Between globe-trotting adventures, Uniquities Founder and CEO Julie Jennings teams up with her husband, Bret Jennings, and designer Carol Ann Zinn to transform their home into a reflection of their experiences
By Anna-Rhesa Versola | Photography by John Michael Simpson
Julie Jennings, the founder and CEO of Uniquities, has been awake since 3 a.m.
“I’m still on Kenya time,” she says with no hint of jet lag, only 48 hours after arriving home in The Oaks neighborhood in Chapel Hill. She was in Africa while the completion of her kitchen remodeling project was left to her husband, Bret Jennings, and Carol Ann Zinn of Zinn Design Build. “My kids make fun of me because this is my third safari,” Julie says brightly. “I love everywhere different.”
Julie’s restless and adventurous spirit was evident from a young age. She remembers naming her stuffed animals after places she dreamed of visiting, like Sydney and Java. By the time she graduated from Bowdoin College in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in government and Russian, she had earned enough money selling books door to door to travel the world for a year on her own. She was 21.
These days, Julie and Bret’s home is filled with decor and framed photos reminding them of their travels far and wide. Julie’s penchant for a sophisticated bohemian lifestyle is also clear in the design choices made this year for the kitchen, breakfast nook and laundry room.
LEFT The adjacent breakfast nook features a concentric chandelier made of brass, wooden beads and coconut shell talons.
RIGHT Custom cabinets with brass hardware and mesh center panels sit above an appliance garage where Julie stores coffee and tea supplies.
“Some people want their house to look perfect, but I want to represent variances and experiences,” Julie says. “That’s what I told my kids, ‘We’re going to go places together. It’s more important to do things.’”
This past summer, Julie says she and her daughters, Kendall Jennings, 24, and Spencer Jennings, 19, a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, tried to see Taylor Swift’s Vienna concert before the show was canceled but ended up enjoying Germany, Austria and Hungary nonetheless. Last Christmas, the whole family, including son Curry Jennings, 17, a junior at Durham Academy, went to Antarctica and Chile.
KITCHEN EFFICIENCY
Julie and Bret bought their 6,511-square-foot home in 2013. It was originally built in 1985, so as Carol Ann says, “I needed to modernize the kitchen.”
The new color palette is gray and white with pops of burgundy and brass. The room’s unique layout features a long diagonal wall of white upper cabinets with brass mesh inserts above an appliance garage. Flanking the cabinets are two vertical pullout pantries. The kitchen is spacious enough for a large center island plus two separate sinks, dishwashers and waste stations. There is also an 80-bottle wine cooler, an oversized refrigerator, a chilled beverage drawer, a slideout bread drawer, a pullout potato drawer and a 48-inch wide, eight-burner Wolf range.
Bret, who closed his fine dining restaurant – Elaine’s on Franklin – during the pandemic, still cooks and caters for multitudes. “It’s hard to cook for one person,” he admits. Inside the wide drawers on either side of the cooking range, he stores his global collection of spices. Julie points out a packet from Zanzibar, a bottle from Turkey and another from Istanbul.
Closing the drawer and turning to the center island, Julie moves her hand across the leathered granite surface that replaced the wooden countertop, which was pockmarked with burns from years of steaming skillets, baking pans and hot pizzas.
“It’s not shiny like most people think of granite,” she says. “I think it’s my favorite thing in the kitchen, and this feels more like furniture because it’s thicker.”
The island countertop is also a different height than the countertop beneath the window overlooking the stone patio and outdoor fireplace. “If you’re doing a lot of chopping, you can have different pressure points right on your back,” Julie says about the ergonomic appeal.
Suspended above the island is an antique brass circle of light imprinted with a geometric pattern. “The light fixture was one of the first choices that was made, and it helped to define the rest of the space,” Carol Ann says.
One unexpected feature in the kitchen is the floor. The original yellow pine wood is painted light gray and continues into the adjacent breakfast nook. “That’s something unusual to do,” Carol Ann says, explaining that in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, white-painted floors are more common and can brighten the space by reflecting light.
WASH AND WEAR
Only steps from the kitchen is a connecting hallway with a roomy storage closet and a built-in mud bench with brass hanging hooks and storage cubbies. Opposite the bench is the stylishly renovated laundry room. “I’m really obsessed with laundry because of what I do for a living,” Julie says about being a buyer for her five clothing stores. “I’m known for being able to get any stain out of anything.”
The laundry room floor is covered in tile patterned with Moravian stars. The dark navy blue cabinets were custom made by CKS Architectural Millwork in Durham with specific features Julie wanted, such as a pullout shelf to set the clothes basket when loading and unloading the machines. Below that is a separate drawer to store detergents and other supplies. On the opposite wall is another customized inset where Julie can hang clothes, and another pullout drawer unfolds into a drying rack. Next to the dryer is a new, built-in ironing board that can be tucked back into its shallow wall cabinet.
NEXT ADVENTURE
Carol Ann says she appreciates Julie’s bold and decisive qualities. “I love working with clients who know what they like,” she says. “I tell my clients, ‘I channel you through me.’”
Julie already seems like she’s itching for a new project and to plan another trip. “I don’t like to sit still,” she says. “I like adventure trips. … I was sitting next to somebody on the flight back from [John F. Kennedy International Airport], and she’s like, ‘Oh, I traveled with a women’s group. They planned everything.’ I plan my trips with somebody, but I research everything. That’s part of how I get my joy.”
She muses about her travel dreams and says without hesitation, “I want to go to Mongolia.”
