Talk of the Town - They wanna rock ‘n’ roll all night April 01 2004

I WAS NERVOUS going to visit the home of a 99x DJ. “The Don Miller Morning Show” hosts always joke about their gross bachelor pads. Fortunately, afternoon host Axel Lowe’s Alpharetta home was nothing like that.

Axel: Those are single guys and I’m a married guy with kids. So I’ve calmed down a little bit.

I don’t want to say his house is girly, but there’s an obvious feminine touch with welcoming scented candles, cushy couches and most importantly, cleanliness. His daughters’ bedrooms feature a purple flower motif and delicate stencil work, which Axel and his wife, Kellye, worked on together. And soon they will replace his younger daughter’s crib with her first big-girl bed. It may not seem very rock ‘n’ roll, but since Axel’s other gig is host of home-improvement show “Southern Home By Design,” the craftiness makes sense.

Axel: There’s two little girls plus the wife, so that’s three versus one. So daddy was outnumbered. Daddy needed a shot of testosterone, so daddy just got a Harley Davidson.

Axel still pursues manly things, like watching TV and building stuff. He also reveals the master bedroom’s fatal flaw: poor TV positioning.

Axel: The armoire is where the TV is and I’m a big TV watcher. Even if I go to bed late, I still turn it on for five minutes just to flip through to make sure nothing’s on. So no matter where I put it, it’s hard to angle the TV just right. I’ve tried to talk her into getting on of those things that sits here [gestures to the foot of the bed] — those chests that you hit a button and the TV comes up.

Kellye: Yeah, I don’t know about that.

Axel: I’ve even tried to convince the people at “Southern Homes by Design” that we should build one from a kit on the show. But people look at me like I’m crazy.

Creative Loafing: Do you guys normally have the same tastes?

Axel: I like black lacquer furniture from the 1970s, but she actually has good taste.

Kellye: He wanted a bed with lights underneath it.

Axel: Any smart guy is going to let the woman delegate the style. But every guy has one room.

Photos of rock stars and family members line the staircase walls leading to Axel’s basement, which houses a pool table and a well-stocked bar.

Axel: Our philosophy was that once you have two k ids, you can’t go out to the bars, so we built one in our basement.

So now do you have to host all the parties?

Axel: Yeah, but I don’t mind. We have a monitor so we can hear the kids and we double insulated the ceiling, so we can make as much noise as we want. We only have to stumble upstairs.

cityhomes@creativeloafing.com


Axel hosts 99x weekdays, 3-7 p.m. “Southern Home By Design” airs 10 a.m. on Turner South.