If you’re a beige-on-beige kind of person, take a few deep breaths before you read on because this is a story about an interior designer who invigorated her Fort Smith house using flashy disco balls, a vintage slot machine, the world’s biggest lava lamp, and kitschy pop art. Purple sidles up against lime green, a turquoise sofa sits atop a wavy psychedelic rug, and yellow dining chairs pop against pink walls. The dining room ceiling? Cherry red, of course.
In the entryway, plastic vines cover the walls. A chair shaped like a giant Hulk hand sits beside a fireplace covered with thousands of tiny colored tiles, and the living room curtains sparkle like the slinky scarves of a belly dancer. And yet, the house, called Funkhaus of Fort Smith, feels absolutely cozy. It would take an artist to conquer that feat. Thankfully, it has one.
Jordan Young, thirty-three years old, learned to love interior design when she was a young girl living in Hot Springs. “I’d taken art classes since I was a kid, but it wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized how much I loved decorating,” Jordan says. “My mom hired an interior designer to redo my room, and I ended up shadowing the decorator, and I loved it.
“After that, I lived in a dorm and then a house, and I got to decorate all those spaces. Then, I worked for an apartment complex in Fayetteville that catered to student housing, and my friend was the property manager. They’d hired someone to decorate the model apartments.” Corporate management didn’t like the expert’s design, so Jordan tried her hand. She nailed the vibe, which gave her the confidence she needed. “I thought, maybe I could do this.”
After graduating from U of A-Fayetteville with a degree in small business management and entrepreneurship, Jordan accepted a job as a marketing coordinator with a shoe company, Teva, in California. Life seemed grand.
But at home in Hot Springs, Jordan’s family was in crisis. Both her mom and dad had been diagnosed with cancer. And Jordan felt the call to go home.
Watching those you love diminish by the day is like a hand tightening around your throat. The world goes on around you, but you are no longer part of it. In hospital elevators, you hear people discussing a fender bender, a ruinous haircut, and a promotion they deserved but didn’t get.
It’s all so trivial you could scream. And you would, except there’s that vise gripping your throat, making it difficult even to breathe.
While that period of her life was heartbreaking, it was also a chance for Jordan to give back to the parents who’d loved her so well. When her father died in late December 2017, Jordan barely had time to grasp the magnitude of that loss before the second shoe dropped. Her mother died in January 2018, just nine days later, and her double sorrow swelled like a flooded river.
In times like those, it feels as if joy has left the building for good—no encore, no curtain call—but, graciously, life doesn’t work like that. There are good days ahead, even if it seems disloyal to imagine them.
Later in 2018, Jordan and her boyfriend, Drew, moved to Fort Smith. In 2019, the couple had a baby girl, who was a jolt of happiness. Jordan settled into her life as a stay-at-home mom, a role she adored.
But her artistic side still needed tending. She and Drew were renting a place, so there was only so much decorating she could do. And then she had a thought. She could buy an old house, decorate it with abandon, and rent it out to travelers looking for a unique place to stay—an escape from the day-to-day.
It would also serve another purpose. When Jordan and her older twin sisters cleared out the family home, she pictured all the Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthdays they’d celebrated together, and her heart hurt. Without their parents, what would they do? A cozy house might work. A happy, comfy place where the sisters could gather to keep the family’s traditions.
In 2022, a cottage in a precious neighborhood in Fort Smith came on the market. “I knew it was the one, but the owner accepted a different offer, and I cried. But that offer fell through, and I was the backup. It felt like it was meant to be.”
The house had good bones, an arched front door, a charming green kitchen, and a stenciled wall Jordan admired. It felt like a dream come true. And really, how hard could completing the décor be?
“I would come over here to work at night, after our daughter had gone to bed. You have these ideas of how things will turn out.” Jordan laughs.
“One night, a friend came over, and I was painting the kitchen walls. She said, ‘What are you doing?’ Apparently, I was a really inefficient painter, and she had to show me how to do it. I could have looked up how to paint, but I didn’t. I’m not the biggest research person; I’m more of a get-it-done type.”
Late one night, during a disastrous evening of tiling the fireplace, Jordan cut her finger and cried. “My blood, sweat, and tears really are in the house,” she says. A second attempt, with a different tile and Drew at her side, turned out perfectly.
For some, the thought of the house may seem like a bridge too far. Too kitschy. Too perky. But it doesn’t feel that way. In the same way that Mother Nature tosses orange tiger lilies into a meadow with purple coneflowers and pink wild roses, Jordan mixes colors that sway together.
“It’s not random,” she says, “and it’s got good vibes, and I love that. A lot of the things in here are things I loved as a child. I loved disco balls, and now they’re trending again.” She points to something atop an orange side table in the living room. “That slot machine is the bank I had as a kid. The place brings me joy; it’s both trendy and nostalgic. I shop at local places like Belle Starr, Grand Antiques. I think too many people get caught up in finding the perfect thing. I think the perfect thing finds you.”
To Jordan’s surprise, the Funkhaus of Fort Smith, which is decorated for every major holiday, has as many local guests as out-of-towners. She rents the space for birthday parties, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, and photo shoots. A rapper filmed a music video here, and another musician will in the near future.
Jordan has held a big family Thanksgiving here and sleepovers with her twin sisters, so her dream for the Youngs to keep their traditions going has become a reality.
She, Drew, and their daughter also spent a week here this summer when their home’s air conditioner went on the fritz. Jordan expected to compile a list of things the house needed, but the list remained empty.
It could be because Jordan is so detail oriented. In the green kitchen with green walls and a green kitty-cat clock, there are green glasses, green plates, and even green pots and pans, although she admits she’d forgotten a (green) pizza cutter until a guest requested one. The beds are extra comfy, and there is a sound machine for those who need the distraction to sleep.
Sometimes, a house is more than a house. Sometimes it’s therapy. A physical reminder that love goes on and on and on. And joy appears again, sometimes in pink walls, red ceilings, and a disco ball that catches every bit of sparkle it can find, bouncing it back into a difficult world.
To learn more or to book a stay, visit @funkhausfs on Instagram.
