Highlander Mountain House Salon Series With Holly Williams

VENUE INFO

Our Salon Series happens in our Ruffed Grouse Tavern space at the Highlander Mountain House Hotel. Make dinner reservations before the show during service hours 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm if you choose, then enjoy an incredible music performance by country music royalty, Holly Williams. Parking available on the property or street behind HMH. Seating for the show is first come first serve.

ABOUT HOLLY WILLIAMS

Holly Williams is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, retail entrepreneur, serial house renovator, lover of the South, and her favorite title “Mama” . She and her artist/musician husband, Chris Coleman, share four children—Stella June (8), Lillie Mae (7), Arlo (5) and brand new baby girl Georgia Grace. Holly has released three critically-acclaimed albums, and also owns two of Nashville’s best retail spots: H. Audrey and White’s Mercantile (with the latter boasting 5 locations, including 4 in Tennessee!).

Both stores show off Holly’s “exquisite taste,” according to gal-pal and shopper Gwyneth Paltrow. One, H.Audrey, is arguably Nashville’s most beloved women’s clothing boutique, and the other, White’s Mercantile, is a completely curated shop stocked with all of the favorites that Holly has found while spending much of her life on the highway, playing music to adoring fans. She describes White’s as a “general store for the modern-day tastemaker.” She may be from a famous family–country legend Hank Williams Jr. is her father–but don’t expect rhinestones and cowboy hats from Holly. Her style embodies a modern-day chic simplicity fitted for shoppers around the globe.

Holly’s retail beginnings were never planned—music was always her primary focus—but in March 2006, Holly and her sister Hilary were in a serious car accident. Holly was left uncertain if she would ever be able to play guitar again, and Hilary faced more than 30 surgeries throughout the next years of her life. It’s truly a miracle they both survived.

“I couldn’t leave Nashville and had to resort to a backup plan, in case I wasn’t able to tour again,” Holly says. Prior to the accident, the now-40-year-old musician had toured the United States and Europe extensively, discovering and falling in love with many different designers along the way. The life-changing event led Holly to create H. Audrey (aptly named after her first initial and middle name Audrey, which she inherited from her paternal grandmother). The doors to the shop opened in the fall of 2007 and the followers haven’t looked back since—from Taylor Swift to Reese Witherspoon and Robert Plant, H. Audrey has garnered quite the cult following!

Naturally, Holly soon began itching to create another retail project, and the seeds of her next venture, White’s Mercantile, took root. But the path from there was anything but straight, and it wasn’t until Holly drove by a local gas station that was about to be demolished that the idea for White’s came sharply into focus. From that moment on, her vision was clear and in December of 2013, she introduced the world to a modern-day mercantile inspired by the general stores of the South that she had loved so dearly as a little girl. Naturally, that first location was inside the gas station she saved and restored.

This go round, Holly named the store after her maternal grandparents, Warren and June White, and drew on memories of the mercantile that her great-grandfather once owned in the small town of Mer Rouge, Louisiana. Holly always dreamed of creating a one-stop shop where she could find everything she needed and loved in one place, and White’s Mercantile is a tribute to that gone-era retail tradition.

“I believe in quality over quantity in everything,” Holly says. “I believe in investing in things that you will love and cherish for years to come, instead of mindlessly dropping money on things that will not keep relevant through the seasons, times, and changes in your life.”

This philosophy runs through the heart of all of her stores. And it clearly translates to the people who visit—whether you’re a first-timer popping in out of curiosity, or a long-time shopper checking out the latest goods.

USA Today writer Stacie Standifer summed the feeling up pretty well with this observation: “Time is our most valuable commodity, and [Holly] has created a locale that not only saves precious moments of ‘in and out,’ but [also offers] a concept that will likely bring national attention to the smart, trendy 12 South neighborhood where the flagship is located. Her impeccable, modern taste is always on point.”

Host or Publisher Highlander Mountain House