For the fourth year, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach shows off the best of interior design with the best of interior designers locally and from around the country.
The event, a season staple in New York City since 1973, benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club and runs until May 9.
The 4,400-sq.-ft. Mediterranean-style home, located at 7417 S. Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach’s South End neighborhood, was completely reimagined by 20 award-winning design firms, including a number of local designers.
The villa has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and a formal living and dining room, together with lushly landscaped grounds. The home features a 30-ft. atrium in the main living space, direct water views of the Intracoastal Waterway from every room in the house and easy access to Flagler Beach.
“Our clubs have met the increased challenges brought on by the pandemic, but more work is needed to care for our community’s most vulnerable children,” said Robert Dunkin, chairman of the board of Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County. “We thank the decorators, donors and attendees of the Show House for ensuring that our clubs will continue to be a beacon of hope for thousands of families.”
Due to COVID-19, this year’s event is offering both in-person and virtual tours. Proper precautions will be required to enter the show house.
Mally Skok (MallySkokDesigns.com), a South African-born designer now for the show house.
“It’s very exciting and an honor to be chosen for the Kips Bay Decorator Show House,” says Skok, who arrived in South Florida by way of London and Boston.
For the house, she created “The Sunny Spot,” a second-floor seating area.
“I knew as soon as I saw the spot what I would do with it,” she recalls. Also a fabric designer, Skok used a number of her own designs including “Secret Temple” and “Cape Town in Lime” wallpaper and fabric to create a cozy, cheerful and sunny enclave.
She credits English designers Nina Campbell and Robert Kime, who is Prince Charles’s decorator, as influences.
The fabric design is based on an old Minton dinner plate Asian motif painted in bright, lively colors and the ceiling and wall are a warm terra cotta color, which Skok says “accentuates the South Florida sunlight.”
“It’s Old Palm Beach with a European vibe,” says Skok.
On the first-floor kitchen and breakfast room, Atlanta-based designers Mark Williams and Niki Papadopoulos of Mark Williams Design followed through on the home’s Mediterranean aesthetic.
In palette of monochromatic beiges and whites, the design duo created a functional but elegant space that accommodates a working family.
“We have always been enamored with the beautiful textures and colors of tile this architectural style is known for, so we wanted to nod to that tradition,” says Williams.
On the other end of the spectrum, Nicole White, of Nicole White Designs, another South Florida-based designer and creator of the primary bathroom and closet, went for a more emphatic statement.
The glamorous, functional, and high-end water closet has been called “unapologetically bold.”
“The overall aesthetic for both spaces was an Afro-luxe sensibility,” says White. “We wanted a heavy emphasis on a design inspired by bold Afrocentric art, travel, luxury fabrics/textiles, stones/tiles and exquisite details.”
Canadian-born and Houston-based designer Nina Magon of Nina Magon Studio designed the bedroom, bathroom and closet space:
Known for an edgy aesthetic and her “refined luxury, punctuated with elements of grandeur,” Magon creates her signature style by juxtaposing bold elements and color with the clean lines of modernity. Her luxurious spaces and curated pieces are inspired by her world travels.
Down the hall sits the utility room – not utilitarian in this case. You know you’re in a designer showcase home when even the utility room is high fashion, courtesy of Lisa Hynes and Heather Weisz of HW Interiors based in Wellington.
With a theme of “laundry meets luxury,” Weisz and Hynes’s inspiration was to create an antidote to the “man cave.” With seven kids between them, Weisz says the two did a lot of laundry during COVID-19.
“We were 100 percent in,” says Weisz when she learned they would be reimagining the utility room.
“As women, we spend a lot of time doing laundry,” she jokes. “Our poor spaces should get some glory.”
“Our goal was to take the most mundane of chores and make it extraordinary,” Weisz says. “To find joy and make every experience pleasurable – even laundry.”
The two, partners since 2016, gutted both spaces, took down the center wall, raised the ceiling, got rid of the original doors and created a large, central opening using repurposed barn doors that were bleached four times, to create a neutral palette.
When the doors are closed, the piece functions as an original piece of art, showcasing the wood’s natural grain.
The highlight of the two spaces is the floor of crystal white onyx underlit with 37 LED panels.
“It glows like a dance floor — in whites and grays — when the lights are on,” says Weisz. “Everyone wants to have a cocktail and forget the laundry.”
Also in the utility room is a dog shower with matte brass Kohler fixtures, which doubles as a utility sink.
Dream projects range from designing a mountain home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to reimagining a luxury property in The Hamptons.
Claiming designers Kelly Wearstler, Félix Millory and Jennifer Welch as influences, the two first joined forces five years ago while renovating Hynes’s home in Wellington.
“Everyone loved our collaboration,” says Weisz. “That’s how HW Interiors was born.”
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Tickets for the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach must be purchased online at www.kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org/palmbeach. All proceeds from the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach benefit the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club and Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County. General admission hours will be Monday through Sunday, 10 a.m.– p.m. In addition, virtual tours will also be available.