A French Dream in the Triad
A French Dream in the Triad
And it will only get better with age
By Cynthia Adams
Photographs by Amy Freeman
With an upbeat persona and eye for beauty, Caitlin Covington is a force in social media, proving the power of the positive. With more than 1 million followers, she has leaned into her love of the fall, family and fashion. Her new home reveals a deep affection for all things French.
Home base for Caitlin Covington is a far cry from the UNC-Chapel Hill dorm room where her blogging life began 15 years ago on a lark. Of course, back then, no one really understood that it could grow into a lucrative career.
It is a Provencal beauty set in Winston-Salem that she and her husband, Chris Dorsch, began building in 2021.
First, there is un courette, a small courtyard, with trimmed boxwoods in Versailles planters. A low stone wall defines the perimeter of the front of the home where Covington captures life en famille.
Wisteria vines are in place and will eventually climb the creamy stucco exterior. Cornflower-blue working shutters, complete with shutter dogs, punctuate the dual-sash windows. A walk-out balcony overlooks the handsomely limed door at the front entrance.
Cue a bluebird — er, rather, a French magpie!
Set in a secluded residential pocket within the city, the overall effect makes you forget this isn’t a French suburb. Designed by Asheville architect Greg Koester, the home’s understated beauty relies upon architectural touches he sourced.
“The barrel tiles used on the roof are from France — the marble floors, too,” says Covington. In fact, the foyer’s aged-to-perfection marble tile was recycled from a French cathedral.
Limestone fireplaces convey classical French style. The exposed beams, multiple fireplaces, elevated ceilings and architectural flourishes include custom-designed doors and even air vents.
The appeal of those materials is that they deepen with age. Patina, Covington mentions, inspired their conversations with the architect from the very start.
Even the family pet is winsomely charming. The 9-year-old teacup Goldendoodle, Winnie, is a nod to Winston-Salem.
From the very beginning, Covington has invited readers into her life. Her 1.3 million Instagram followers, along with daughters Kennedy, 5, and Collins, 2, were awaiting baby number three in May. People Magazine reported on the viral influencer’s latest pregnancy when it was announced on Instagram last November.
Followers vicariously experienced the couple’s 2012 meeting in Greenville, S.C., when she worked in public relations, and Dorsch was then a mortgage banker. A six-year courtship ensued.
“We met through mutual friends at a group dinner just a few weeks after I started my job. A favorite story of ours is that our first date was actually a lunch date because Chris insisted that lunch dates were ‘harmless’ — in an effort to convince me to go on a date with him, ha-ha,” she shares.
Dorsch left Greenville the next fall to attend graduate school at Wake Forest University. “We both got apartments,” he says. “By then, Caitlin was blogging full time.” Covington’s social media work was now successful enough for her to leave public relations.
“Chris and I got married in Charleston, S.C., in June of 2018,” she says. Fans watched the couple’s romantic wedding unfold in posts. By then, Covington was an old hand at content creation.
After marriage, they lived in Clemmons in a new home, but jumped when, in 2021, they learned of a development in one of Winston-Salem’s oldest residential neighborhoods.
Although only in their 30s they both gravitate to homes that feel timeless.
“It is really rare to find undeveloped land in the Buena Vista area of Winston-Salem, so we quickly acted on it, and we were able to buy the land,” she explains. The developer required all new builds to be architect-designed.
Covington had followed the work of designer-architect duo Brooke and Steve Giannetti, former Californians now living in Tennessee.
“This book is where the inspiration for this house came from,” she says, holding up the Giannettis’ Patina Homes, chock-full of their French and European-inspired designs, all leaning toward simplicity.
Covington and Dorsch interviewed builders, architects and interior designers before breaking ground in 2022. The couple met with Koester, who showed them some of his projects. She showed him her favorite images from the book.
“I said, this is the kind of house that I would like, and he was so on board with the project,” she recalls, referencing the book. “He was like, you know, let’s go to France and let us do research. He was just so excited.” While a group trek never materialized, the project did inspire the couple to plan a trip to France.
A Triad native, the architect began his career in New York and bases Gregory Koester Designs in Asheville. His residential projects span the state and nation, including new houses and renovations and additions to older ones.
Covington deeply admires how French style softens with imperfections and age. As they refined their ideas for the home, the couple considered their favorite details in Koester’s existing designs.
“Houses that he has done just spoke for themselves,” says Covington.
Koester assured the couple he could make their environs seem intimate even given spacious public rooms, five bedrooms, and four-and-a-half baths. “One of the things that Greg told us when we first met him is, ‘I like designing big houses, but ones that feel really cozy.’”
He translated nearly 6,000 square feet into functional, human-scale spaces. “You don’t need a big house with tons of big rooms,” she recalls he first advised.
Covington heaps further praise on the team that created what she and Dorsch call a dream home. Koester enlivened the French Provincial design they wanted. There is ample praise, too, for builder Jonathan Lee, who “was able to take our vision and make it a reality!”
The core design team, including architect, builder and landscape designer, had worked together previously. “And we loved that familiarity between them,” says Covington.
They chose Kate Marker Interiors out of Chicago as the interior designer.
Jeffrey Allen Landscape Architecture created an exterior design for the property.
“Our house was officially finished in October of 2024,” she says.
Despite the distance between the Triad and Chicago, the couple worked collaboratively with Marker, exchanging ideas. The designer kept in step with the personality of their family. Nothing too stuffy nor period made the cut; the interior colors and furnishings were kept tonally quiet and soothing.
Marker has described the resulting interiors as “refined French with a relaxed soul.”
The house is famous in its own right. It has been featured in the Robb Report and House Beautiful.
When completed, Covington posted a video tour of their home.
In the caption, she wrote: “Someone pinch me; I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming.”
Covington smiles at the memory. “We really wanted the house to look like someone had picked it up out of France and dropped it in Winston-Salem.”
Given that Covington once posted from her dorm room in Chapel Hill, it was certainly an upgrade. Avid followers of her blog, Southern Curls and Pearls, now frequently glimpse the interiors, especially her study and the open kitchen.
Their work lives melded when Dorsch left his role at Hanesbrand as chief financial officer in April 2023 to devote his time to their social media advertising and promotion company.
As both work at home and nontraditional hours, the spacious kitchen is put to good use, he says. A multiburner French stove, pot filler and deep sinks aren’t merely there for optics.
“I cook a lot, so this is where we’re spending a lot of our energy,” says Dorsch, who enjoys creating healthy, savory meals.
The butler’s pantry features a coffee nook with a hard-working Breville espresso machine taking pride of place, points out Covington.
The ceilings and walls throughout the downstairs feature atmospheric beams hewn from reclaimed wood.
The living room is a favorite for the couple, where she loves reading and entertaining. There’s no TV to offer a distraction. At Christmas, the tree goes right into a front corner, just as envisioned, she says.
Heading upstairs, pastels, scalloped effects, and delicate floral Riley Sheehey wallpapers echoing French style dominate the girls’ rooms. Recently, the older girls began sharing a room, making way for the new arrival’s nursery.
“They won’t share rooms forever,” Covington says, given three upstairs bedrooms.
Dorsch jokes with his wife as they both digest what lies ahead with three children under age 6. Humor may just be their superpower, especially in navigating life beneath the glare of social media.
“He’s a great girl dad,” says Covington. “And I think God just meant him to be a girl dad.”
Dorsch smiles. He has learned to “lean into pink,” he says good-naturedly, pointing out his wife’s pink maxi dress, fetchingly belted above a baby bump.
Sometimes appearing in videos with his daughters, he plays to a sweet fish-out-of-water appeal — a father happily engulfed by his daughters’ femininity. He is deeply aware of the privilege of working at home during their childhoods, mindful of how fleeting these years are. He lost his own parents as a young adult.
He is also helping manage the sheer volume of business that social media has generated. And with that volume of business come numerous collaborations, which means receiving and reviewing products.
In preparation for that, the architect had considered the heavy influx of products coming into their home. Some of his best ideas are tucked out of view.
“Greg designed storage and what he calls my warehouse.” Here, Covington stows seasonal clothing and the surplus of autumn-themed items, often received as part of a brand partnership.
Dorsch points to their work with brands including Rufflebutts, Lululemon, Nordstrom, MacKenzie-Childs, Abercrombie & Fitch, Ballard Designs and Walmart Fashion.
“I was just telling Chris yesterday, that’s one of the things that I’ve been getting frustrated over lately, is just the accumulation of stuff. We have to constantly purge.”
In The Parenting PATH, a nonprofit, she has found the perfect outlet for excess. Covington donates to Pinwheels, a thrift store that helps finance their programs.
Dorsch jumps in to add, “She’s being humble. She does a lot of work. She’s on the board of directors of Parenting PATH and has helped them for several years now.”
He leads the way through custom-designed French doors opening into Covington’s study, where she often spends time working after hours.
Nearby, the primary bedroom suite features a similarly soft color palette. It’s soothing, without jarring color or art. The fireplace, flanked by comfy chairs, is designed for a timeout with a book, sometimes with a child curled on their lap.
We are a family of readers, the couple stresses.
She favors using Kindle. Dorsch, who just completed 1984, prefers to hold a book in his hand.
“I’m one of those old souls, I guess,” he explains. “I have to physically turn a page.”
He credits his wife for the family’s reading ritual. “We finish the night reading to the girls, and our daughter — our oldest — is going to be going to kindergarten next year. All she wants to do is learn how to read, just because she sees Caitlin and me doing this.”
Covington enjoys the reading and research social media requires, especially when creating travel guides and itineraries.
The children have passports and have used them, benefiting from unusual travel experiences. A recent trip allowed 2-year-old Collins to try falconry. Covington stresses that it only sounds dangerous.
“This was part of a collaboration that we were doing with this hotel. I was standing right next to her,” she says.
“But she had to wear that heavy glove — and she had the biggest smile on her face,” says a proud mother.
This fall, they will have lived in their new home for two years. Outside, the property has begun maturing as planned. The wisteria and roses will slowly climb walls in the European way, erasing signs of newness. It will slowly acquire the patina that inspired the design from the very start.
Outdoors, at the rear of the house, a classically simple pool and an outdoor kitchen surrounded by pea gravel keep with the low-key style they favor. Here, their girls have tea parties and make poolside videos, playfully lip-syncing to dialogue. Hydrangea, a Southern favorite, blooms.
“The roses are maturing,” she comments, taking stock of the back of the property. “So eventually, they are going to start growing all around the fence that we have there. But we are still in the very early stages of that growth.”
She, too, has weathered changes and growth, experiencing marriage, motherhood and, more recently, the sudden loss of her father, Roy Covington, in May.
Roses are a metaphor, too; with the roses come thorns, a necessary part of the beauty. Cognizant of this, she has developed a healthy relationship with her followers.
The couple considers how the media has changed, anticipating that changes will continue. Some of those will be liberating. One day, they will play a less visible role, Dorsch predicts.
Back inside, Winnie burrows deeply into a sofa cushion. A heavily pregnant Covington sinks beside her, pulling the sweet-natured dog closer for a snuggle. Together, they are comfortably cocooned in their piece of Provençal paradise, en famille. OH
Making Lemonade
Good Graces Photography
(Instagram @goodgracesphoto)
Given all the internet noise, how did Caitlin Covington’s blog springboard from an impulse in 2011 to a social media phenomenon?
Drive, explains Covington’s husband, Chris Dorsch.
“I just recently started working more with Caitlin,” he says, “but seeing it firsthand, in this type of profession, she can never turn off — from the moment we are up till the moment we go to sleep. It is our business.”
And it is sometimes as demanding as a child, he explains. His wife unstintingly puts in the hours — both early mornings and late nights.
Timing was another factor. For an early adopter of blogging and a student of journalism, creating content came easily for Covington, who planned to enter magazine journalism. Her natural good looks, fashion sense and Southern charm didn’t hurt.
Fifteen years later, Wired magazine called Covington a blogging pioneer with “Disney princess beauty.” As fate would have it, her whole family, including mom Carla Covington (also a blogger), has Disneyesque good looks.
Now, age 35, she and Dorsch run a digital media business, Covington Media Group, Inc., with Covington frequently cited in The New York Times, Forbes, The New York Post, People and WWD.
In 2023, Covington ranked sixth among the top 100 influencers with 1.3 million Instagram followers. Such success is unusual; Business.com estimates that 48% of creator-earners typically make $15,000 or less.
Also that year, she was one of three influencers profiled in journalist Stephanie McNeal’s book, Swipe Up for More.
Naturally, there have been potholes along the way.
In 2019, Covington, who loves all things autumn, went viral when another influencer reposted a photo of Covington with another blogger friend, captioned, “Hot Girl Summer is coming to an end, get ready for Christian Girl Autumn.” (The “hot girl” reference to a Megan Thee Stallion song made a playful jab at the two women as personifying entitled Christian girls.)
She “hadn’t coined those terms,” as Dorsch points out. “Then she made lemonade out of lemons.”
She took the ensuing backlash in stride, pointing out that the meme wasn’t even one of her own making. She decided to go all-in on the autumn themes.
Covington good-naturedly mugged, playing with the stereotypes: pumpkin-flavored everything, thickly knitted sweaters and apple harvests.
The Times Magazine reported on how deftly Covington pushed back — quipping she was a fan of pumpkin-flavored lattes. EntertainmentNow.com profiled her, noting her “amazing sense of humor.”
The lighthearted response was a masterstroke, serving to heighten her popularity. Since then, autumnal trips and outfits make “Christian girl autumn posts” both an annual staple and a fan favorite.
Dorsch weighs in. She excels in the art of civility. Her posts are always diplomatic.
Had she known how intertwined she would become with the blog name Southern Curls and Pearls, she might have chosen differently. She shrugs.
Nowadays, the public is never more engaged than when she features travel content. Fortunately, she enjoys doing research and creating itineraries. Travels sometimes include her mom, daughters, and their girls’ nanny, Alyssa Emmel. (Carla sometimes appears with her daughter and shoots some of her photographs.)
As for traveling solely for the joy of travel, Covington admits she cannot recall any such trips.
That is the reality of audience engagement.
She faces the challenge of keeping up the need to entertain — she uses that phrase carefully — ever mindful that blogging is a hybrid form of infotainment.
When Emmel returns from picking up the girls from school, she makes sandwiches and mentions that her own mother is also an influencer.
The fresh-faced young woman joined them five years ago, having graduated from UNCG 10 years ago with a degree in early childhood education.
“She helps the engine run around here,” praises Dorsch.
At this writing, some of the blog posts are deeply personal, as she is on official baby watch. Followers are posting Covington baby names, offering suggestions.
Most are alliterative.
Dorsch smiles mysteriously, without saying whether they correctly guessed their top choice for the third baby’s name. “It’s amazing,” he adds. “Some are very good ideas.”
But, for now, until it’s Instagram official, they’re keeping it to themselves.