America is in love with foragers. The immense popularity of shows like American Pickers, Cash in the Attic and Auction Hunters has introduced the general populous to a rare breed of entrepreneur: the scout who — with discerning eye and encyclopedic knowledge of collectibles — recognizes overlooked treasure among the trash.
Alan Sheppard and his lovely wife, Tonia, are such folk. Real-life “Pawn Stars,” they are the proprietors of Alan’s Jewelry and Pawn, inveterate collectors, aficionados of the unusual, avid rodeo buffs and, somewhat less publicly, stewards of local history.
Their 19th-century historic home in Weaverville was once the President’s residence for Weaverville College and later, a boarding school. Alan remembers it from his youth as a ramshackle old edifice — overgrown and somewhat ominous — but something about it spoke to him. He recognized the relaxed graciousness of the underlying saltbox building and the surrounding three-acre property. Years later, as a successful businessman, he bought the property and began a renovation process that would engage him for the next two decades.
“We did the renovations in two stages,” Alan recalls. “I had been in the construction business at one time, so most of the initial work, back in the 1990s was done by me and a few of my friends.” The early efforts were basically structural — reclaiming the house from the long-deferred maintenance — so in 2009, Alan and Tonia moved into a nearby apartment, put their collections in storage and began a complete overhaul that included the addition of an entire new wing, the conversion of the former carriage house (with overhead hay storage) into an abundant great room and the refurbishing of the original house to integrate modern amenities such as solar-powered, radiant heat floors from Sundance Power Systems.
This time around, contractors handled most of the grunt work, but the Sheppards were still very hands-on in the process, sketching out the overall layout (Alan designed the built-in bar), choosing the granite and tile for the baths and foyer and sourcing many of the materials. For the flooring in the new great room, oak, hickory and locust boards were reclaimed from the stall dividers at the Western Carolina Livestock Market. Great believers in supporting local craftspeople, the couple commissioned Rob and Beth Mangum of Mangum Pottery in Weaverville to create custom ceramic tile for the kitchen and Ken Roberts of Asheville Copper Shop fashioned the complementing range hood insert.
“As we did the renovations, we tried to make everything feel as original to the house as we could,” says Tonia, “…to make it feel old even when we were going new.” But when it came to the interior design, the couple recognized that they would need the assistance of a skilled professional: someone who could take their marvelously disparate collections and integrate them into a cohesive aesthetic blend. Someone like Krista Washam LaBlue.
“It’s unusual that you get an opportunity to start fresh, to establish the colors and fabrics of an entire home,” notes LaBlue. “Alan and Tonia are true collectors and they have such a great eye for beautiful objects. They have things that have come through the store, things that they brought back from their travels to Africa, family pieces, auction finds, Western and rodeo inspired elements. There’s a lot of stuff. So keeping the house from feeling cluttered was a challenge.
“We had to be very specific about the pieces we selected,” she continues. “Everything is planned to go together, but there’s a sensitivity to each object. We keep reinforcing that pristine, clean feeling — even with all the different elements.”
LaBlue began with a fresh, yet neutral palette of grays and greens on the walls of the original portion of the house — varying slightly in tone with the transition from room to room — accented with pristine white trim, a favorite of Alan’s. For the great room, the more masculine section of the residence, she took her color cues from a rustic, Lee Jofa crewel-embroidered fabric that was selected for the showpiece draperies, swathing the walls in a clay red that resonates with the warm tones of the ubiquitous wood.
“We started with the color, layered in the fabrics and the lighting, began by putting in what they owned already and then started adding pieces,” explains LaBlue. “We had incredible fun with it. We made the decision about what each room should look like — the overall ambiance — and then made sure that the period of the pieces worked well together.”
Each room in the home is an adventure unto itself — a realm waiting to be explored. Artwork often sets the tone, ranging from a Krueger painting in the library, from Gallery Minerva, that evokes the African sunset to a charming Marcel Marceau print in a guest bedroom; a voluptuous Steven Forbes-DeSoule raku pear in the kitchen to an oversized painting of trout by Clayton Santiago found at Haen Gallery and a series of cut crystal “Magiscopes” by Feliciano Bejar in the great room. “We try to keep it real,” notes Tonia, “to integrate local crafts and artists into the mix.”
It is an eclectic mix, and it appears almost effortless…quite a hat trick when one considers that animal hides and trophies, tribal elements and leather upholstery co-exist comfortably with superb turn-of-the-century furniture, embroidered linen and raw silk. LaBlue’s deft hand with fabric (she created all of the home’s custom window treatments and decorative pillows in her studio) and mastery of texture subtly incorporate the elegant and the whimsical aspects of the Sheppards’ unique personal style. Exquisite Persian and oriental rugs from Togar anchor the spaces and assimilate the color schemes in each room.
The fine fabrics and intriguing artwork invite the visitor to look deeper into each vignette and, surprisingly, find that it fits into the whole like an intricate mosaic pattern.
It creates an atmosphere that instills a sense of comfort and inspires a sense of wonder — a setting that is, at once, both exotic and familiar. Consider the placid koi pond that bubbles outside a guest room window or the small barn and corral that house a pair of miniature donkeys just beyond the solar-heated swimming pool. And then, of course, there’s the entertainment area that masquerades as a garage — a bit of boy-toy heaven festooned with neon beer advertising, enshrining a 1960 Corvette and a 1955 Chevy Bel Air. Both convertibles. Both turquoise and white.
While it’s obvious that the Sheppards (and LaBlue) have had something of a joy ride in outfitting the residence and putting their very individual mark on it, there is also an underlying reverence for the stories that echo from the objects they collect and, indeed, from the house itself. And because so many of the riches contained in these walls speak to a sense of place — Alan’s grandfather’s hat, a painting of his grandmother’s barn by Weaverville painter, Marcus Thomas, an extravagant brass bed that, reportedly, once belonged to the legendary R.W. Pearson, who established Asheville’s first African-American baseball team — one can only conclude that Alan and Tonia have discovered the greatest treasure of all: a place called “Home.”