When Kate Anlyan, owner of Yasu Home, and her husband Steve decided to move back home fromCalifornia in 2021, the market in Durham was chaotic. Their real estate agent, Todd Hancock, “the guru of modernist homes,” as Anlyan puts it, showed them countless properties, many of which they lost during bidding wars. “The timeline from when a home hit the market to when people began bidding on it was, like, two seconds,” laughs Anlyan.“So when he showed us photos of this home before it was even listed, we offered immediately.”
Happily, the offer was accepted, and only after a long back-and-forth process and a hefty due diligence did the pair discover they had landed a true original Raleigh modernist gem. “It turns out the home was being sold by the Sedaris estate,” says Anlyan. “Being Greek in Raleigh, we almost felt like we knew the Sedarises, so to land their family home after such a search process was pretty surreal.”
The most well-known of the six Sedaris children, author David Sedaris and his sister Amy, an actress, author, and comedian, grew up in the family home in Durham (their family story told through David’s eyes in his New York Times bestseller Me Talk Pretty One Day). The youngest sibling, Paul Sedaris, still lives in the Triangle and, incidentally, after Anlyan and her husband moved in, they hired him and his business, Sedaris Hardwood Floors, to refurbish the floors.
“Honestly, we were pretty naïve when we first walked through the home,” recalls Anlyan. “It was such a cool home, and we made a checklist of things we planned to do, as if we had a bottomless bank account.” But reality set in quickly, and the couple realized that although they had a gem, there was a significant amount of work that had to be done.
The home had sat empty for a few years after the Sedarises’s father moved into assisted living. “The kitchen didn’t even have appliances, and we had to cook off of a hot plate for six months,” the designer says. “There was wood paneling, orange Formica countertops, linoleum floors, some cork walls, and dark wood cabinets, not to mention some pests.”
The goal was to preserve the character of the home but bring it up-to-date with a brighter appeal. The design has been a process, and Anlyan surveys herself every time she moves through the home. “My personal style is so dictated by my mood,” she explains. “I can see the places where I was more reserved because I was nervous about how much work the home needed, and then where I was more comfortable and felt like ‘I got this.’ Every room for me has a little bit of a story.” The kitchen, for example, was the first room Anlyan worked on, and, as such, is minimal and all white, which was all she could muster, she says. But later, she incorporated the oversized Moroccan pendants, which add boldness to the space. “I can see the journey from restrained to breathing here,” she says.
By Christmas of 2023, the couple truly began to feel at home. “I have done a lot of work on myself, on this project, personally and as a designer,” says Anlyan. “So much was happening in my life when we bought it that this home was a little bit of a love note to myself.” She says each room holds a good laugh or a solid cry; each bathroom has a particular design challenge she faced. “I worked around the original pink tile in the hall bathroom. I can remember being excited about it instead of overwhelmed. And it was my favorite room. Until I moved on to the next,” she admits.
Ultimately, Anlyan’s experience with her famous modernist home has solidified her trust in herself. “I have always relied on my intuition as a designer, and I know that it will lead me to a place that will all connect in the end,” she says. “As long as I’m guided by what feels fun and exciting, the rest will follow.”
