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The living room of Doniphan Moore's townhouse is furnished with highly personal pieces, including a custom sofa of Moore's design with bronze sabots and walnut base upholstered in Holly Hunt silk velvet. MOUS side table. Piet Boon small drink table. Custom Kyle Bunting rug with Moore's astrological stars. Scala Luxury cocktail table. Leather wingback chair from Jean de Merry. Italian lounge chair in Lauren Hwang fabric. D oniphan Moore bought his East Dallas townhouse 18 years ago, straight out of SMU, renovating and furnishing the two-story, three-bedroom bachelor pad in the vibrant M Streets area over the years. Always a work in progress, the house was never quite finished and evolved with him as he grew a successful interior design business, which he operated from an office at home, a space he quickly outgrew. In February 2020 he was one day away from signing a lease on an office in the Knox Street area when he spotted a 1947 Art Deco- style building for sale in Uptown. "I had been looking for six years for the right place and just fell in love with the building's original charm and character," he says. "Dallas doesn't have many commercial buildings with age like this, so it was a dream." Moore, who closed on the building just weeks before the pandemic hit, spent lockdown juggling the studio's renovation along with client projects in Florida, Kentucky, Dallas, Tennessee, Denver, and Houston's River Oaks. At the same time, Moore was selected to design a lavish master bath and dressing rooms for the inaugural Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas — no small feat. Despite the challenging times, Moore secured some 60 partners who donated their time and resources. The glamorous space, which was enveloped in de Gournay wallpaper inspired by Gustav Kimpt and Japanese textiles, set the design world buzzing when the show house opened that fall. But when it rains, it pours. The epic Texas ice storm of 2021 caused five pipes to burst in his house, ruining almost everything on the first floor except for the hand-painted Porter Teleo wallpaper on the ceiling. A year into the pandemic, construction permits were still almost impossible to get, and the supply chain was an ongoing problem. With his studio and house in shambles, Moore steadied his resolve and improvised. "I lived out of my bedroom upstairs and squeezed my office into another small room," he says. He was already feeling the pinch from downsizing his company at the start of the pandemic, so his father pitched in, taking over the books and learning CAD on the fly from his home in Florida. The renovations took more than two years. "It was a journey," Moore says. "I was looking forward to the moment when I could just breathe." His saving grace was a song by Will Reagan called "Not in a Hurry," which helped center him. "It was a reminder that God's time is not my time and to slow down and surrender to the things I have no control over," he says. "The song became my anthem." By Rebecca Sherman. Interior design Doniphan Moore. House photography Kristopher Ellis. Studio photography Douglas Friedman. (Continued) 83