Amanda Lindroth recently learned something about the way life works, or, rather, was re-reminded of a phenomenon many of us have experienced.
“Something fascinating happens when old friends reconvene,” she says from her design office/studio in Nassau, The Bahamas (she has others in Palm Beach and Charleston). In talking about the work she did for a client, furnishing a relatively modest beach house in Gulf Stream, the tiny community just south of Palm Beach on A1A, Lindroth says, “We were very, very close friends in our 20s, when we were both at Wellesley. But life does what it does,” she adds with a philosophical import. “There was never any upheaval in our friendship, we just got separated by life. But now that we’ve finished redoing her home, we’ve become even better, stronger friends.”
The client and her husband, who also live in New York, purchased the somewhat weathered cottage as a place to spend time during the winter. By sheer coincidence, the dwelling, which occupies a spot of land between the ocean and the Intracoastal, abuts the Gulf Stream School, a venerable private institution. It’s where Lindroth had gone as a girl. As she recalls, “I believe, in my childhood, that this house my friend purchased was a faculty residence. It remains in what I consider an enchanted location.”
The makers of the custom pool furniture have also done public furniture found along Worth Avenue.
The living room of a reinvented Gulf Stream “beach shack” is grouped with furnishings and accessories that are both elegant and casual, including an armless tangerine-hued chair, reupholstered in a cotton/linen.
Designer Amanda Lindroth established two identities for the house, with the downstairs assuming a more formal milieu, especially in the living room. Its beachy hues work their work throughout the home.
Playfully painted two-tone stairs lead to the upstairs bedrooms.
For a bedroom with no closet, the designer installed a rattan wardrobe.
The tufted headboards of twin beds in a bedroom echo the wall color.
Lindroth characterizes the property as having experienced some “awkward renovations” over the decades, but “nothing catastrophic.” She modestly says of her role furnishing the rooms of the four-bedroom, two-story cottage as “a process that involved lots of smoke and mirrors, lots of painting, lots of decorating.” The client brought many furnishings with her from the New York apartment, but because so many of the pieces were covered in velvets and wools, Lindroth had them reupholstered in cottons, linens, and hand-block prints more appropriate to the local climate.
After Lindroth’s work, the house has two distinct identities. Lindroth characterizes the first floor as a bit formal, with a dedicated sitting room and dining room, and an array of colorful furnishings that embody the area’s sophisticated coastal vibe. Meanwhile, upstairs, the interior reflects the whimsical name the homeowner has coined for her home: “The Love Shack.”
“The client is a beloved, magical, intelligent, refined friend, who recognized that this is an extraordinarily charming cottage in a perfect neighborhood. My friend is elegant, but she also wanted the house to have a beach-shacky feel to it, at least upstairs.” To create a home that melds refined, well-thought-out interiors with ones also more informal and perhaps, even funky, would likely be a challenging design endeavor for anyone other than Lindroth.
