Like Palm Beach itself, this waterfront house in the South Florida community speaks many languages, or at least its contents do. The architecture is updated Colonial Revival, crisp and clean after a rewrite by the sure hands of José Solís Betancourt and Paul Morgan Sherrill. Their clients wanted a worldly look, but new. Sticking to the traditional Palm Beach script of Grand Tour decorating, the designers rebalanced the story in the dining room to highlight strong pieces — Irish Regency armchairs from Niall Smith, a David Linley Empire-style table, turquoise hurricane lamps, all via 1stDibs — and the vintage Chinese wallpaper from Gracie. In their words, “The large bay window looks out to gorgeous water views, but at candlelight dinner parties, the view is all about the romance of an imagined Chinese countryside.”
“David Linley’s modern take on a Jupe table is perfect for smaller everyday gatherings but expands in the round for bigger dinner parties, respecting the square proportions of the room at either size. And if the chairs could only speak, they’d tell of boisterous gatherings, because they once belonged to the Dublin-based fashion legend Sybil Connolly.”
Design philosophy?
“In this dining room, we have a Chinese-influenced wallcovering, Irish Regency armchairs and Italian consoles. Yet, in the next room, there are dainty Swedish chairs, French-inspired treillage and a massive Rococo-style marble table crowned with a Venetian beaded lantern in the Chinese style. Our work is all about the juxtaposition of different colors, styles and periods that live harmoniously together to create a layered and nuanced whole.”
