Drawing on her fashion background, Samantha Thompson brings a playful and colorful spirit to her midcentury modern ranch.
Written by Mary Cornetta
Photography by Mary Britton Senseney
Raised in Chicago and trained at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Samantha Thompson began her career in the fashion industry. She worked in a multitude of areas, including product development, sales, and fabric sourcing, all of which have proved useful in her current role as owner of Samantha Thompson Interior Arts, her design firm based in Savannah.
While living in New York City before her move to the Hostess City, she met her husband, Anastasios Tomazos, whose work took them to London. In 2017, around the time their daughter turned a year old, they returned stateside to be closer to family, settling into a 1930s four-story home in Winnetka, Illinois, which Thompson began redesigning.
Friends took notice — first one, then another, and another — and Thompson started taking on more interior design projects between her fashion consulting clients. She embraced the shift: “It grew organically, and I found that I loved it.” It wasn’t long before she officially formed her design business. Thompson notes that fashion still heavily influences her work (such as the use of color and her appreciation of fabric), as did her past experience. “What was most helpful for me was that I was in product development,” Thompson says. “I knew how to source, and I knew how to make things.”
After the pandemic, Thompson and her husband craved a change — and warmer weather. Her father had recently passed, her mother was open to moving as well, and Savannah made their shortlist over a bottle of red wine on a frigid Midwest winter night. They first explored the Historic District, finding a home they loved but ultimately felt was too small for them, so Thompson’s mother bought it instead. Eventually, they landed on their current home, a midcentury modern ranch in Greenview on Bacon Park with a unique backstory.
Built in 1960, the home originally belonged to Elizabeth Mercer Hammond, Johnny Mercer’s niece, and remained in the family for 40 years. Thompson felt the original owner’s essence instantly. “She had a great sense of style,” she says, “and there was just something about this house.” Designer Jay Martin of Massey Martin Design was also a previous owner and had made some updates without altering the layout.
Once Thompson bought it in the spring of 2022, she began making it her own while also respecting the footprint. Between frequent trips south and the help of project manager Matthew Hallett of Hallett & Co., she added thicker doors, swapped hardware, reconfigured lighting, remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms, and layered in wallpaper, paint, and color. The entire overhaul took six months and was the first time she had ever redesigned a whole home.
The family officially moved into the house in the summer of 2022. Being a new resident of Savannah, Thompson wanted to understand the local design ecosystem — such as material sourcing, lead times, and quality of craftsmanship — before taking on clients. “Once I started to get more comfortable, I started promoting the business,” she says.
Thompson’s style blends creativity with a respect for longevity. “I don’t like the idea of waste, especially when something was well-made to begin with,” Thompson says. “There’s an appreciation for antiques in Savannah that you don’t always get in other places.” Restoring or reupholstering items that she or a client has inherited is one of her favorite ways to incorporate them into a room design. “I don’t like having things everybody else has, and I don’t want my clients to have things that everybody else has,” she says. Refinishing a piece means you “end up with something unique and that’s personal to you.”
Walking through Thompson’s home puts her imagination on full display, starting strong with the entryway. A zebra print rug welcomes you, providing an unexpected connection to the past: Thompson discovered that Elizabeth Mercer Hammond’s family called her by the nickname Zebie. When she invited Hammond’s granddaughter to tour the finished home, Thompson recalls, “She screamed when she saw the rug and said ‘My grandmother would have loved that!’”
Two red-lacquered altar chairs from Tapley’s Mercantile and Antiques flank the living room opening to the right, their seats covered in 1970s Asian-inspired needlepoint fabric. Above them hang white ceramic heads of Quetzalcóatl, an Aztec god. Antique Venetian palm-front sconces flank a carved gold-leaf mirror above a scalloped wicker console, giving it a flirty flair.
Straight ahead, two halves of a silver roasting platter lid hang on the wall, filled with preserved moss balls, beckoning entrance to the family room. “The insignia says ‘The King’s Royal Rifle Corps,’ and I researched it — it’s from the British regiment that led the first American colonial soldiers in Savannah,” Thompson says.
Former owner Martin installed Schumacher Cordoba wallpaper — a neutral geometric pattern — throughout the entryway, and Thompson left it intact. “You don’t always have to replace everything,” she explains.
Case in point: the impressive, hand-block-printed Zuber mural Martin installed on an accent wall in the dining room, which Thompson also adores. The rest of the walls are covered in a dark blue grasscloth wallpaper that sets the tone. Thompson explains that she designs dining rooms around their primary purpose: “A light dining room can be absolutely gorgeous if you’re mainly doing brunches and lunches. I like to use mine for dinner, so I went darker because I wanted a cozier, moodier feeling.”
Twin dark-wood bookshelves that came out of a London law firm office bookend the mural, with a lighter-toned Sobota sideboard living between them. The dining table — glass-topped with carved bamboo and caning details — once lived in a Hollywood estate before Thompson purchased it from First Dibs. The gorgeous green-and-gold chairs came from a Habitat for Humanity ReStore and were reupholstered in blue Schumacher Japura Forest fabric. Overhead hangs a brass bamboo light fixture with toile shades that once graced her parents’ Michigan lake house.
Thompson’s parents highly influenced her love of design. Her father was into discovering art and antiques, while her mother could make any room feel complete. “He was more about the thrill of the hunt, and she was more about ‘How are we going to display it?’” Thompson says. She clearly acquired both skill sets. Take the Hermès scarf her father gifted her: She had it framed and hung it in a corner of the dining room.
In another corner, above a brass bar cart, is an artwork display of cigarette butts from a shop in Dallas that Thompson jokes reminded her of college. Above it hangs a painting of a European bar scene found at Savannah’s Clutter Furnishings & Interiors alongside a piece her father purchased from a budding artist attending the Art Institute of Chicago. Beneath it all rests a Chinese Art Deco rug, tying together the striking colors in the room.
The adjoining living room is bathed in palm leaves, courtesy of Schumacher Japura Forest wallpaper (this time in green). “The challenge for this room was that it’s very long, and you also have traffic flow,” Thompson says. To tame the proportions, she anchored both openings with pairs of chests. Closest to the dining room are brass drawers from First Dibs, topped with black sconces that were once in a French movie theater. At the opposite end sit two cabinets Thompson shipped to a St. Louis-based company, The Resplendent Crow, where they were lacquered in glossy mint and shiny gold trim.
As with every other room of the house, art lends narrative to this space. There’s a vintage Air France travel poster Thompson bought in Switzerland and a handful of lithographs by French artist Philippe Henri Noyer (1917–1985), whose work she collects. “He will repeat positions or concepts, but the locations will change,” she explains. “I just love how they’re quirky and strange and cartoon-like but show off different cultures.”
The furniture pieces in the living room are works of art in themselves: a fantasy chair accompanied by a frog-prince footstool salvaged from an Hermès shoe department; a 1960s Maitland-Smith bow desk made of tessellated stone with its accompanying round brass stool upholstered in a vintage Pucci skirt; brass palm-leaf Ballard side tables flanking a subtle V-shaped sofa reupholstered locally by Sherry’s Honey Pot Fabric. “I wanted something curved to delineate the conversation space,” says Thompson.
Across from the sofa, a wheat-sheaf cocktail table sits between two antique slipper chairs. A red Japanese wall screen depicting a romantic scene serves as a backdrop, and another Chinese Art Deco rug grounds the room.
If the dining room is dramatic and the living room exotic, the family room is pure dopamine. A vintage Bordeaux-red Roche Bobois sectional (a collaboration with fashion designer Kenzo Takada) and a chartreuse suede loveseat create a circle opposite the hand-carved fireplace (which Thompson painted an invigorating mint green), with two oversized Champagne corks serving as witty side tables. In the center sits a coffee table shaped like sunglasses, salvaged from an optometrist’s office in Michigan. Above, a 1970s blown-glass daisy chandelier scatters light over an Oushak rug bursting with the same saturated hues found elsewhere.
On either side of the room, Thompson installed floor-to-ceiling built-in shelves filled with hundreds of books, organized by color. A midcentury dining setup sits beneath a brass Sputnik chandelier by Visual Comfort & Co. It is arguably the most cheerful space, but it feels more like a chic lounge than a kids’ hangout.
Her daughter has plenty of space to herself, given she has her own suite (consisting of her bedroom, a playroom, and a bathroom). And Thompson turned the hall leading to it into a playful moment. The walls are wrapped in Arty by Pierre Frey, a multicolored vinyl wallpaper that acts as a background for the artwork her daughter has created over the years. “I feel like the art she did, especially when she was really little, was so color-saturated and fun, so I picked my favorites and framed them,” Thompson says. Currently, eight pieces are on display, illuminated by an overhead iridescent light fixture from Pottery Barn Kids that throws a soft glow over the miniature gallery.
Throughout the remaining hallways, Thompson took the opposite approach, keeping the walls stark white and leaving plenty of space for other meaningful artwork. They’re lined with dozens of pieces, many serving as mementos, like the seating chart from the couple’s wedding and a map of London marking the hospital where their daughter was born. One standout is a cross-stitched Monopoly board, which she had framed by Savannah Framing Co. so the family can take it down and actually play the game.
At one end of the hall lives the primary bedroom. Thompson softened the palette using an airy mix of light pinks and blues, with hints of texture woven throughout. In an unconventional move, she chose wicker urn pedestals as nightstands, each holding a small tray for essentials. “The reason I did this was counterintuitive,” she says. “I usually advocate for more storage, and I had bedside tables with drawers, but so much stuff got dumped in them. I was like ‘We’re going cold turkey with these!’” The choice lightens the visual load and keeps clutter at bay. Above each nightstand are sconces from Visual Comfort & Co. Thompson replaced their shades with wicker versions to echo the pedestals’ material. Overhead, a midcentury Venetian blown-glass petal chandelier, found in an antique store in London, adds a graceful element.
In the kitchen, Thompson focused on functionality without sacrificing charm. She replaced the countertops with a matte-white Cambria surface from Garden State Tile, chosen primarily for practicality. “I wanted something that would be really functional, especially with having a kid,” she says. The original cabinetry stayed, but she swapped out the doors and painted everything a calming pale blue. New round chrome knobs give the updated cabinets a subtle sparkle. “To me, hardware is like jewelry, and I wanted something that had kind of a fun but also a smooth and heavy feel,” Thompson says. She believes those tactile details matter, whether it be handles or light switches: “It’s not just what the eye can see in design, it’s also about how things feel. It can trigger a sense of contentment and comfort.” The room’s backsplash adds playful contrast — a tropical blue-green scene that reminds her of the home’s lush backyard.
Just off the kitchen, the laundry room also received a facelift. Thompson covered the walls and ceiling with a cream-colored vinyl grasscloth wallpaper. “I love it because it feels like I’m in a basket!” she says with a laugh. The decision was part pragmatism, part principle. “One of my biggest design pet peeves is when there’s no crown molding,” she says. “But in a midcentury modern home, many times the ceilings are often too low for crown molding. So, whenever there is none, I always paint the ceiling the same color as the walls, or I wallpaper it.”
The vinyl finish makes the material especially forgiving in a hardworking space. “You can spill or splash anything on it and easily clean it,” she says. “It’s great for high-touch spaces like kids’ rooms and laundry rooms.”
She continued the Cambria countertop here as well but chose a glossy finish and replaced the flooring with a blue-and-gray printed porcelain tile that’s “practically indestructible,” which is helpful since this space doubles as the family mudroom. It’s also a showcase for the still-life food artwork that Thompson collects.
A half bath, tiled and wallpapered to match the laundry room, is tucked into a corner. A cane-framed antique mirror (a $10 antiques store find) hangs beneath a Kelly Wearstler Utopia sconce by Visual Comfort & Co., adding a touch of glam to an otherwise utilitarian space.
Her design work, like her own home, reflects individuality over trend. Thompson likes to compare designing a space to getting dressed: “It’s just like putting an outfit together. You can have a really nice pair of shoes and add a skirt from Zara, and then pair it with a vintage handbag.”
Needless to say, Savannah — with all its eccentricity and history — fits her flawlessly.
Details
- Neighborhood: Greenview (on Bacon Park)
- Year built: 1960
- Year purchased: 2021
- Timeline of renovation/construction: 7 months
- Number of bedrooms: 4
- Number of bathrooms: 4
- Square footage: 3,200
- Interior designer: Samantha Thompson Interior Arts
- Builder/contractor: Hallett & Co.
- Kitchen appliances: Livingood’s Appliances and Bedding
- Kitchen design: Samantha Thompson Interior Arts, Garden State Tile
- Bathroom design: Samantha Thompson Interior Arts
- Furniture: Vintage and antique finds and inherited pieces. Highlights include the vintage Kenzo for Roche Bobois sofa and the midcentury Danish Modern family room table and chairs from Broadway Antiques in Chicago.
- Paint/wallpaper: Lukscolor, grasscloth is Phillip Jeffries; powder room is Thibaut vinyl grasscloth; living room is Schumacher; primary bedroom is Phillip Jeffries; child’s bath has Gucci vinyl wallpaper; husband’s bath is Thibaut
- Lighting: Visual Comfort & Co., Pottery Barn Kids
- Tile/flooring: Cornermen Custom Tile for kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry room
- Accessories: China is antique Royal Crown Darby “Kings” pattern. Dining table chairs are from Ambie Hay of Palm Beach Thrifters; they have been reupholstered in Schumacher.
- Window shades: Budget Blinds
- Art: A variety, but one highlight is the large lithograph in the primary bedroom depicting the Sutro Baths in San Francisco, the subject of an early Civil Rights case.
