, Susanna Salk and Stacey Bewkes, Rizzoli New York, €42, is out this month.

“I had always thought throwing a Picasso and his Muses party would be fun, but this seated supper, held in our entry hall using tables stored in our basement, exceeded my expectations,” says Weeks. “I played into Picasso’s love of bulls by hanging straw donkey and bull heads from the hallway above. And from his art, I borrowed the colour palette and roughness by using a Spanish truck tarp – patched and marred and imperfectly perfect like his paintings – for the tablecloth.” The finishing touch was the hay stuffed into the leather horse nametag holders. “It is this level of personal expression when I am at my most content,” admits Weeks.

“I don’t do pretty. I do strong, edited, masculine spaces. I adore tension in rooms,” says Weeks. This wall of art from the 1950s was hung without a plan. The brutalist console works because of the provenance of the art. The stairs lead to the attic Pilates studio.

In her open-plan kitchen/living room, Weeks has combined rough-textured Belgian bluestone floors with American white oak cabinets, Moroccan zellige wall tiles and Swedish and French cutting boards.

“I love using drawers in my kitchen designs. It’s not only easier to see everything, but I also like the linear effect. I ended up taking apart what had been a really long table and using it as the island counter. A local blacksmith, Sean Ahern, made the steel posts and straps and forged our initials and wedding date into the steel.”

“One of my happy places that always makes me smile,” says Weeks of her pantry containing things that she has had for 40 years and used as props in many advertising campaigns. “I adore a utilitarian aesthetic and am always looking for things with numbers, letters and handles, and the heft of another time. I also always look for small dishes and repurposed containers to add height and spontaneity to our tables. I never do the same thing twice.”

This room was designed to just look chic but not give its function away; with a Murphy bed that folds down it turns into the coolest of guest rooms. “It was designed with the precision of Campaign-style furniture and is like an opening into another era.”

In the main bedroom, the plaster lamps are from a favourite Houston dealer. The duvet was made by sewing together flat sheets. The sculpture on the rear wall is two sheets of French plywood used to cut marble and stone countertops on.

In the back garden, live myrtle topiaries are piled high with key limes and black beans covering the soil. This folly serves as a bartending station when Weeks throws parties. “Off go the plants and out comes the liquor!” says Weeks.