Palm Beach Spanish Revival by Sarah Sherman Samuel

In the village of Wellington, in Florida’s Palm Beach, is a home that could belong in a storybook. Larger-than-life windows overlook a mirror-like lake, while great blue herons prance around its periphery. Palm Beach Spanish Revival, designed by Sarah Sherman Samuel, is an atmospheric abode where experiences unfold on either side of the threshold.

A few years ago, the home now known as Palm Beach Spanish Revival was a smorgasbord of extravagant embellishments, faded millwork and palatial fixtures that seemed at odds with its Mediterranean-inspired surroundings. The present version has none of the hallmarks of its predecessor, except perhaps for its simple Moorish facade. Interior designer Sarah Sherman Samuel took steps to bring the home into the present, while keeping one foot in the past.

The underpinning motivation was to establish a relationship with the outdoors and create layered spaces that straddle classic and contemporary sensibilities.

The home borrows from several idiosyncratic ideologies, including the modern architecture of Mexico City’s Miguel Hidalgo neighbourhood, and Tadao Ando’s doctrine of critical regionalism. As Sarah explains, the underpinning motivation was to establish a relationship with the outdoors and create layered spaces that straddle classic and contemporary sensibilities.

The renovation was an exercise in considered additions and subtractions. It involved eliminating a covered porch, rehoming the fireplace and eschewing the existing sliding glass doors in service of colossal arched apertures that summon the sunlight deep inside. In another bid to enhance the home’s proportions, the fireplace was highlighted with a soaring surround that complements the sky-high windows, and in turn, delivers an object lesson in optics by elongating the interior volume.

The renovation was an exercise in considered additions and subtractions.

The renovation was pointed at modernising the home, yes, but not entirely so. The walls, for example, were deliberately calmed with limewash to channel the plaster of an erstwhile Moorish house, a finish that minimises glare by day and maximises warm deflections by night. By the same token, elements that had endured over the years were importantly restored rather than replaced, both with a mind to mitigate wastage and pay homage to the home’s heritage. Interventions of note included peeling back the brown shellacked floors to reveal the original matte terracotta finish, as well as repolishing and bleaching the dark-wood floors to conjure a sense of luminosity.

A spirit of eclecticism was espoused with regard to decor and furnishings, with vintage and contemporary furniture and accents, many from Sarah’s eponymous furniture and rug line with Lulu and Georgia, each given equal pride of place. Much like the home, the interior is a melting pot of influences, objects and geographies that echo the home’s storied past.

Architecture and interior design by Sarah Sherman Samuel.