Like a shiny seashell in the sand, the newly built home
was glimmering on the lakeshores of North Palm Beach’s exclusive Lost Tree Village, a lush enclave tucked between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, when the beachcombing Rhode Island couple happened upon it. With a taste for gracious living and an appreciation for touches of tongue-in-cheek whimsy, they knew just the person to transform the house into a sophisticated but cozy vacation home for themselves and their flock of children and grandchildren: Enter Jennifer Garrigues.
Devotees of Garrigues’ chic shop in Palm Beach have long turned to the London-born designer for her signature dash of fantasy and exotic international finds. “You have to have things that amuse your eye,” Garrigues says. And it was just that mantra that attracted her new clients. “They had been to a house that we had just finished, and they loved it,” says Garrigues of the nearby project, which was “bouncing with color as well.” A thorough drenching of color was exactly what the clients envisioned for their own Floridian retreat. “They wanted to be reminded that they were by the seaside,” says Garrigues. “I love white walls,” admits the designer, “but enough already!” Instead, with the help of colleague Diana El Daher, Garrigues concocted a palette of fresh, clean hues—bright and vibrant, but far from Palm Beach’s head-pounding neon pink and green past.
Before the painters’ ladders arrived, however, the canvas needed to be perfected. The new construction house had been built to sell, notes Garrigues, not to anyone’s particular specifications. Playing on the pre-existing Palladian-inspired architecture—like arched windows giving out to the lake—the team set to work adding personalized touches like beadboard ceiling detail in the kitchen and an inlaid tile “carpet” in the master bathroom. Garrigues squared off round columns in the foyer, adding fluting, a whitewash finish and a gathering of floating sheer drapes to create an entrance experience that defined the open living room. Each structural change was a strategic one, designed to make the large house feel soulful. “It’s the details that really make it come to life,” says Garrigues. The homeowners themselves supplied a great number of those details with their own treasures; pictures and dimensions of furniture were e-mailed down the Eastern seaboard throughout the project. The clients “love things,” Garrigues explains. “They’re not cluttered people, but they love interesting bits, and they travel a lot.” Their vacation home became “someplace to put the unusual,” says Garrigues, such as the intricate Syrian nightstands in the master bedroom or the detailed backsplash the designer installed in the kitchen.
The most defining—and dramatic—element of the house would ultimately become those sorbet scoops of color that fill each room. From the tomato red study to the robin’s egg blue living room to the apple green kitchen, the phenomenal range of hues maintains a cohesiveness not usually equated with such a dizzying array of shades. The designer’s trick? An equal level of saturation throughout and, in many cases, a similar finish: Many of the rooms were treated with a custom glaze. What might have been a cacophony of colors melded instead into a breezy harmony, with the key factor, according to Garrigues, being that “all the colors that we use in the house repeat themselves.” Like so many Florida homes, the house featured a flowing, open layout; while distinct colors provided definition to the spaces, their repetition ensured that “when you walk through the house you don’t feel like you’re going through a jigsaw box,” laughs Garrigues. “Each color complements the other.”
The pièce-de-résistance is the detailed custom dining room mural, a work of fantasy that itself incorporates each of the colors that appear throughout the house. A two-month-long project by celebrated Palm Beach muralist Marcia Wendel, the scene was inspired by Garrigues’ love for Asia and her native England’s own Brighton Pavilion. It features a jewel box of rich hues that illuminates the dining room. “Colors are very hard, not everyone gets them right,” admits Garrigues. “It’s like looking at the rainbow: If you can see how they all float in together, then it can be very beautiful.” Very beautiful indeed: This Palm Beach home dazzles.