My Palace in Dallas - Payton and Mia Holderman

“Solitude requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiences – wherever you happened to be”

— Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

Hello everyone, we’re almost done with the first month of 2025! Crazy isn’t it, I could still see the smoke from the fireworks as if it were yesterday, but not, it’s almost February and we’re back, better, and hopefully in some capacity, stronger. Last year was filled with limelight and I couldn’t thank everyone more for making it happen. I have returned from my little holiday hiatus and am excited to see what this year will bring, I for one, will be bringing more interesting homes and stories to you that’s for sure!

I started My Palace in Dallas during the height of the pandemic, and it was born from pure curiosity: I want to know, I want to see, and, most importantly, I want to document what the people around me have become after these unprecedented years. They can be artists or comedians, or they can also be the people you meet on the street—which is quite hard cause supposedly people in Dallas don’t walk at all. So, what is it that they do? This project delves into their stories and, as the name suggests, explores their Palace in Dallas.

I met Payton and Mia in the most unusual setting. Our great mutual friend texted me many photos of their home on one random midnight, telling me how amazing their place is, and it absolutely is as you can see in this article. A few days later, I ran into them at a 12.26 TX gallery opening and after taking a huge gulp of wine, I tapped them on their shoulder. Fast forward to now, I’m back in The Drakestone after doing Andrew and Teva’s piece, enjoying a glass of wine, and going on a walk down memory lane. We talked about how they started collecting art, what it is like from the outside looking in, how their home came to be, downtown Dallas, and what this city means to them.

Hello Payton and Mia! Thank you for sitting down with me today! Before I bomb you with questions, for anyone who might not have the chance to know who you are, would you like to tell me a bit about yourself? Who are you and what is it that you do?

**M (Mia):** I am Mia, wife to Payton, and cat mom to our beloved tabby, Otto. I’ve been in fashion since I was 15 and now I’m a Senior Personal Shopper for NET-A-PORTER.
**P (Payton):** My name is Dr. Payton Holderman, a chiropractor here in the city, oh and cat dad to Otto.
M: Otto is our only child, living a really hard life sleeping peacefully on our patio.

From art collection, downtown residency council, and now curated this amazing home filled with your collection reflecting your taste, I couldn’t be more proud calling y’all friend. Could you tell me what the journey was like for you? How did you get to where you are now?

M: We knew we were going to end up in Dallas pretty early on. While we thought New York was in the cards for us after school, Covid happened and put a halt to that plan. Thinking any plan is absolute is silly, isn't it? But we really craved the walkability so after visiting many times we decided Downtown was where we wanted to be.

Downtown already had such a thriving community that we wanted to be a part of, but there was still room to grow, and having that outlook, naturally led us onto the path of joining the Downtown Residents Council and building up what that non-profit could really mean in the neighborhood.

As for our home, a huge inspiration for our art-collecting journey came from a dear friend of ours, Brittani Lemonds. Brittani is our art advisor, she approaches art in such a meaningful and accessible way that people who are young or may not have a huge budget can feel less frightening and accessible. She knows how to meet you exactly where you’re at.

I think with her help and being confident in our taste, it really helped, and continues to help, guide the aesthetic of our home.

P: To be honest, our art-collecting journey is relatively new. We’ve always been passionate about having spaces that feel safe and lived in to us. We view our home as our sanctuary, striving towards the feeling of complete comfort and familiarity for our home was what started this journey.

Mia and I’s design choices were through countless trial and error, what works for us inside of these very loose parameters of the creative world, is a lifelong subject for us to learn.

Being outside of the creative world professionally lends us an interesting perspective because we’re from the outside looking in instead of the other way around. Yes, our circles are all extremely interwoven, but I do think our position allows us to sometimes have a different angle on things whether it’s art or interior design. It’s been neat trying to cultivate our collection and world throughout the years with such intention.

M: You know the saying “You savor it more when it's not your bread and butter.”? Because we don’t make a living from art and design, we really get to enjoy it fully without any pressure. We surround ourselves with people who work in the creative world full-time and they inspire so much of our taste and what we do. I think because of that, there are parts of us that are completely made out of everyone in our circle and it’s 100% reflected throughout our home. It’s a little hodge-podgey in a way, and I think that's beautiful.

P: We love things that hold a story, everything we own or have chosen to be part of our daily lives means something to us. That “lived-in” feeling I’ve mentioned before is a reflection of the people we choose to have around us. Character is the only thing I look for, not just for our home, but in people nowadays. To me, there isn’t a difference between home and the people you choose to surround yourself with, and I don’t think you could go wrong with that mentality.

I’ve noticed the majority of the art you’ve collected is by female artists, was that an intentional choice?

P: We don’t necessarily have a conscious reason at the beginning of collecting, but I know I’ve always been drawn to a specific feeling and it just so happens to be mostly female artist’s work that created the connection when we looked at it.

Oftentimes, I feel there is more representation of male artists, for us it felt more important to put efforts and intentionality into works by people less represented.

It’s funny because oftentimes I won’t ask who the artist is until I feel attracted enough to inquire, hardly ever the ones we end up asking about weren’t created by females. The realization came as an afterthought, it wasn’t until when you and I were grabbing a drink did I realized that our home naturally is filled with female artists’ work. It’s not that we have a strict rule on this aspect when we’re collecting but it just happens to be so, we have art pieces of all genders in our home but women artists are certainly the majority of it.

M: Payton summed it up perfectly, to add to it, neither one is good or bad because the last thing we want to be is rigid, and art in itself is already a gorgeous thing, but we work hard so we can have mostly female and POC artists represented in our home. There’s certainly power in collecting in this way and I think being able to speak that into existence would only encourage others to look at female and POC artists’ work with intention.

What was it like working with an art advisor and how do your taste and hers merge with each other as both perspectives grow over time?

M: First off, I love any chance to brag about Brittani, who is our advisor and a dear friend whom we hold close to our hearts. What we have in our home doesn’t even hold a candle to what she has in her own space, it really is something so special. I think it really speaks to her as a human being, a tastemaker, and an advisor. Brittani understands our taste and doesn't try to interject her opinion and palette onto us, she very much uses our personality and preference to guide her recommendations for us. That being said, she certainly guides us in making smart investments.

On top of sourcing for us, she really nurtured a more mature and artful eye that we definitely didn’t have prior to knowing her. Now when we’re by ourselves in galleries, we look at art with an entirely different perspective than we would have even 3 years ago.

P: Brittani and I have similar personalities in the sense that we both have strong feelings and opinions toward things, often when we’re going back and forth she has learned to convey to me in a way that is as objective as she can be. From day one I trusted her entirely because someone who can put aside their own point of view on artwork or artists, and encourage you to move forward or not based on objective qualities of the work, to me holds the quality of what it takes to be a good advisor.

I think when you find somebody you can trust enough to put the earnings you made in your twenties into things you can see every day, it’s extra special and we do find joy in seeing these pieces we’ve obtained through her every day.

Mia, working in fashion as a senior personal shopper – picking out and guiding them to the right piece – in a world that is so subjective and you now being on the advising side, echoing what Brittani did how do you stay subjective as you shop for their wardrobe?

M: I have an incredibly diverse book of clientele which is one of the things I love about my job. I get to work with women from all walks of life and like everything else, the way I navigate learning who my client is, is simply with time and asking the right questions. Selling to clients is the baseline of what I do and more about forming a relationship, which is what I think everything can be boiled down to. A lot of people write off fashion as unimportant, and understandably so, but how you present yourself is the first thing someone will notice about you and having something you feel confident in. Well, there's power in that.

Whether you’re selling a home, art, or in my case clothing and jewelry, it’s about the people receiving it. For any new relationship, I like to start by asking about your lifestyle and things you like to do, even down to what shows you’re watching. Every bit of information tells me about you and informs me on what I should dress you in to fit your lifestyle.

From there, I look outside of myself and view them as the unique individual that they are and tailor that experience for them. At the end of the day, selling can often feel transactional and I can’t do this job well if that’s the only end result, it has to be more than that for me and is why I take a more holistic approach.

If I encouraged someone to buy a piece that was a tad out of their comfort zone and they loved it, that is everything to me. It's the feeling that you’re expanding someone's opinion of what they look good in, even just a little. Over the years of doing so, it’s been very validating to know that I’m in the right spot in my career.

Not only are the pieces a work of art (pun intended) but the place itself flows so well in complimenting each other, how did making this place a home come to be?

M: Payton laughs at me all the time because whenever I say we did this together he’ll always reply with “Pick out one thing in the home that I’ve picked out, you furnished like 95% of our home”. But he seems to agree with my choices so I’ve never picked anything he didn’t like, at least so far. *laughs

I work in fashion– and clothes, art, and home decor all go hand in hand. My style as a person is not just on me but reflected in the things I own– classic but with a hint of eccentricity and funk. I would love to be completely “The Row-ified”, it would certainly make it easier to make design choices, but that’s just not who I am. I have to have some elements of color and print.

For example, we have a cream couch but I had to place an eclectic vintage lamp next to it, it can never be totally classic. I think that’s Payton too, I don’t think he's ever been a traditional person so we complement each other in that regard really well.

We have some of our dream items and the ideal space for us is constantly changing as our taste grows over time, and being happy with what you have at the moment while adding things to spruce it up is the direction we rely on. We figure, if you only bring things you truly love into your home, it’s bound to work out.

P: I’ll touch on the building itself, it was built in 1926 and has been The Republic National Bank for many years. There are a lot of purposeful characteristics of the building and those are what initially drew us in. In complete honesty, it’s far more sterile than what we would truly want, it’s painted white and has strong concrete elements, making it feel quite cold.

I’m a homebody in many ways. My profession is both physically and emotionally demanding, I hold a space helping people move through the obstacles in their lives with physical adjustments. When I come home after work or on an off day, I need to have a space where I can feel at peace and recover.

The contrast between concrete and white paint provided us with a nice challenge but we took it on thinking if we could make this place feel warm and comfortable, we could make any space our home. However, the elements we mentioned added a phenomenal backdrop for the art that we have. For us, it was a fun challenge not only to create a warm and homey space but also to adequately provide the art we have a home they so well deserve.

Like how you’d be curious about their letterbox account when you meet a film lover or would love to take a peek at someone’s mood board, can you tell me what consists of your media diet and where you usually get your inspiration from?

P: In the past couple of years I’ve been intentionally taking inventory of what I’m consuming because I realized the impact it has on my mental space. I don’t think I recognized that for a really long time. Now, I often try to see less when I’m exposed to the media portals, and not to sound cliche, live more.

I try to have more personal experiences with my neighborhood, encounters where I’m just people watching, and consume life as it is rather than accepting the skewed and packaged reality of the media. I feel so much better and feel far more romantic with my life when I’m fully present with everything I do in the day.

M: He tells me every day how he tries to make his life more romantic.

P: I think I was struggling to determine where the line in the sand was for me, but it’s gotten a lot better now, and the changes we make in life as well as the influence our friends have on us is what really inspires me every day.

M: Professionally, I make a living off of media consumption and if it wasn’t for our website, app, and email marketing, I wouldn’t have a job. But I really do try to keep it strictly professional and not let content or my phone consume the majority of my attention.

I agree with Payton too, like how we mentioned our home and our life are bits and pieces not just from us but the marks of our friends, and our inner circle will always be our greatest source of inspiration. The biggest form of media I enjoy are books. I'm currently in an American Classic book club with a good friend and yes, the pretentiousness of that statement is not lost on me. *laughs

It’s been four years since the pandemic hit and for some reason, we all came out alright, if not stronger. What did you do to stay centered and sane? Have any of those new habits carried over now that things are back to normal?

P: We had just gotten married in late 2018 and still had a lot of learning to do after only dating for a few years. The pandemic expedited that learning for us. Our life was halted and we were spending every waking hour of our day in an 800 sq ft studio. We learned things about ourselves we didn’t know and how we worked together as newlyweds in such close proximity.

I often reminisce about that time, with all the pain we’ve experienced and witnessed, I think we were grateful and had a lot of good memories that we still managed to make together. The pandemic taught me how important it is to spend unadulterated time with Mia. Often you get lost in the noise and the hustle of a city working towards something, but for me, the definition of success is how much time I’m able to spend with her and I wouldn't have been able to recognize that without the pandemic.

That being said, I developed a bike routine during the pandemic because she needed alone time and told me to get out and ride a bike. *laughs

M: One of my biggest personal fears is the fear of the unknown. The day I got furloughed from my previous job, I was so convinced that I wouldn’t be coming back to a job. That being said, there was a weird sense of peace wrapped in the anxiety of knowing there was nothing more I could do, so why not just try and at least have a good time?

We became intentional with our relationship to each other and appreciated the outdoors. We needed to have ample outdoor space which is one of the main reasons we decided to move here.

To what Payton said, we had only been married for two years when the pandemic hit, it was a poignant time to really get to know each other. Being forced to look at each other 24/7 gave us a chance to know what we expected of each other and how we would move through the world as a team.

I’m sure you have your fair share of traveling experience and exposure to different scenes across the states and even countries. From an industry perspective, what do you think sets Dallas apart from all the other well-known big cities or any other city you’ve been to?

M: I say this often because I believe it to be wildly true, Dallas is the biggest small town and I don’t feel that way about any other city that we’ve been to including Paris, Amsterdam, New York, or even smaller-sized cities like Santa Fe.

Downtown Dallas has such a rich sense of diversity and it makes it easy to know and find commonality here amongst different types of people from all walks of life.

P: I think there are many interesting perspectives thriving in the city even down to the neighborhood we live in. I appreciate having something new that challenges me to adapt to this city every single day because you won’t know what the city brings as you step out the door.

Mia said it perfectly, it’s a favorable place to know and form connections. In other cities, there might often be social infrastructures that might be intimidating to an outsider, but here, passersby can easily step into a room and become a part of the tapestry even just for one night.

Are you two Dallas natives? knowing you for quite some time you must’ve spent quite some time finding your creative identity here, what do YOU think of this city?

M: I don’t foresee Dallas being our forever home but it’s a great place to start our journey. Being here in this stage of our life, our time here will only aid us wherever we decide to go next.

While Dallas will be just one stop in our journey through life, I’m so grateful for the people we’ve met and the community we’ve built. I don’t think we would be able to do this if it was any other city, starting out anyways. Downtown specifically, we have a tight-knit community and a true sense of belonging, as we figure out who we are and what we want to be in our 20s.

P: We got to see things happen in this city that had no precedence. We will forever hold on to, not just what it meant to us, but a piece of that history within us. The city changes drastically, at a mind-blowing speed for better and many times worse, but we got to pay witness to its re-birth post-Covid and the changes that happened afterward. I feel so grateful to be able to witness the resiliency to survive as a city and people deciding to grow and be better because of said changes.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mia, the only feeling I have towards the city - what Dallas has offered to my growth as a person and as part of the community here - is just pure gratitude. I’m certain I’ll look back at this part of my life and feel lucky we got to experience it.

As I look around I can see a lot of your taste in a tangible form! Now the hard part is, what would you say is your most prized possession in your home?

M: I have to start by saying there's no way I can pick just one thing so I’ll have to share a few. Ok, this is the foyer which doubles as my office. The inspiration - don’t laugh - was the entrance of Charlotte York’s Sex and the City Apartment, she had this gorgeous round table with a floral arrangement as you walk in and I wanted to replicate that feeling.

The piece hanging here is by Ellen Siebers, one of my personal favorites, she’s small but mighty and we outvoted Payton to make sure it’s perfectly off-centered on the wall.

The ceramic lamp on my work desk is by Morgan Peck. She is one of my favorite ceramicists, especially since I’ve taken up ceramics as a hobby and appreciate how difficult the craft is.

P: My favorite thing here is the wine fridge. We get to collect wine in a way that is still aesthetically pleasing without shoving bottles into our fridge. You’ve been here, you know how happy I am when I get to pull a bottle out whenever you come and hang.. It’s nice to have a dedicated space to honor the beauty of a bottle here.

M: We were super fortunate to have all this space in the kitchen to have this huge dining table. We love hosting lots of gatherings so this is the perfect setup for us.

We try to make sure everything we bring into our home is personal to us and that includes every aspect of what we put on our dining table as well. The silverware was a new addition we brought in from Paris. I had to smuggle the knives because we stupidly forgot that you can’t bring them on a train. The journey of getting these silly knives home includes successfully convincing a customs officer that I in fact was not a threat, just a dumb tourist. That's a story for another time.

P: My favorite thing here is this knife holder you can see hanging in the kitchen. These are the knives I’ve collected over the years, some of them pretty and some of them are rustic. I use every single one of them in different capacities almost every day. From Chinese and Japanese, to French and German steel. We love to host and cook so it’s a crown jewel to my collection.

We have this huge handmade donabe that we both love very much. We got this when we were in New York and use it so much. From hotpot, soup, steaming, to making rice too.

We also keep all of our champagne corks, with dates and occasions marking why we opened up a bottle, but only Champagne because this bowl would overflow so fast if we kept every bottle we’ve opened.

M: We have a lovely hallway featuring three art pieces that we love very much. This piece by Larissa Lockshin came from Brittani’s first curatorial debut, Apricity, at 12.26 Gallery. I love the carving on the side of the frame and it looks just beautiful when the soft daylight hits just right.

M: Our living room is our cozy corner and where we spend most of our time. We loved this new piece of work “My Hearts Blood” by Kesewa Aboah, looking at it with that early morning faint light brings me so much joy.

P: Mine would be the credenza, we had to get it custom-made during the pandemic and it became a piece of furniture that allowed us to have a sense of hope. We got to be a part of and support something that was so out of our world, which is woodworking. Mia was the one that came up with the design, she drew it up on the napkin and we took it to the artisan that made her vision into a reality.

We collect coffee table books by multiple artists. My favorite is a beautiful rendition of Mario Sorrenti’s work of Kate Moss, with his words saying she’ll forever be his muse.

M: Two of the biggest books we have were gifted by Miranda Zee, an amazing florist here in Dallas. For my birthday she gave me this one by a German painter, André Butzer, and another by contemporary artist Albert Oehlen. We kept this open on the credenza and every week we would flip it to another page for display.

P: A lot of our art books are not only celebrating art but queer heritage as well, many of our friends identify as LGBTQ+, and we want them to feel welcomed and represented through the work we display on our shelves.

Our style is really interesting because it could go from post-modern, classic, rustic leather to gothic and contemporary.

M: A little hodge podgey.

P: Yeah! It’s eclectic in its best nature. We allowed ourselves to lean into this carefree attitude the past couple of years and explore our curiosity, filling up the space.

M: The piece by Samantha McCurdy is one of our personal favorites. The one that started it all. We got so lucky when Brittani came to us with this piece and after acquiring it from her show at Galleri Urbane here in Dallas, we didn’t get to meet McCurdy at the opening because she was out of town. After she came back to Dallas, we invited her to our place for a cocktail, which turned into a very late 2 am hangout. We were quite hungover the next day. That special evening made me adore her even more. She’s such a free and easygoing person so we especially love seeing this on our wall since there is now a personal connection.

P: There were many holes behind this piece from our perfection-induced triple re-hung. *laughs

It was such a perfect placement, when we were having our walkthrough move-in, Mia saw this section and immediately decided that’s where Sam’s work was going to be.

This other piece was a gift for Mia’s birthday, by Francisco Moreno, another phenomenal local artist, a dear friend of ours, and our only male artist residing on our wall.

P: This is our bedroom. We have always chosen to live in an open flat, which usually leads to a large room that you need to compartmentalize on your own. When we walked into this unit we got to experience having a sectioned-off compartment but still without doors for the first time. This mid-level corner was one of the coolest features of this unit that we fell in love with completely. It’s like a dungeon, tucked away without disrupting the flow of the energy in the home.

M: I’m pretty sure this room was blown and carved out from the existing structure, you can tell by the exposed doorway where the old floorplan used to end.

And we are almost at the bottom of my list of Qs for today, for those who are interested in getting into this business or starting something of their own. What suggestions or advice you would like to give them or wish you had known sooner?

M: I have two things that come to mind.

First is the ability to adapt to change. Not to go back to 2020 again but that was a huge reminder of how adaptable we can be. My grandfather always tells me: If you’re going to be three things, be kind, flexible, and have a sense of humor. I carry those words with me throughout my life. That would be my biggest advice to people, things will always be evolving whether it’s in the direction you’re used to or not. To not feel left behind, you just have to roll with it.

Second, Payton says this to me a lot and I find it to be deeply true. When life starts to feel muddled and laced with uncertainty, that tends to mean something great is coming your way. You can’t have positive change without the death of something else, it sounds so simple but when you’re in the thick of it, it’s challenging but every single time it has proven to be true in my experience. Get through the shit and you’ll find beauty at the end of it.

P: On a broader lens, do not be afraid to take a calculated risk. Every day is a combination of calculated risk and to quote Henry David Thoreau: “The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.” I often play that sentence in the back of my head: is the risk I’m going to take a risk at all or is it going to aid me in any way?

Second, I would encourage people to stay curious. Mia and I talk about this all the time, having an inquisitive mind is what I feel leads to a long and sustaining life.

Echoing what Mia said, there’s only ever one way to the other side and it's to go through it. When things get mucky, there will always be something good waiting for you right around the corner. I would like to encourage people to have trust in the universe, that good things will happen as you power through the hardship. Whether it’s starting your own business, excelling in your corporate position, or growing your work as an artist. If you stay centered around the thing that matters the most to you, everything else will start falling into place before you know it.