Interior Design On the Beach
Listening to the soothing sounds of waves crashing on the shore and wiggling their toes in the warm, wet sand are year-round pleasures for a Rumson, New Jersey-based couple. The businessman husband and his wife, a stay-at-home mom, spend summers in the Hamptons and recently purchased a winter getaway on the Atlantic oceanfront in Boca Raton, Florida. “When they’re here, they want to be on the beach. They’re very active, casual people, but they want the best of everything and they can afford it,” says designer Earle Jay Goodman of Boca Raton-based Canthus Incorporated, the firm that transformed the couple’s outdated condominium into a desirable beachfront retreat.
From the hemp area rugs and whimsical seashell sconces to the living room chairs woven from lotus leaves, the décor is meant to surround the couple and their family with the nature-hugging warmth of beachfront living. As part of the Ralph Lauren-inspired palette, darker wood tones were chosen for the wood floors as well as for various furniture pieces and cabinetry throughout the home. In the kitchen, mostly white Christopher Peacock cabinets extend over and under the marble countertops. “Since there is no fireplace to anchor the great room, we brought mahogany cabinets around the stove to accentuate it and they kind of give the feel of a fireplace,” says Earle Jay Goodman. “Plus, they anchor the room.” The large dining table, ideal for the couple’s big family, is made of alder wood and stained in a rustic mahogany finish. Two large silver-and-glass light fixtures resembling lanterns were custom-designed to hold an eclectic assortment of candles; they are positioned over the table to illuminate the space with cozy, flickering light. “At night, it’s really nice,” says Earle Jay Goodman, adding that an antique snuffer was purchased for the couple to extinguish the candles.
The mahogany-stained, cherry floors warm the space, too; they were also selected for their practicality. “These are manufactured floors with as much natural wood on top as a solid wood floor, as far as being able to refinish or correct a problem,” says Earle Jay Goodman, who chose the flooring because it is multi-layered, like plywood, and is unlikely to be affected by moisture. “These clients love the outdoors and in the winter when they’re here all the doors and windows are open, so there is a lot of humidity coming into the place,” he says. “These floors will never warp, even if a rainstorm comes in and they forget to close the doors.”
The almost 3,000-square-foot condominium is a complete renovation. “We gutted it to its concrete shell,” recalls Earle Jay Goodman, who notes the former owners were smokers, so nothing, he insists, could have been salvaged. Starting from scratch, of course, has its benefits, such as determining how to situate the new layout, which was primarily based on one deciding factor—the view. “This is what it’s all about,” the designer says, pointing to the breathtaking panorama of the Atlantic just a stone’s throw away from the expansive balcony off the main living space.
This living room is purposefully divided into two areas: one for daylight hours, the other for when the sun sets. “During the day, you can sit here to have a conversation and to take in the view,” says Earle Jay Goodman. “It’s almost like being on a boat because you are so close to
the water.” Indeed, purchasing this condo on the second floor, rather than on one higher up, was intentional. “This couple doesn’t want to be above the beach, they want to be on the beach,” he says.
The daytime living area is juxtaposed against an evening one, farther away from the windows and beach view, that Goodman says reminds him of a Turkish lounge, mainly because of the L-shaped sofa strewn with numerous pillows. “There are no lights out on the beach, so at night the glass doors become a black wall, making it the ideal backdrop for watching your favorite movies.” Housed inside a rustic, alder wood media cabinet in front of the sofa is a big-screen plasma television that rises from the top by remote control, and if the family is not finished watching their movie when it’s time for dinner, the motor can also swivel the screen to face the dining table.
The master bedroom, located just down the hall from the living room, echoes the blue-and-white color scheme throughout the sleeping area as well as in the adjoining sitting room. “We wanted to make this more restful than the other rooms,” says James John Goodman. “But we also wanted to give it a touch of youth, and make it friendly and casual.” Crystal lamps instead of porcelain ones, he notes, add an unexpected sparkle of light in the room.
The new layout affords the couple two master baths: hers is adjacent to the master bedroom, his abuts the office next to the third bedroom and includes a dressing area. Each bathroom is finished in the Ritz-Carlton’s signature Carrera marble and outfitted with steam showers and built-in niches to allow for storage space.
There’s even a yoga room next to her bathroom, complete with unfinished oak walls, cork flooring and built-in heaters to raise the temperature to a toasty 120 degrees. The designers also added a ballet barre in this exercise room for the couple’s visiting daughter, a ballerina based in New York City.
Ceilings, too, were paid extra attention throughout every room of the condominium, each given its own architecturally enhanced elements like beams and coffers. “Unfortu- nately, all of the ceilings were just eight feet high,” says James John Goodman. “So we heavily detailed them with pop-ups and cove lighting, which lighten their appearance. We didn’t want this to look like a sheetrock shoebox.”
While the home is super luxurious in its detailing, its real success can best be measured by the first impression of those who now live here. “Our client’s comment to us is always, ‘Make my wife happy—happy wife, happy life,’” Earle Jay Goodman smiles, and admits he borrows that line often. “She did not see any of this; she did not even see it when it was the old interior, until we were finished. Then we had the candles lit and the music was on. She came in and could not stop gushing. So we knew we had done a good job.”
