The hometown owners showed Southern Living the home they lovingly restored in the magazine’s November cover.
Not far from the HGTV star’s main home in Laurel, Mississippi, their new weekend getaway was hiding in plain sight.
Erin, who said she drove past her dream home, said she had “literally everything” on her list and didn’t see it “countless times” because it was so far from a country road. But last spring, when Ben sent her a listing of real estate, she was hooked.
“I fell in love straight away — it scared the shit out of me,” she told Southern Living. “I thought, ‘We don’t need another house… but maybe we do.’
The parents of 4-year-old Helen and 1-year-old May wanted their children to be raised in the countryside, which is not possible in downtown Laurel.
“My pastime is climbing trees and digging arrows in the woods,” Erin, who grew up on a chicken farm, told the magazine. “It’s not something our girls can do in the city.”
The stars wanted a place where they could take the girls to the garden, fish and run outdoors. “I want their bath water to be dirty at the end of the day, which means they’re not just playing on screen,” Erin said.
“I have a typewriter, a record player, a transistor radio and books,” Ben said. “I come here in the morning for coffee and to take notes for Erin and Helen.”
Although the house was close to their main residence, its Tudor architecture kept the couple thousands of miles away.
“One of the reasons we had to buy this house was because it looked very British,” says Erin. “It feels like you’ve crossed an ocean and are no longer in Mississippi. It’s like a vacation for us.”
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Erin says the kitchen is her “favorite place” in the house, and the couple even took inspiration from a famous British television series when designing the kitchen.
“It’s brand new, but I wanted it to look like it’s from Downton Abbey – classic yet laid-back English style, functional yet elegant,” explains Erin.
The picturesque country retreat is at the center of “special occasions and holidays” and has many small details from family and friends, including a refurbished sofa given to them by Erin’s mother and a cookie painting hanging in Erin’s grandmother’s house, she says. “my favorite thing in the kitchen.”
In the upcoming episode of Hometown, which returns in early December, Napier will reveal more about his historic home and how they restored it.
Read the full article and learn more about Napiers this month in this issue of Southern Living and southliving.com.