The Gothic Revival House is in Bloody Point on Daufuskie Island, SC 29915. The back of the house is my favorite part. It opens up to the wide Atlantic Ocean with an infinity pool and two beautiful covered porches, both with fire places. An outdoor kitchen offers year round relaxed living right on the beach.

John Mellencamp's South Carolina Island Getaway

The musician's Daufuskie Island retreat, designed by Monique Gibson, is a striking complement to his all-American songs

Text by Julia Reed | Photography by William Abranowicz | Produced by Anita Sarsidi

Some 30 years ago John Mellencamp discovered Daufuskie Island, a relatively unspoiled spot in South Carolina, just across the border from Savannah, Georgia. Fascinated by the island's history (until the 1980s it had been inhabited largely by the Gullah, descendants of freed slaves) and enamored of its privacy (it can only be reached by boat), the singer-songwriter purchased several acres on the Atlantic Ocean. But the land sat empty for more than a decade. "I had every intention of building a house—I just never got around to it," says Mellencamp, who is also an accomplished painter, occasional actor, Farm Aid cofounder, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. (The recently released box set John Mellencamp 1978–2012 features 19 of his studio albums, including 30 Billboard Hot 100 singles.) Then one day he snapped a photograph of a church in Myrtle Beach, and the structure's shape inspired him to finally hire an architect.
The finished residence—the work of Neil Gordon, whose office is on neighboring Hilton Head Island—bears ample evidence of that church's influence, with pointed-arch windows and doors and a navelike central living hall that is ringed by a gallery reminiscent of a choir loft. Mellencamp filled the rooms with odds and ends from storage, but the home, like the property before it, "just kind of sat fallow," he says. It's not that he didn't love the area. Two of his five children grew up nearby, and he has lived part-time in the region for more than half of his life. But this particular house never felt right. Mellencamp's girlfriend, actress Meg Ryan, however, thought the place had promise, and asked last year, "Why don't you make it as beautiful as it can be?" Energized by her enthusiasm, he called New York City interior designer Monique Gibson, with whom he'd collaborated on three previous dwellings, including his Indiana home base.
The decorator headed to Daufuskie "to let the house tell me what it needed," she says. "I'd walk around on the phone and tell John, 'This kitchen makes no sense' or 'These doors are too small.'" Thus, the kitchen was redone, the doors were enlarged, and the woodwork was stained to give it depth. Gibson played off the peaked windows by incorporating their shape into the metal base of the 27-foot-long table that bisects the living hall. On one side of that space is a library rich with art books; on the other is a movie room, where classic films are a regular after-dinner feature. Mellencamp is notably partial to movies with screenplays by Tennessee Williams—he can recite whole stretches of dialogue from Baby Doll, and a prized possession is a poster of The Fugitive Kind, a gift from his friend Joanne Woodward, who starred in it.
One of Gibson's first clients was Elton John, so she is especially comfortable working with creative powerhouses. (Jon Bon Jovi is another client.) On their first project together, long ago, Mellencamp gave the designer a tight budget and a six-week deadline, all without actually meeting her: "The first time I saw him was when he rang his own doorbell," she says. Fortunately, he liked what he walked into. "John's a tough businessman, and he's very clear about how he wants to live," Gibson continues, adding that the musician's not above making his own contributions. During the improvements on the Daufuskie house, Mellencamp inquired if she had selected any art for an unusually large expanse of wall in the living hall. "When I said, 'Not yet,' he got his stencils out," the designer recalls. The result is a mural that reproduces the lyrics to his song "For the Children."
"I meant it as a blessing for the house," Mellencamp says with a grin. "Then my kids saw it and laughed at me."
Artworks by Walt Kuhn, Marvin Cherney, and Jack Levine are displa ed everywhere—from the shelves in the kitchen to the wall above the headboard in the master bedroom—the expressive social-realist portraits evoking the characters in Mellencamp's gritty songbook. (The musician is currently working on his first solo album in four years, with producer T Bone Burnett.) Mixed among that boldface art are cherished bits of ephemera, such as vintage signs from a now-demolished mental hospital; the gilt letters of one spell out the institute for wayward young women.
Gibson added warmth and texture to the airy interiors and generous porches with lots of linen and leather upholstery and furnishings that are either sculptural, comfortable, or both. But she remained acutely aware that the house serves as laboratory for one man's rampant creativity. "There is always something going on in that big brain of his," she says. "He's always making something: music, art, houses, chaos!" Mellencamp often paints in a studio located on the second floor; nearly 40 of his works were recently exhibited by the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, in a show that will travel in the fall to the Museum of Art–DeLand, Florida.
While Daufuskie is Mellencamp's refuge, he readily throws open the five guest rooms to friends and family, proof that a once forlorn and overgrown piece of real estate has become absolutely essential. "John really uses this place now," Gibson notes. "I take that as a huge compliment."

Singer-songwriter John Mellencamp at his retreat on South Carolina's Daufuskie Island; he stenciled the wall with lyrics from one of his songs. The home was designed by Neil Gordon Architect and decorated by Monique Gibson Interior Design. For details see Sources.