An In-Store Photo Shoot with Lillie Syracuse

I first met Lillie Syracuse in line at Garage Coffee Company, which is right next to D. Luxe at Marathon Village. She was in a little dress with big red hair and an even bigger smile. I didn't recognize her, but I was kind of starstruck anyway. She just has that effect on people. This little girl from Pumpkintown, South Carolina, with the scratchy Southern accent--she has star quality. Pretty sure that's why legendary vocal coach Buzzy Orange has taken her under his wing. In any case, when Lillie wandered into the shop recently and asked if she might could use our space for a photo shoot, I said yes right away. (She works down the hall at Antique Archaeology, which is why our paths cross so frequently.)

Our shop, with all its antiques and chippy whatnots, made Lillie feel right at home.  "I've always had an affinity for the vintage and for the rustic," she says. "I've also always been inspired by the magic and intrigue that occurs when styles and items from the past are utilized in modern times for modern concepts ... D.Luxe Home encompasses that magic perfectly. Oh, and not to mention: Dee and his excellent and wonderfully precious team could not have been more accommodating and hospitable. [The photo shoot was] an overall incredible experience."

Well, shucks! We like you, too, Lillie. 

Lillie's hard-luck story is part of what makes her so interesting. The daughter of a truck driver father who often let her tag along with him on the road, where they'd listen to Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton in the rig, she makes no bones about her family being "sophisticated hillbillies" who up and moved to Nashville when the bank foreclosed on her childhood home. 

"Nashville's been real good to me," says Lillie. When she arrived here she didn't know much about singing or how to play guitar, but she decided she wanted to learn. And so she did, and was lucky enough to get hooked up with Buzzy Orange, who has helped propel the careers of Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Amy Grant, and a few other people you may have heard about once or twice. Buzzy baptized her into the music industry by putting her on the sidewalks of downtown Nashville with little more than her guitar. "I felt naked," she recalls. But that's how she learned to make herself heard. 

We were happy to have Lillie, Buzzy, and photographer Christopher Carden here for an afternoon and wish this sweet singer nothing but the best. Check her Facebook for some of Carden's photos of her in our shop.  

--Dee Bynum