“Design Is in the Details”: How Designer Valerie Garrett Brought Her Modern Classic Vision to the Bath and Wellness Spaces for an Atlanta Holiday Showhouse
Photo: Lauren Chambers @laurenchambers_interiorsphoto
“Design Is in the Details”: How Designer Valerie Garrett Brought Her Modern Classic Vision to the Bath and Wellness Spaces for an Atlanta Holiday Showhouse
For Valerie Garrett, design has always lived in the details. After more than 25 years serving clients in the luxury residential and commercial worlds throughout the Southeast, the Atlanta-based designer has built a practice focused on creating timeless, curated spaces layered with textures and bespoke, high-quality finishes that balance functionality.
It’s a philosophy that caught the attention of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles, who tapped Garrett as specifications designer for their most recent Home for the Holidays Showhouse.
Designed by architect Linda MacArthur and built by Livingston Fine Homes, the showhouse was situated in Atlanta’s Brookhaven historic neighborhood, yet leaned into contemporary styling with light brick cladding and selectively placed siding. The interior, shaped by Garrett’s eye, took the design narrative into more nuanced territory. She calls it “modern classic.”
“I love the mix,” she says, describing the architecture as “a throwback to Scottish architecture during the Art Nouveau era, on the cusp of Art Deco.”
Garrett decided to build on the foundation MacArthur had established, but through a historical lens. Where Art Nouveau celebrates elegant curves and long lines, Art Deco answers with sharp angles and repeated geometric forms — and both movements are defined by the deliberate repetition of shapes. Garrett found her expression in the ellipse, which showed up everywhere in the design: in the curved radius of the pool, the arched windows, the pill-shaped mirrors in the primary bath. Juxtaposition was equally important. “I was very intentional about where I placed soft lines against harder ones,” she says.
In bath design, perhaps no detail is more important than the freestanding tub — and Garrett, true to form, specified with a curator’s eye. She chose Hydro Systems for three key spaces: the Coachella tub in a custom “Milkshake” finish for the primary bath, the pill-shaped Lido for a guest bath, and the Slate tub outfitted with Cold Plunge (and a custom gray color) for the lower-level wellness room. Each tub became an integral part of her palette, as she gave historic forms a fresh and modern reading for a 21st century audience.
The Primary Bath
The primary bath presented the kind of constraint Garrett relishes. The footprint was smaller than most she designs — tight in depth. “Everything I did was about maximizing a sense of space and openness,” she says.
Walnut cabinetry floats above rather than runs to the floor, with towers anchoring each end and a window left open between them to let the eye travel. The shower entry is zero-threshold, giving the floor a continuous visual flow with the rest of the room. For the water closet, she designed the floor as a hybrid—two-thirds opaque, with a clear base to let the floor breathe. “Visually, it kept your eye expanding.”
Pill-shaped mirrors suspended from the ceiling carry the room’s elliptical motif and solve a practical problem: a large window directly behind ruled out wall-mounting.
At the center of the primary bath, the winged silhouette of the Coachella freestanding tub serves as a sculptural counterpoint to the linear Greek key tile beneath it. Finished in a custom “Milkshake” hue—a warmer vanilla tone—the tub also has a hidden wellness component—Thermal Air hydrotherapy—integrated into its pedestal, giving the homeowner a relaxing dose of bubbles akin to a Swedish Massage. Overhead, swooping brass arcs of the chandelier mirror the tub’s curves, as do the mirrors.
Photo: Lauren Chambers. @laurenchambers_interiorsphoto
The Guest Bath
The guest bath nearly didn’t have a bathtub. When Garrett reviewed the original plans, all four bathrooms had been designated as shower-only. She pushed back.
“We need a tub for guests or young children,” she recalls saying. A closet was relocated to make room, and the Lido freestanding tub by Hydro Systems became the anchoring element in this space. Its capsule-shaped soft radius was a deliberate echo of the rounded forms appearing throughout the home.
The Wellness Room
Drawing on previous experience designing wellness spaces, Garrett knew the future homeowner of this showhouse would want one.
“Wellness spaces are now a given,” Garrett observes. “It’s part of every conversation with clients who are doing renovations or larger new builds.”
After designing a home theater, golf simulator, and bar/lounge for the lower level, she reserved enough space for a dedicated wellness room. Here, her design selections shifted darker and moodier, a deliberate contrast to the lighter palettes of the upper floors. “I wanted it to be relaxing and a place to unplug and work out,” she says.
Benjamin Moore Graphite covered the walls. MSI acoustic panels, arranged at a slant, added texture and movement. The roughly 19-by-19-foot space was envisioned as a place to decompress, disconnect, and move: Peloton-ready, with an indoor/outdoor sauna and a cold plunge tub by Hydro Systems.
She selected the Slate freestanding tub with integrated cold plunge in a custom graphite finish, a color made possible through the brand’s custom color program. “I knew I wanted to create a moody space,” she says. “That tub was just beautiful, and it incorporated all of the elements.” Unlike the curves she threaded through the rest of the home, the wellness room called for minimalism. “It was not a space I wanted to have curves. I wanted cleaner lines.”
Hydro Systems Slate Freestanding Tub with Cold Plunge in Benjamin Moore Graphite. Photo: Galiana Juliana. @galina.juliana
Bespoke Freestanding Tubs
Garrett’s work for the showhouse is ultimately a demonstration of the philosophy she has practiced for over two decades, and a testament to what Hydro Systems makes possible for designers who build their practice around bespoke work.
“I’ve been specifying Hydro Systems for a long time,” Garrett says. “They have great styles and a variety of forms, plus their capacity for custom color allows me to truly tailor a piece to the specific needs of my projects.”
The proof is, well, in the details.
