There might be two kinds of homeowners in this world: those who fear patterns and those who embrace them. At the onset of this project, as with the four prior ones that designer Charlotte Barnes has done with this homeowner and her husband, Barnes and the client began with an afternoon expedition through New York’s D&D Building.
“We typically go there and fill up with tons of fabrics,” says Barnes, “and while she and I have no idea where we’re going with all the competing patterns and colors, we start playing around with them and, then, suddenly have a plan.” The homeowner, too, recounts, with fondness these fabric-shopping forays. “Charlotte and I have fun together—we understand each other. Mixing patterns is, I think, an instinct of mine, and, yet, I don’t like to make a single design decision without Charlotte. She is always my ‘taste check’.”
After the clients purchased this H-shaped, three-bedroom Florida home, they had locally-based architect Peter Moor make significant layout changes. “It was a spec house originally,” says the homeowner, “and just too open-planned. Peter and Charlotte were so talented at reconfiguring rooms, making spaces a bit more closed off and defined.”
The real thrill of the home, though, was furnishing its rooms. “This is definitely a Florida house,” Barnes emphasizes, “but we decided to make this a chic house, wherever it is.” When Barnes came upon some exuberant two-tone Moschino fabrics, she knew they were right for the great room—and the pattern now wraps two John Saladino sofas. After Moor ingeniously carved out novel seating nooks in the room, Barnes was intent on cladding the ceiling with pecky cypress, a textured grade she then had painted to a sandy hue.
The home’s great room feels especially expansive with its painted vaulted ceiling. The bright room is furnished with a pair of John Saladino sofas upholstered in a Paolo Moschino fabric, rattan chairs, and Urban Electric sconces centered in the fireside seat nooks.
A Chinese bronze crane censer, from Avery & Dash Antiques, is set on an endtable.
A detail of a rattan chair with tassels and trim.
An antique console table from Carl Moore Antiques and a custom painted wood panel with bird, from Casa Gusto, serve as focal points.
A dedicated bar/eating area features a de Gournay custom Blue India Tea Paper on the ceiling and a Pierre Frey paper on the main back wall. A faux palm tree from Amanda Lindroth serves as a fun element. Thomas O’Brien metal chairs with a Rogers & Goffigon glazed linen fabric are set around the table.
A Muriel Brandolini Roman shade is the backdrop for a small bar area, equipped with a vintage bar cart found at Patrick Moulteny West, in Palm Beach.
Despite the allure of the manicured grounds, some meals and game times are best had indoors at a vintage metal dining set with chairs covered in a fabric from Elizabeth Eakins. A vintage rattan ottoman uses a Quadrille pattern.
Interior designer Charlotte Barnes was determined to make the rooms of this home stand out. The home’s library is enveloped by color and pattern, achieved notably with walls that are clad in Quadrille’s Pacific Sisal Navy, a swivel chair upholstered with a Holland & Sherry fabric, a vintage rattan sofa, Roman shades, and a matching sofa fabric from Katie Leede.
A Studio Four NYC wallpaper enlivens a powder room situated off the library. The mirror is from Serena & Lily.
Elements are arranged in pairs in the primary bedroom: painted chests from Casa Gusto, vintage rattan mirrors from Bamboo & Rattan in West Palm Beach, and bedside lamps from Jean Roger. An antique Swedish bench from Dawn Hill Antiques is set at the foot of the bed.
A pair of Maison Jansen lamps, through Casa Gusto, are set atop a lacquered desk.
Shade can be found in the primary bedroom, beneath a faux coconut palm tree from The Canvas Nursery. The vintage rattan chair and ottoman are accented with a Carolina Irving fabric.
A terrace/eating area off the primary bedroom is equipped with a vintage “Swan” dining set from Devonshire of Palm Beach. The fabrics are Quadrille, and the toile agave plants were created by Casa Gusto.
SMI Landscape Architecture, of Palm Beach, created a series of terraced areas that take full advantage of the home’s waterside site. Munder Skiles outdoors furniture surrounds the swimming pool.
The ceiling of the on-site separate cottage is papered with a pattern from Nobilis. The beds are each dressed with duvet covers from Les Indiennes and pillows from Leontine Linens.
A kitchen area in the cottage is demarcated with a Phillip Jeffries grasscloth. The curtain fabric on the bamboo pole is from C&C Milano and is highlighted with trim from Rogers & Goffigon.
Further evidence of the aesthetic bond Barnes and the client share is apparent in the enclosed loggia, with its two elegantly sinuous consoles positioned at either end, and whose forms harken to the Villa Kerylos, the famous French house that references ancient Greek forms. “Not only is this the room to watch sunsets,” says Barnes, “it also features bird-related artworks since the homeowner loves birdwatching.” Indeed, as the homeowner states, “The reason my husband and I bought this house was because of its views. Across from us is an island filled with unbelievable birds, which I never stop looking at as they land and take off.”
While the homeowner admits to always wanting to collaborate on a design, she readily concedes, “Charlotte is so good at what she does that we purposely let her have an even heavier hand in making this house what it is.” A wall of the bar area, for instance, is ablaze with a Pierre Frey pattern depicting a dreamy, Edenesque scene of palm trees and deer, cows and lions. Barnes further imbued the diminutive space with pilasters made of faux palm trees, deer antlers, an Italian mid-century mirror, and custom bamboo furnishings. Of the client, Barnes insists, “She pushes me to find the best.”
As the bar suggests, no room in the home is predictable or absent a surprise. The library is a soothing, cool, moody space with navy grass cloth on the walls and a deep glossy-red ceiling. “I had a vision of this room referencing Oscar de la Renta’s iconic house in the Dominican Republic,” says the homeowner, “and because Charlotte is so unbelievable with color, I wasn’t afraid to have a dark room in a Florida house. Charlotte never gives up on finding what’s right.”
The swooping headboard in the primary bedroom has, as Barnes says, “a magical quality,” and she trimmed curtains there with a dynamic, yet discreet, cranberry-hued Houles trim. The screened porch’s fireplace surround is clad with Moroccan tiles, whose metallic finishes seemingly ignite in the Florida light. An Hermès wallpaper (the last such pattern made by the company) in a powder room is so visually animated that the space appears to vibrate.
“Every time we’re at the house, the first thing I do,” says the homeowner, is send Charlotte a ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ for making us, as a family, feel so good when we’re there.”
