Restoration Hardware opens Atlanta gallery
Corte Madera, Calif. – Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. has opened RH, The Gallery at the Estate in Buckhead, Georgia. Featuring six floors and nearly 70,000 total interior and exterior square feet, the new retail concept features dramatic interior and exterior installations of home furnishings in a gallery setting.
RH Atlanta sits on nearly two acres and was designed by design architect James Gillam of Backen, Gillam & Kroeger. Conceptualized as a contemporary version of a Southern estate, the Gallery’s exterior featuring an expanse of windows with more than 100 pairs of French doors and a 36-foot tall Entry Oculus with dramatic 17-foot gates set against a backdrop of charcoal grey Venetian plaster. The grounds provide an expansive green composition year-round. Looking overhead, guests will see a progression of garden terraces featuring tracery metal trellises accented with climbing star jasmine, which culminate with the Rooftop Park & Conservatory. As night falls the building’s architectural details and gardens illuminate in a warm dramatic glow.
Customers approaching the main Peachtree Road entrance will pass through the striking gates into the grand entry rotunda with an antique French cast iron fountain. Lit by natural light emanating from the open air oculus three stories overhead, this space will be punctuated by an elliptical dome and lit by an eight-foot Foucault’s OrbcCrystal chandelier at night. Customers will then arrive at a two-story, arched glass wall before entering the central hall with an interior atrium rising through the space. All of this will be experienced along a single visual axis, enabling an unobstructed view through the entire main floor to the outdoor Estate Gardens and reflecting pool. At the periphery, Palladian-inspired barrel-vaulted passageways will lead to a classical arrangement of rooms with outdoor courtyards, featuring collections from renowned designers and artisans across the globe.
Arriving via the estate’s rear entrance off Buckhead Avenue, customers will see the Estate Gardens and motor court with valet parking. Atop a canvas of decomposed granite, symmetrical rows of Bosque Elm trees – each set within an organic planter of clipped boxwood – flank both the drive and the 50-foot-long infinity reflecting pool. Intimate, open-air pavilions lush with fig ivy, billowing shade canopies, glimmering chandeliers, trickling fountains and a monumental fireplace will showcase the RH Outdoor furnishings.
Customers will then ascend a six-story, grand double staircase spanning 36 feet, with custom-designed iron handrails inspired by the late 20th-century Venetian architect, Carlo Scarpa. An installation of 36 beaded crystal chandeliers hanging nearly 100 feet overhead plays off mirrored walls and windows to create an endless reflection, illuminating the climb to the floors above.
The first three floors feature the largest expression to date of RH Interiors’ curated collections of Living, Dining, Bedroom and Bathroom Furniture, Lighting, Furnishings and Accessories. The brand’s first physical representation of RH Small Spaces and an RH Baby & Child gallery occupy the entire fourth and fifth floors at nearly 8,000-sq.-ft. each. Here, customers will see sophisticated children’s furnishings that blend seamlessly with the rest of the home and petite versions of the brand’s iconic sofas, sectionals and chairs in a progression of intimate, light-filled rooms.
At the top of the grand stair, guests will arrive at a conservatory and rooftop park, complete with wraparound terraces featuring sculpted evergreen trees and topiaries, exotic succulents and panoramic views of Buckhead and downtown Atlanta’s skyline.