Text: Lydia Somerville
Photos: Michael Hunter and Nathan Schroder
When Leslie Jenkins and her husband, Jeff, decided to buy a classic 1920s house in Fort Worth, they intended to retain its original layout and period character. But like most interior designers working on a home for themselves, Jenkins quickly expanded the scope of remodeling beyond those original intentions.
“We basically gutted it,” she says, “but we did keep the façade intact.” She moved the staircase, created a luxurious backyard with a pool as well as seating and dining areas, and transformed the second floor from five small bedrooms to three large ones—the primary plus two guest rooms for her grown children and future grandchildren. “As empty nesters, we wanted rooms that our kids would want to stay in.”
Jenkins works out of an office in Dallas, where she also co-owns interiors shop Blue Print and Blue Print Gallery. At these locations, the public can indulge in the impactful art and glamorous furnishings she loves. A devoted collector, Jenkins amassed her home’s artwork over years of travel to England and France, and the bold canvases interact with her design choices to create dynamic rooms.
In the dining room, a work by Kate Rivers, composed of strips of paper that swirl in a lush mass, hangs over the sideboard. “I had to work to find a wallpaper that could match the energy in the piece,” she says. A modern chinoiserie paper by The Mural Source with a botanical design cut through by a rushing river of stripes offers a response to the artwork’s call. The number of large canvases compete for wall space. “My old house had very high ceilings,” says Jenkins. “The ceilings in this house are lower, so I had to be deliberate in furniture choices to leave space for them. In the entry, I chose a bench to allow me to hang the piece of art over it.”
Two living rooms gave Jenkins the chance to create different moods in each space, with a formal room that could be at home in New York’s Upper East Side and the other imbued with a preppy, Palm Beach style. Throughout the house, shades of pink animate rooms of broad blue and green palettes. The primary bedroom is swathed in a rosy grasscloth with leaf-green accents and chintz window treatments. “We have to choose our words very carefully when presenting this color to husbands,” she says with a laugh. “We call it ‘salmon.’ My husband loves the color.”
In the kitchen, a brave mix of tile, wallpaper, and fabric patterns turns the blue-and-white scheme on its head. “I’ve always done mixed patterns, not matching,” says Jenkins. “My aesthetic is so set that I don’t really have to think about it.” A charming breakfast room with café curtains, a banquette, pink chairs, and a jaunty brass pendant light transports one to the set of Emily in Paris. Out the back door, a dining area and covered porch extend the house to the outdoors, with a fireplace for chilly days and a pool outfitted with arcing jets for sweltering Texas summers. If Jenkins’s aim was to lure her grown children home, odds are they are already there.
