A Breezy Coastal Escape in Fairhope

 In the village of Fairhope, people prefer to travel by golf cart if by land and by boat if by sea. Back porches become the front of a house if it faces the water, made for watching bayside sunsets, and blue herons claim domain over manicured lawns. Sunbeams struggle to pierce drapes of Spanish moss that garland live oak branches. Blooms hang from lamp posts and skirt the sidewalks. Pickleball is a way of life and shopping Downtown is an endurance sport. Dining al fresco is preferred to eating indoors, so long as sweet tea and light breezes stave off the heat and humidity. It’s a quaint utopia — a fairyland lost in time. It’s no wonder that Lissa and Jeff Weston were allured by its charm in their search for their own plot of paradise.

The Westons’ home in Baton Rouge grew quieter when Jeff and Lissa’s children moved into university housing, and the couple found themselves ready to embrace a new chapter in their lives. “We were approaching our empty-nest time because our three kids were going to be in college, and we were kind of like, ‘What’s next?’” says Lissa. The couple decided that buying a new nest near the water would be their next great adventure, but they initially struggled to find the right perch for it. “We were looking at another location in another city, but it wasn’t sitting totally right with us. I passed by Fairhope on my way to Orange Beach for a girls’ trip, and I just thought, ‘Oh, wait a minute,’ and I pulled over and did a little loop through town. My husband is from Mobile, and he spent a lot of time in Fairhope and Point Clear during his childhood and young adulthood. We would take our children there when they were growing up, and our family loved going all those years for vacations. I thought, ‘Surely there’s something here in Fairhope.’ Then I found our neighborhood, The Colony, and then I called my husband.”

Lissa’s proposal to buy a house in Fairhope was an easy sell for Jeff. “I was fortunate to spend some time every summer in Point Clear boating and skiing and hydrosliding, and I had several buddies who had houses on the water. Those are some great memories,” says the Mobile native. “I graduated high school and moved away for college and my professional life. I’ve been all over the Southeast for the last 30 years. But I always had that pull from my childhood memories to get back to Point Clear. A lot of my friends are doing the same thing — everyone’s coming full circle and moving back. So, when the opportunity came up, it was just a no-brainer.”

Above Cannon chose a sectional sofa, swivel chairs, an ottoman and some rattan stools for the living room to maximize seating for the Westons’ guests. Bunk beds offer plenty of space for when Jeff and Lissa’s children bring their college friends to Fairhope. The chandelier above the table, a must-have for Cannon, anchors the dining room, giving the space a more upscale feel without sacrificing a coastal atmosphere. 

Just as confident as the Westons were in choosing Fairhope for their new vacation home, they were equally as determined to move into a fully-furnished space before the holiday season — a tall order for any interior designer. Luckily, they knew exactly who to turn to. The couple had already trusted interior designer Rachel Cannon with their house in Baton Rouge, and they knew she could rise to the occasion. “We bought the Fairhope house in June of 2023, and I asked Jeff, ‘What do you think about me reaching out to Rachel to see if she would be interested in doing this?’ He said, ‘Absolutely,” Lissa recalls. “We have worked with her for almost 20 years designing our house in Baton Rouge — there is not a nail in this house we did not think and talk about. So, I contacted Rachel and said, ‘Okay, how can we do this? How can we do it quicker?’”

Cannon was delighted when her long-time clients approached her to design the interior of their new vacation home in Fairhope. She was also somewhat stunned by the magnitude of their request. This new project wouldn’t afford her the luxury of decades of planning. “Lissa called me last summer after I’d done their whole house here in Baton Rouge and said, ‘We love our house here. However, we want to be in this new one and using it by Christmas of this year.’ That is a huge request considering how we do what we do,” Cannon says. “So, I told her we had just invented a service called the Easy Button Design option that lets us do these quick turnarounds. I gave her a mood board and said, ‘This is the vibe we’re going for, but that’s all I can give you. We can get it done on time, but I need you to hand over your trust.’”

The Easy Button Design service was by no means conventional, and it was hardly the process to which the Westons were accustomed. “We just had a couple of meetings and created these … I guess I’d call them storyboards. We wanted it to be coastal chic, and she asked us things like, ‘What colors do you want to see and what do you not want to see?’ My husband said he did not want to see any purple. We told her we love all shades of blue, and that we wanted it to be light and airy and breezy with a few modern components,” says Lissa. “Jeff and I went in for our second meeting and she showed us what she put together, and she said, ‘It won’t be these exact lamps or chairs, but is this the vibe you’re wanting?’ We said it was, and that was it. She went with it, and we did not see one single thing until it was all installed. It was fun and scary, but it also wasn’t scary at all. Rachel is the best, so we knew it was going to be beautiful.”

Though Lissa was initially apprehensive about the proposal, Cannon’s talent was undeniable. “My friends in Baton Rouge kind of tease me when I tell them the story about how this came together, because I’ll tell them, ‘Oh, it was a total trust fall.’ And they’re like, ‘No it wasn’t. Rachel has done everything in your house.’ I mean, you cannot walk into my house and see something she hasn’t touched,” Lissa says. “She just waves her magic wand over everything, and it’s beautiful. It’s absolutely phenomenal.”

Above left to right Cannon carried the serene color scheme and brass accents throughout the home — even into the bathrooms. A grass-cloth headboard and natural-textile window shades pay homage to traditional beachy textures. Much of the art in the home was sourced from Fairhope shops to add “local flavor.” 

Creating a dreamy living space in another state was nothing new for Cannon, but she swooned over Fairhope’s charm. “We do what we do everywhere, and Fairhope is really not that far away. I’ve traveled to California, and we have a client in New Jersey, so a three-hour drive is nothing for us. It feels like it’s in our backyard,” Cannon says. “I had been to Fairhope once when I was about 15 years old, and I just forgot how cute it was. We loved it, truly. We were like, ‘We need a satellite office here.’ The team and I went out to dinner one night and said that the town looks like it’s in a Hallmark movie.”

The Westons’ move-in date required Cannon to order furniture and lighting with quick turn-around times, but she had the pleasure of supporting local artists by sourcing paintings from local boutiques. “In order to manage the logistics of everything and move in in that time frame, we needed to have as much as we possibly could. It was just too much to leave up to chance,” Cannon says. “But we got to town and the shops were great, so we actually did source some art and accessories locally. Five Gold Monkeys stands out to me, and we went to a place called Villa Decor 2 where we got to hold and pet a baby goat. It was the best day of my life — truly a highlight of my life.”

Despite having limited time to transform the Westons’ home, Cannon met and exceeded Jeff and Lissa’s expectations. “Seeing it for the first time, it took my breath away,” says Lissa. “Then our kids came, and their mouths just dropped. They love bringing their friends. Every single person that has come over is shocked when I tell them I didn’t pick out anything. But after working that long with someone, they almost have access to your vision and your aesthetic. So, even though I didn’t pick out anything, it’s almost kind of like I did.”

Now that they have the perfect getaway spot, the Westons can fully embrace all that Fairhope has to offer. “We golf cart everywhere. Fairhope has clearly grown a bit over the years, but it’s still one of those quaint old Southern charm areas,” says Jeff. “We’ll go down to the pier. We love to go to Provision for coffee, and we’ll go over to Bucky’s at the Grand Hotel for a quick little bite and a cocktail. Depending on the time of year, we might go outside and eat by the fire pits. The kids and I will sometimes go over to Bone and Barrel to look at some live music. Lissa will go downtown to the boutique shops with some friends. I mean, there are just all these things we have opportunities to do.”

“We also love to have people over,” Lissa says. “Of course, we’ll have dinners. My friends will come to town, and we’ll go to the Christmas store. We’ll go over to CK Collection and Sadie’s. I’ll stop in the Fairhope store and get some little gifts for out-of-town guests who come to the house. Jeff has his high-school buddies who will come over for dinner, but we’re meeting some new people too. So, we have a mix of a bunch of old and new friends. It’s just such a strong sense of community over there. Everybody’s so friendly and so nice.”

The Westons’ new home away from home has become a cherished part of their lives where their love for the past and the joys of the present dovetail. “I’ve always thought of it as God’s country over there,” says Jeff. “When I come from wherever I’m coming from, I always take Old 98. I don’t mind going 25 miles per hour for that stretch. When I get past Daphne, everything else just melts away. It’s a peace and quiet that really makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. All these old memories start coming back. It’s just such a great place, and I’m so happy to have come back full circle and introduce Lissa and my kids to it — to what I grew up with.”