Keith’s love of the countryside began when he was growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, the second oldest in a family of four boys. It was an idyllic upbringing—gathering strawberries, taking walks in the woods, fishing for trout, and spending time on the farmhouse porch of the local high school art teacher and his wife, who saw in Keith a burgeoning talent. As the only Black family in their tight-knit community, Keith’s parents tried hard to expose their boys to opportunities they themselves hadn’t had growing up in the South.
“I was always that kid who was asking, ‘Can I do this? Can I do that? Can I learn to play the piano? Can I join choir? Can I do theater? Can I paint in watercolor?” says Keith. “My parents never said no to me. They gave me my wings. Because of them, I don’t know what it’s like to have fear.”
That fearlessness fueled Keith as he built Gloriosa, and later it dared him to move away from it all and embrace something new. One day in 2008, while driving down a country road near Chattahoochee Hills, a rural area southwest of Atlanta, Keith noticed an old white farmhouse. It spurred childhood memories of afternoons on the front porch with his art teacher’s family—memories of comfort and contentment, qualities he was missing living in his Atlanta loft. “The loft was beautiful, but it didn’t have soul,” says Keith. “I was ready for a change.”
He started asking around, trying to find the owner of Redwine Plantation, as the place was known, but no one knew who owned the old, sprawling property. Then one day, fate interceded. A client mentioned in passing that his family was from Chattahoochee Hills and that his cousin still owned the very home that Keith admired. In fact, it had been passed down through one family since it was built in 1841. Soon Keith connected with the owner, Frank Redwine III, and made an offer. On July 1, Keith’s 45th birthday, he moved in.