“I grew up in the Delta, on the Mississippi side, but never in a gazillion years did I imagine I’d end up back here,” says Elizabeth Poindexter Shackelford, who for the last 10-plus years lived in Birmingham, Alabama, where she bought and renovated a historic bungalow. “I was super proud of that. I’d made a whole life there. I loved walking down the street to a restaurant or to meet friends for drinks. I had no intention of leaving,” she says. But romance, and an old cotton gin, can lure back even a converted city girl.
Tour This Stunning Arkansas Farmhouse
Today Elizabeth and her husband, Sam, live just across the Mississippi River from where she grew up, in a century-old home in the rural metropolis of Montrose, Arkansas—population 200. The old railroad town once had a hotel and even a store or two; now there’s only a post office and lots of Delta-rich farmland where Sam grows cotton, corn, and soybeans, as did his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. “When Sam and I started dating, I knew he was tied to this land, that farming was in his blood, and what it would mean for me,” says Elizabeth. But she didn’t expect the joys of living in a place—and a home—steeped in four generations of family history, including that still-operable cotton gin run by Sam’s father.
Moving next door to her in-laws into the small three-bedroom house where Sam grew up, and his father and grandfather before him, has been a tradeoff of convenience. Swapping things like restaurants and closet space for charm and resonance is a compromise that Elizabeth now embraces, thanks to a renovation guided by her former Birmingham neighbor and friend, designer Heather Chadduck Hillegas. Sam’s grandmother, who died more than a decade ago, was the last resident to update anything, and the cottage was in definite need of TLC.
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“The family gave us complete liberty to make it our own,” says Elizabeth, who acted as hands-on general contractor. “But I also felt a sense of responsibility to those who came before me to maintain the home’s integrity. We didn’t blow out walls and combine rooms. Our kitchen is small because back then, kitchens were designed to be small. I was more inclined to update with fabrics, paint, and wall paper, but also keep an ode to the old.”
Hillegas was on the same page. “I was immediately charmed by the patina. I loved the home’s cedar shake exterior, oversized porch columns, and lichen-covered slate roof—it feels entirely rooted in history,” she says. Starting with a fresh coat of Alabaster white paint, Hillegas set about “breathing new life into old spaces and editing rooms so that each has a point of view. There was as much thought put into what not to do as what to do,” the designer adds.
Vintage wallpaper in a guest room was repaired, not replaced, and now is the backdrop for twin beds that Sam and his father both grew up sleeping in. When the original maple floorboards were being refinished, it was discovered they’d been stamped with Sam’s great-grand father’s name. “That kind of history you can’t erase,” says Elizabeth. Existing light fixtures were salvaged, refurbished, and shifted around, including a crystal chandelier that had been in Sam’s grandmother’s bedroom and now graces the dining room, where Hillegas chose a dramatic linear stripe wallpaper. “I love how wall coverings energize rooms like these with tall 11-foot ceilings,” she says.
The kitchen was fully renovated to accommodate Elizabeth’s culinary prowess (she’s a serious cook and kitchen gardener—helpful, given the nearest grocery is 45 minutes away), but here materials like shiplap walls and checkerboard flooring feel less retro, more right-on. When she was on the hunt for hardware for the breakfast room built-ins—also original to the house—Sam’s father chimed in that he had some that might work. “In he walks with a toolbox full of beautiful brass knobs,” Elizabeth says.
Those sorts of personal touches, and the fact that Sam’s three aunts can walk through and rattle off where this old chair and that antique chest or that tchotchke came from, infuse the Shackelfords’ home with soulfulness. “There’s a story to everything,” says Elizabeth. Each time the train rattles by (which is regularly—“I never knew trains could run as often as they do,” she says), she recalls the story of Sam’s great-grandfather, who used to walk out the front door with his luggage, and the train would stop and take him wherever he was going. “It’s nice to be able to get out of the way and let the house tell the story.”
Featured in our March/April 2022 issue. Interior Design by Heather Chadduck Hillegas; Photography by Alison Gootee; Produced by Rachael Burrow; Written by Stephanie Hunt.
