It’s practically unheard of in this day and age for anyone with celebrity bona fides to actually decorate her own house, but that didn’t stop singer Heidi Newfield. Moreover, the results of her decorating efforts constitute a genuine, thoughtful act—far from being a show biz showplace, she’s clearly committed to making the Franklin house she shares with her husband, NFL agent Bill Johnson, a home. The minute you step onto the front porch, you know this isn’t a place a pro has been called in to fix up for the media to visit, and that’s a wonderful thing. Beyond being lovely, it’s refreshingly real.
The front porch, with its brick floors and white wooden posts, protects a heavy front door with gas carriage lamps on either side, while a rustic gardener’s table simply decorated with a few potted plants immediately makes the home welcoming. The opposite end of the porch combines contemporary wicker outdoor furniture with a vintage wooden wardrobe set in front of round-topped picture windows with plantation shutters, creating a casual, distinct visiting space, and hinting at what Heidi and Bill have done with their home. There, too, you’ll find a mix of vintage, antique and contemporary, of the chic tastefully mixed with the unpretentious.
“This is the first house we’ve had together, and I moved here from a tiny place in Sylvan Park,” says Heidi, referencing the much larger space she had to fill here. Decorating this house was a new experience, each of them bringing personal possessions that spoke intimately of who they were with the intention of creating a home. “I imagined the colors even before the walls were really up,” Heidi laughs. “Even when it was just standing lumber, I already saw these warm, gold walls.”
If there are signature words for the decor, “warm” is definitely number one on the list, followed immediately by “alive” and “light.” That’s an oversimplification, but each of those terms can be appropriately applied to every space. Constantly at hand are elements of the owners’ personalities. If you don’t know that Bill grew up in coastal Carolina and Heidi on a horse farm in northern California, the decor offers you the chance to make an educated guess. Earthy, saturated color is everywhere.
Intriguing art is everywhere in the house, all of it selected because the couple loved it—nothing was bought because they needed to put something in a given spot. Scattered about on the glowing hardwoods are hand-made Turkish rugs, purchased there while Heidi was entertaining the troops abroad. Musical instruments, some obviously regularly used, others vintage or antique, dominate the decor in the adjoining music and dining rooms, just through the front door. Upstairs, where Bill keeps a home office, hang a proliferation of modern shadowboxes cleanly framing football jerseys and sports memorabilia.
The entryway’s golden yellow, stuccoed walls immediately draw focus. It’s impossible to speculate about which trendy Nashville gallery provided what in this house, because none of them did a thing. Instead, you’ll find combinations like a contemporary light wood dining room table paired with darker wood chairs with leather seats that once belonged to Bill’s grandparents. Throughout the house, pieces that once belonged to other family members are visible—there was no rush, and indeed, no desire, to replace them with something more faddish.
“We decided not to bring in any professional decorators,” says Heidi. “Everything here means something to us, and we just let the rooms tell us what they needed as we used them. It’s worked fairly well so far.” With both of them on the road so often, they knew whatever they called home needed to be a place for kicking off shoes, playing with the dog and relaxing every chance they got...