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Tastemaking Designer Ideas

Design — 17 January 2012
Tastemaking Designer Ideas

We may think all designers decorate their residences with expensive furnishings available to the trade only. Some do, but others surprise us with totally different interpretations and inexpensive ideas we can steal.

The following glimpses into the residences of four taste-making South Florida designers range in style from clean and simple to layered and filled with objects they love.

Dissecting their designs can show us how to: Paint the walls a dark color but lighten the room. Create a black-and-white room. Economize with items from IKEA and HomeGoods. Add a lighted column between rooms. And enhance existing architecture.

BY CHARLYNE VARKONYI SCHAUB

Marianne Pilotaz

Photographer  Robin Hill

Marianne Pilotaz liked what she calls the “good humor” of the four-bedroom house she and her husband, Charles, bought four years ago on Key Biscayne.

Built in 1950 by The Mackle Co., the 2,480-square-foot house featured a quirky exterior with trademarks of the builder – a porthole window near the entrance and a slanted wall.

Pilotaz loved the small circular window and added two larger portholes – in the kitchen and in the master bedroom suite. She changed the remaining windows and reworked the room sizes.

“We needed to bring the eye to something that illustrates the spirit of the house,” she said with a French accent that gives away her Parisian roots.

Pilotaz, who spent more than 10 years working in marketing and with the editorial department at Elle Decoration in France, describes her style as very clean.

“I like straight lines and things that are very minimalistic because it brings in something peaceful,” she says. “I am looking at the architecture as part of the decoration. I like mixing things that are very eclectic in a clean style without a lot of furniture or a lot of objects.”

In keeping with this philosophy, the living room features open space. Instead of a large coffee table, she selected a small round wooden table that can be moved easily.

Because the ceilings were low, Pilotaz’s workmen broke through to provide volume to reveal the tongue and groove in the foyer, which she duplicated in the kitchen. A partial wall, which has built-in shelves for open storage, was added between the foyer and the kitchen.

“We made the wall lower than the ceiling because, from a design point of view, we wanted to enhance the ceiling, which you can see from the foyer,” she says. “The challenge was making the [room divider] integrated deep into the wall. It takes advantage of the structure, you have more space and it really integrates things.”

The 6-by-6-foot island is stainless steel with a Corian top and includes two sinks, a cook top, storage and a dishwasher. She selected a round vent from Germany to echo the kitchen’s round window.

Everyone from city officials to contractors thought she was crazy to renovate rather than tear down the house, but she says it was worth it.

“I took the contemporary spirit of the 1950s so you feel it throughout the house,” she says. “Everything is open. Most of the time, the family gathers around the big kitchen island. Today we are running, running, running and don’t have time for anything. The only time for family is dinner.”

Marianne Pilotaz: Z Style Deco, 798 Fernwood Road,
Key Biscayne, 33149, 786-214-1068, www.zstyledeco.com.


Juan Montoya

Photographer Dan Forer

New York interior designer Juan Montoya fell in love with the Helen Mar condominium on his visits to South Florida.

He describes it as “the most charming building in the whole of Miami Beach” and says it won his heart because of its art deco detailing, views of the water and modest proportions.

When more work took him to Florida in 1994, Montoya bought two studio units on the fourth floor to enlarge the space to 1,500 square feet.

Montoya, a superstar designer who studied architecture in Bogotá and design at Parsons in New York, has projects throughout the world. He has won numerous awards and was named one of Architectural Digest’s “Top 100” designers and architects. He is the author of Juan Montoya (Montacelli Press, $75), a book featuring 25 projects in Florida, Connecticut and Paris.

Although Montoya is also an architect, he eschews the sterile, Bauhaus look of leather and metal.

“I hate things that are too shiny,” he says. “I don’t like elements that are too glaring. I would rather have things that are matte and feel tactile. I love when people come in and touch things.”

He decorated the condo first in what he describes as “more of a cliché Florida look,” with white curtains, blue stripes and colorful chairs. This time the décor is the antithesis of stereotypical Florida design.

“Because I didn’t want it to look like any other apartment in Miami Beach, I didn’t want a colorful orange sofa, purple walls and Kelly green chairs,” he says. “I wanted something comfortable, but not typical. I achieved that by creating an atmosphere – a cool feeling, a tropical feeling.”

For example, although the bedroom walls are painted a dark brown, he lightened the room with white bed linens and art, such as the red abstract on white background by Louise Josephine Bourgeois and a red photograph of a seascape at sunset by Karen Butler Connell.

The living room is painted the color of a brown paper bag and is designed with comfortable chairs, a sofa bed and a trio of nesting cocktail tables from his namesake collection for Century Furniture. The focal point is a 9-by-6-foot oil painting of African figures by Hugo Bastidas, a Central American artist. He separated the kitchen from the living room with a trellis grid that opens up in the middle Turkish style.

“I didn’t want to make the living room and the dining room the usual spaces you see everywhere,” he says. “In the dining room is a huge table that I use for books and objects of all kinds. I can have breakfast there, clean it up when I am entertaining or keep the objects there.”

Juan Montoya: Juan Montoya Design Group, 330 E. 59th St., New York, NY 20022, 212-421-2400, www.juanmontoyadesign.com.


April Nolan

Photographer  Ron Glazer

When April Nolan bought her 1950s Fort Lauderdale home in 1978, it was devoid of architectural detail. The floors were covered with light blue shag and indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Her changes transformed it into a chic, comfortable home.

“I would have to say that my design style is contemporary, classic, very relaxed yet refined,” Nolan says. “I love a home that is warm. I always have an antique next to something modern to mix it up.”

Nolan replaced the windows, ripped out the carpeting and added engineered wood floors by Anderson in a pickled wood finish, crown moldings and French doors.

The most dramatic architectural element is the living room wall, which she painted with Kendall Charcoal from Behr and accented with simple wood strips painted white. The gray wall sets the stage for a dramatic black-and-white room featuring a cowhide rug painted in a zebra motif, a zebra lampshade, white upholstery and black-and-white curtains.

“The truth about those window treatments is I couldn’t find any black-and-white fabric I liked so I found some white drapery panels and had black stripes sewn into them,” she says. “I like to be very creative and if I can’t find something I envision in my head, I find a way to make it happen.”

Another creative move was the white shelf above the desk, which was made from joining three floating shelves from IKEA. She bought a lamp from HomeGoods because she liked the zebra shade and put it on another base. Her desk chair is an antique inherited from her grandmother.

Her advice on designing a black-and-white room? Use a variety of textures and shades of black and white so the room doesn’t appear too stark or too cold.

Nolan works out of her home so her office had to be stylish as well as organized.

She converted a large dining table that was used for the past 20 years into a desk. The desk chair, from HomeGoods, has a twin. Charlie Payne, her fiancé, added molding and fluting to give a custom-made bookcase a more finished appearance. In the bookcases are her resources – catalogs and samples of fabric marble, mica, granite and carpet – organized into white containers.

Nolan’s clients run the gamut from those who want to shop at HomeGoods to those who prefer shopping at designer showrooms.

“I love to work with clients on a budget and help them to create a beautiful home environment,” she says.

April Nolan:  April Nolan Design, 4431 NE 16th Ave., Fort Lauderdale 33334, 954-415-3557, www.aprilnolandesign.com.

Aldo Puschendorf

Photographer  Robert Brantley 

Aldo Puschendorf purchased his 1936 historic home in the Belle Meade neighborhood of northeast Miami because it met his desires – a small pool, a fireplace and enough space for entertaining.

But most of all, the 2,300-square-foot home didn’t require a lot of work. His changes were mostly cosmetic – adding a tray ceiling and crown molding, changing the baseboards, painting and wallpapering walls that were canary yellow, terra cotta and flamingo pink. The most extensive changes he made were knocking down walls – between what he calls the entry living room and dining room and between the kitchen and dining room.

After living in the home less than a year, he replaced the traditional columns that separated the entry living and dining areas with lit columns in a frosted case.

“I like straight lines that are clean, sophisticated and elegant,” he says. “There is texture and color in every room. It reflects my personality. I am quiet in many ways, and when I come home I want to relax and socialize. I have people over and have their kids running around the house. Although I have some expensive things, I know they won’t break anything, and I am not intimidating my guests.”

When guests walk into the house, they see the entry living room’s welcoming conversation area – with four armchairs facing each other.

“It works because everyone has their own space and they don’t have to worry about being too close to each other,” he says.

The formal living room was designed to resemble a sitting area in a hotel. It mixes old with new. The contemporary coffee table is low and sleek with a glass top; the seating is a 1930s look. It contrasts with wallpaper that resembles blue jean fabric. Accessories include an African mask on a pedestal, an antique Buddha, two beveled mirrors to bring light to the room and a contemporary silk area rug with circle motif.

“I get tired of the same accessories and I refresh the house every three months,” he says.

What can we learn from his design?

“You don’t have to overcrowd a room to make it look good,” he says.

Aldo Puschendorf: 733 NE 73rd St., Miami, 33138, 305-751-0100, www.pinteriors.net.

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