Inside the Home of a Mosaic Artist

After decades in a house designed around the needs of three boys, Brenda Pokorny, a mosaic artist, wanted a more feminine, art-centric home. In 2014, she and her husband, Jim, lived outside Cleveland, and their youngest son had gone off to college. “We realized none of them were coming back to Ohio, so I thought, We’ve gotta get out of here,” she says. “I couldn’t take another winter.”

The couple had a place in mind—the Lake Norman area, which they’d visited in 2007 on a tour of Davidson College with their oldest. Davidson reminded Brenda of Chagrin Falls, the Cleveland suburb where they’d raised their boys. They found an 8-acre plot in Mooresville and, in 2017, hired Simonini Custom Home Builders to construct a modern Mediterranean home with a pool and detached studio where Brenda could do her mosaic work.

After a successful career in textile design, Brenda says, she got “addicted” to mosaics: images made from pieces of stained glass, glazed ceramic, and stone. “My husband totally supports my obsession—or illness, whatever you want to call it,” she says with a laugh. “I worked with wall coverings and fabrics for a long time, so the pattern thing comes naturally to me.”

Brenda wanted bold colors and intricate tile work to complement a custom mosaic design she had planned for the primary bathroom. She just wasn’t clear on how best to execute it. But Simonini had a design subcontractor, Anne Miller of Miller House Interiors, who understood what Brenda had trouble articulating. “She’s an artist,” Anne says, “so she sees things as a piece of art on its own.” 

It took two years to finish the job, and the Pokornys remained in Ohio during construction but visited periodically to see the progress. Anne continued to work closely with the builders to finalize the fixtures and finishes. It was ready for Brenda and Jim in July 2019—8,500 square feet, an expansive living space for a pair of empty nesters. “My husband wanted to downsize, but I wanted to upsize,” Brenda says. “I wanted to make a place so comfortable that our sons would want to come visit. That worked, too, because six months after we moved in, the pandemic struck, and they all moved in with us.”

The house they moved into reflected Brenda’s—and Anne’s—notion of a home that, in design and detail, was a livable work of art. For the library, the team at Eudy’s Cabinet Manufacturing installed custom millwork and built-in shelves. Anne painted the walls, shelves, molding, and doors in Benjamin Moore’s Miramichi; for the ceiling, she chose Benjamin Moore’s Vapor Trails, a subtle silver hue instead of white. “Leaving it white looks like you forgot it, especially when the rest of the space is so cozy and custom,” she says. “I just love that deep, unusual color on the library shelves—it’s like we coated the whole room in it. It feels like a library in an older home.” 

The aqua kitchen tiles are from Pratt + Larson. “Turquoise is her favorite color. It’s the connecting thread throughout the house,” Anne Miller says. “Each space has a little touch in there.”

The kitchen also has Eudy’s cabinetry as well as Macaubas quartzite countertops, a turquoise tile backsplash, and black pendants to match the lighting throughout the foyer, kitchen, and great room. To keep the cabinets from feeling like a sea of white, Anne chose a natural wood for the oversized island. “Wood gives it a traditional feel, as opposed to a paint color that feels like newer construction,” she says. “It’s got that ‘always been there’ kind of feeling.” 

Anne painted the dining room a soft, romantic pink and installed a glass chandelier with antique brass from Visual Comfort. “It’s got 11-foot ceilings, so why not?” she says. “Everything in that room is grand, from the height of windows to that huge dining table.”

Anne painted the dining room in Benjamin Moore’s Careless Whispers. “We started with the rug from Charlotte Rug Gallery, then picked out paint,” she says. “We wanted it to feel romantic and cozy, like a place to drink wine with friends.”

The powder room, which Anne calls a “little jewel box,” has floral patterned wallpaper from Schumacher. For the vanity, she found an antique chest and put a piece of remnant marble on top. Regina Andrew sconces frame the antique mirror and complement the hardware. 

“Anne got my sense of color,” Brenda says. “At the same time, she toned down my wackier thoughts—or at least the ones she knew I’d live to regret.”

Anne designed an upstairs bedroom for Jim, who typically goes to bed much earlier than Brenda. (She often works late in her studio.) To make it more masculine, Anne enlisted the team at Interior Couture of the Carolinas to install a custom bed with an upholstered headboard that flows into the color-blocked drapery. “It’s incredible how they were able to line that up,” she says. “It’s so clean and crisp for a space that is normally fluffy and wrinkly.” 

Brenda had always planned to do a mosaic ceiling in the primary bathroom, so they had the builder create an arch above the bathtub where she would install it. Her design, inspired by Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Hokusai’s “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” was meant to make the space feel like “a beachside oasis.” After creating the mosaic on fiberglass mesh in Ohio, she loaded it in sections into her SUV and drove it down to Mooresville, where she spent a full week applying the tiles. 

“When people see my pieces, I want them to smile, and I want the colors to dance,” says Brenda, whose mosaics have been featured at Charlotte SHOUT! and ArtPop Street Gallery. “I’m not looking to make a societal statement or anything. I just want to create beautiful things.”

With such a big statement piece, Anne chose neutral stone tiles from Renaissance Tile & Bath to surround the tub. “We wanted it to feel expensive, like it had age to it,” she says. “It needed to complement but not compete with the mosaic—we wanted to let that shine.” 

Anne has moved on to other design jobs, but she’s continued to assist Brenda with draperies, custom furniture, and other small projects along the way. “This house is fabulous, and I take no credit for that at all—our builders and Anne built a beautiful, fabulous house for us,” Brenda says. “Every day I think, I can’t believe I get to live here.”