Simple is the hardest. That philosophical and design fact was reconfirmed for interior designer Lynn Morgan and her eponymous firm’s senior designer, Jim Ribaudo, upon completing their work at this new home in North Palm Beach. “In looking back at this finished project, I love it, the client loves it, her friends love it, simply because it’s so simple and clean and accessible,” says Morgan, “but that meant we had to pay extra special attention to everything we did design.”
The client for this home is a seasoned design expert herself, which meant that she knew exactly what she wanted architecturally and in terms of décor. As Morgan emphasizes, “A lot of my clients look at this house and say, ‘That’s exactly how I want to live—not too many rooms, not 20 million different fabrics, an abundance of light and air.” Ribaudo adds, “The décor and the color palette give the house a timeless quality. But it’s easy for us to do our work when you’re already starting with a house as good as this one architecturally, and with a landscape designer, Kathryn Herman, who is an artist in what she achieves.”
Architect Louise Brooks, of Brooks & Falotico, refers to her firm’s novel design as exemplifying what might be known in Palm Beach as “South African Dutch Colonial.” That characterization means that her firm’s house incorporates such elements as steeply pitched cathedral-scaled ceilings, decorative motifs that include porthole windows as a way to both emphasize and tame the gable forms, and projecting wings that segregate public areas from private ones. Brooks, whose firm worked with the client on another house in Greenwich, further defined this one as something distinct, in part by using concrete panels for flooring. Essentially, large cast-concrete forms, made off site and measuring 28” x 48”, were laid like giant tiles, and connected by tight joints sealed with a neutral grout.
Upon arriving at their North Palm Beach house, a couple from the northeast knows that life is suddenly going to be calm, serene, and carefree.
The foyer is kept bright with both natural light and Visual Comfort’s Spur Grande Chandelier.
The living room features two distinct seating areas.
The walls of a North Palm Beach home are filled with the homeowners’ collection of art, including an array of circles by Polly Apfelbaum, set between a pair of square-armed chairs.
A pair of swivel club chairs in the primary suite are upholstered in China Seas’ Ikat in blue and gray. The wool carpet is from Genova, and the artwork is by Sarah Meyohas.
Landscape designer Kathryn Herman created a pool whose waters meet the very edge of the house.
“This house was finished just enough years ago,” Brooks emphasizes, “that the whole black-and-white dynamic for new houses had not yet fully come to Florida, certainly not Palm Beach. This house was new to this community, actually and aesthetically. The very use of black metal-framed windows, for instance, was a big leap.” And as Morgan adds regarding that detail, “A big hit.” In keeping with a desired ease of living, since this is a second residence, the clients insisted, too, that it be a single story, a directive Brooks and her firm responded to by designing vaulting ceilings for added visual effect.
What drives the colors in the interiors are the views out to the ever-green golf course (players can be seen sinking their putts on the seventh hole from the primary bedroom), the blues of the swimming pool, and, notably, the vibrant artworks assembled by the homeowner and her husband. During the design process, Ribaudo recalls the client coming to the office often with an ever-growing binder depicting the artworks she had already purchased or was about to. “She wanted a complete counterpoint to what she had in Greenwich,” Brooks emphasizes, “which meant a contemporary house, contemporary interiors, and a contemporary art collection.”
Herman, the landscape designer, based in New Canaan (Connecticut), was intent on designing a water element that would not resemble, as Morgan says, “your typical backyard swimming pool. What Kathryn designed is something very sculptural, very cool, and elevates the house as a whole.” The subtly tiered T-shaped pool is, indeed, a chic landscaping element that does not change with time or seasons; its geometrically rigorous form is accentuated, and softened, by a mini grove of palms that Herman configured.
So seamless was the design process, despite its having taken place during Covid, that the moment it was complete, Brooks says, “The artwork went up the first week and she and her husband then began their lives there.”
