Beaufort home featured in House Beautiful magazine

Even as a little girl, Michelle Prentice couldn’t go to sleep until her room was tidied just so.

After nearly 25 years into her career of making homes beautiful, the interior designer and her photographer husband, Josh Gibson, have built their new Old Commons Beaufort home with plenty of space to keep their home just so as well.

They apparently got things just where they need to be.

The couple’s three-story, three-bedroom, 5 1/2-bathroom home at 709 Duke St. is being featured in House Beautiful magazine’s June 2016 issue. The multi-page spread takes readers on a journey through Prentice and Gibson’s home via Gibson’s interior photographs, highlighting Prentice’s handiwork and the home the couple has made together.

Gibson is a Beaufort native returning home after a few years away. For Austin, Texas-raised and long-time Manhattanite Prentice, this was a journey back to the South. The couple moved back around the time they got married in 2010 to be closer to family, especially Gibson’s two sons, 16-year-old Jefferson and 13-year-old Warren. Gibson and Prentice have their own “babies,” their two Portuguese water dogs, Jasper and Pippa, a rescue.

The duo longed for a home with the traditional Beaufort exterior and a contemporary interior, but that’s hard to come by.

Prentice said she remembered getting off the plane in South Carolina from New York. Gibson met her there and said he’d found just the lot they needed.

It was a workable size, if a little smaller than their ideal. It was within a short walking distance from the buzz of Bay Street and Gibson’s sister and brother-in-law’s toy store, Monkey’s Uncle. They put in a bid before Prentice had a chance to see it.

“That was a big leap of faith for her,” Gibson said, chuckling. After four years of planning, designing, construction, historic district approvals and the rest of the challenges that come with building a house from the ground up, they were finally settled in.

Open areas, natural light and discreet storage space tie the rooms together with primarily neutral designs throughout the home. Indoor and outdoor spaces flow into one another with ease. Prentice said her plan was to make “every inch of our home” an inch that is well used and often used.

First- and second-floor porches overlook Duke Street, with porch swings and flower boxes Gibson made himself. A charming courtyard sits in the center of the property, shaded by a friendly palm tree — a much-welcomed and invaluable suggestion from a friend.

“In my mind, I’ve already been living here for six years,” Prentice said. Her visions of how the house should look and function were taking shape before the infrastructure was even in place. She said she chose neutral themes for her own home as a sort of break from clients’ color palettes — a fresh, light space apart from work.

One thing Prentice brought back from New York was a hearty appreciation for storage space. There, they lived together briefly in a loft apartment.

“My laundry room was more like a laundry closet,” she said with a smile, pointing out the ample space their new home affords.

Their home has countless little quirks and surprises: a television hidden behind a mirror; an enviable and space-smart shoe closet; a bathroom door so discreet anyone would presumably miss it the first time around; a nearly hidden kitchenful of appliances and pantry space that a guest would hardly imagine laid behind the clean, white network of rectangles.

Both self-employed, Prentice and Gibson are headquartered in home offices now that they have relocated to Beaufort. Much in line with the home’s utility-centric design, both offices can be converted into additional guest bedrooms if the number of guests exceeds the number of rooms. (That would give the house five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.)

Prentice worked for renowned interior designers — including Mark Hampton, MAC II and Naomi Leff — before she set out to create her own design firm.

Gibson got an early start interning for former Beaufort Gazette photographer Bob Sofaly as a young man.

After college, he began photographing for Southern Living magazine and has worked his way to building his own operation.

Now, the pair has created a tidy space that lets them live their Southern life.

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Beaufort home featured in House Beautiful magazine."