Atlanta’s only monthly home and garden magazine has been acquired by a new media company founded by its publisher, placing ownership back into local hands.
Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles, which in recent years has become as much of a media brand as it is a luxury home design publication, is the first acquisition under the newly formed Buckhead Crown Media, according to a news release from the company.
Publisher Elizabeth Ralls, who has worked with the publication since 2013, says the magazine now being under local ownership allows it to be more flexible in its partnerships.
Esteem Media, a Massachusetts-based company that owns several media brands in luxury home design, was the seller. The company owned the publication for nearly two decades.
Founded in 1983, Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles appeals to both consumers and the design trade. Each edition features Atlanta area design professionals, trends, showrooms in the city and, its bread and butter, luxury homes (and second homes) across the state.
The magazine is still print-forward, publishing 12 issues per year. But it also has a live events arm that Ralls said is vital to its overall appeal. Every year, the brand holds multiple monthlong designer showhouses in different homes across the city where designers show off their interior design skills and brands bring first-to-market products or technologies. Along with the magazine, these events will now be held under the Buckhead Crown umbrella.
“I think that’s what sets us apart, being able to reach consumers not just on the page or on the computer, but bringing them in for activations where they’re seeing with their eyes and we’re generating leads for clients,” said Ralls, who will remain publisher in addition to her leadership role at Buckhead Crown.
The publication has a staff of nine, two of whom have been with the paper for more than 30 years, Ralls said.
Two separate forces compelled Ralls to start the new media company. Esteem’s founder, Adam Japko, wanted to peel back the company’s operations outside of the Northeast and focus on becoming more involved in design shows and conferences. Ralls wanted to take on more responsibility at the publication, even though her name was at the top of the masthead. So, they made a deal, and Ralls didn’t think about engaging other buyers.
Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles remaining in print 40 years after its founding is a feat in today’s media environment, in which legacy titles have largely shifted their operations online and reduced, if not cut back entirely, print operations to save costs. Even Roger Lynch, the CEO of media powerhouse Condé Nast, said in 2022 that it was “no longer a magazine company.”
But being a small, local publication helps. Ralls says she feels like it would be more difficult to sell a digital publication over a print one, given the sheer amount of online content that gets generated per day.
“I can’t think of the digital equivalent of getting the cover of a magazine,” Ralls said. “Having a tangible product to share that’s more of like a coffee-table book people are getting in the mail every month is a luxury.”
Though the magazine sees competition from brands more focused on digital media, Ralls said they’re one of the stronger players in the Southeastern design world. And Atlanta is a strong design city, she said. Professionals come from all over the region to shop at showrooms and antique stores in Atlanta, as well as pass through the magazine’s showhouses, because there are few comparable ones where they live.
The goal of Buckhead Crown is to find and invest in other luxury regional activities in the community with the same feeling of connection as their existing events, Ralls said. It wants to stay in the design and lifestyle world, produce content that engages audiences and, above all, stay local. After all, that’s why she put Buckhead in the name of the company.
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