Bobby McAlpine's Modern Home

Architect Bobby McAlpine and his Tibetan terrier in their Atlanta living room.

McAlpine always leaves on the ceiling fan and the Turner Classic Movies channel, so when he comes home from traveling, his house feels instantly alive. The paintings, by artist Michael Marlowe, are of his beloved Lake Martin in Alabama.

McAlpine chose a moody charcoal paint (Benjamin Moore’s Iron Mountain) as a backdrop for this Dutch painting of a milkmaid. The stool with miniature horse legs (not real ones, he emphasizes) is covered in slate blue mohair.

The entry’s gleaming tile floor is original. These long, thin, glassy tiles were fired specially for this house out of white clay in Henri Jova’s family’s factory in Cuba. The hall tree was once part of a French birdcage.

The concrete table in the rear courtyard is from McAlpine’s own collection for Birmingham-based Elegant Earth.

This house was designed in 1965 by Henri Jova (who is known for his calm modern classicism) and rests on a street of conventional bungalows. McAlpine repainted the facade in Benjamin Moore’s Grant Beige and added 15-foot-tall aluminum plate shutters.