Both in their 30s, the pair forged an instant rapport upon meeting in 2013. No stranger to design challenges (Jenkins was recently named one of the nation’s top African-American designers and a winner of HGTV’s Showhouse Showdown) he nonetheless admits he was taken aback when Courtney and her husband, Jeff, outlined the to-do list for their 1939 Colonial Revival in a Detroit suburb. “Overall, there were 32 spaces to design and furnish,” the designer says. “The most daunting part was the timeline. They wanted structural renovations completed within six months. Courtney was pregnant with their second child and due soon after the move-in date. I warned them that their schedule was absolutely insane. They looked at each other, smiled, and said: ‘We know.’” Taking cues both from Courtney’s closet and from the fashion runway, Jenkins presented a combination of bold hues and modern choices juxtaposed against a traditional backdrop. “She’s not afraid of color or pattern or of combining the two in inventive ways,” he says. Interiors were re-energized using jewel tones and vibrant saturated colors. “When we were getting started, designers like Elie Saab were featuring emerald, navy, and citron on the Paris runway, and Courtney loved those colors, so we started there,” says Jenkins. The emerald-green wall color in the foyer and stairwell is a custom mix. The spaces were repainted after a less-than-exciting white felt dull. In the parlor, a Henredon étagère houses a collection of white porcelain. The ceiling features an 11-step lacquered Venetian plaster treatment, which reflects the eye-catching de Gournay mural on the wall. Jenkins balanced the room’s opulence with clean-lined chairs paired with an English double-pedestal dining table on a sisal carpet.
