Select Page

HAVEN HILL’S HERITAGE

We knew there was something special about Haven Hill when we first stepped onto the property. It felt set apart. Like someone had poured her very heart and soul into the foundations and created an atmosphere that rotting wood and weeds could never diminish.

It was more curiosity than expectation that brought us that first day to view the property. Honestly, if we were expecting anything, it was perhaps another disappointment to add to our never-ending house search. However, as we stood in the front yard together staring at the house, we felt something we hadn’t felt in a long time — an invitation to dream again.

Before the house was ours, before it was “Haven Hill,” it was the home of Louise Phelps Jones. A kindredness with Mrs. Jones sparked within us as we pursued this home, and we want to honor her for what she built by sharing a little of her story.

“Louise P. Jones surrounded herself with beauty.”

An interior designer, she filled her house with antiques, and her prize day lily garden was a delightful setting for parties. The studio she and her husband created at the house they built in 1944 was a gathering place for artists.

Her house and gardens were featured in newspaper articles and described as “a picture of tranquility.”

“It is just a very warm feeling when you come into that house,” said a relative. “It reflected her Southern upbringing.”

She was gutsy.

Mrs. Jones was the first child from her family to move away from Florida to pursue a higher education. She sold some property to finance her studies at New York School of Applied and Fine Arts for Interior Design. “She was really gutsy to move from rural Florida to New York City,” said a relative.

But she wasn’t gaudy.

After receiving her degree, she moved to Richmond, VA where she was employed by R.H. Macy’s and Thalhimer’s. In 1940, she moved to Atlanta to work for Davison’s Department Store to specialize in residential interior design. Louise designed the homes for many of Atlanta’s most prominent citizens such as Ivan Allen. After leaving Davison’s, she opened her own Interior design company. Newspaper articles of the day called her “a prominent young interior decorator.”

“She decorated with simple lines that were very attractive. She didn’t do anything real gaudy,” said a relative.

She made home a haven.

After Louise retired she enjoyed opening her home as an art studio to friends with interest in painting and sculpture. Many well known Atlanta artists came to study and paint in her home. She loved nature, bird watching, and working in her lily garden. 

Mrs. Jones particularly enjoyed entertaining in her day lily garden, which contained about 200 varieties of hemerocallis. “They were exquisite,” said a friend. “It was beautiful to look over that sea of hemerocallis, and those red birds, we counted 25 at one dinner party.”

“Louise was just a lovely person,” said a friend. “She enjoyed beautiful things. Her yard, her home, all of it bespoke Louise.”