See How Bunny Williams Transformed a Mediterranean-style Villa in Palm Beach

When Bunny Williams's clients asked her to decorate a 15-year-old Mediterranean Revival house in Palm Beach, the three of them agreed that the house—whose style harks back to the 1920s designs of local star­chitect Addison Mizner—should "look settled, like it had always been there."

The retired couple already had one grandchild and hoped for more. With this in mind, they asked the original architect, Jeffrey W. Smith, to add a wing while redoing the pool and landscaping. Williams's job was to provide that forever look, but one that was by no means dusty or dated. To that end, she bought lots of 18th-century Italian antiques, which were well suited to the vernacular, and then she brought the space into the 21st century by incorporating a range of current pieces.

In the dining room, for example, a contemporary resin-topped table coexists with an 18th-century Italian console and a 19th-century English mahogany cabinet, while works from the couple's collection of modern art hang on the walls. Likewise in the generously proportioned living room, one modern cocktail table is accented with what Williams calls "beautiful painted Italian chairs" and the other table gets a knockout pair of Swedish klismos seats.

The latter room's palette stems from what Williams describes as an "aha moment" that she had while staring out the windows during the project's very early planning stages.

"I was looking at all the foliage, and I suddenly decided to do everything in an acid apple green," she says of the living room's upholstered furniture. "When you do one color, it's less busy," she says. Williams paired the vibrant hue with chocolate brown accents and splashes of eggplant and magenta, surrounded by ivory walls. The serene backdrop was deliberate, she says, "because I knew that the clients would be buying a lot of contemporary art with bright colors."

Serenity also reigns in the master bedroom and breakfast room, where the walls are pink plaster, the result of another inspiration. "When I think of Florida, I think of seashells," Williams says. "If you look at the inside of a conch shell, it’s an amazing soft, pinky color."

In the master bedroom, she adds, "the silvery John Robshaw bed echoes the sheen of the inside of a shell. It’s fun to look at things like that to start your palette, to pick up something and think, Ooh…. Pink is such a great color. I used to avoid it, but now it’s my favorite."

In the new guesthouse, the bedroom looking out onto the pool is swathed in "watery blue colors.” Meanwhile, the living room features a decidedly modern take on a classic Mediterranean tiled wall.

"The walls were all done with photo imaging," the designer says, marveling at the technique. "You just lay out the images of the tiles on a computer, and they're photo-printed, and then you hang up the result like wallpaper."

The house, now the perfect winter respite for the clients and their extended family, appears as settled as everyone had hoped. Williams, ever modest, gives credit to "some great old trees on the property that make it seem as if the house has always been there.” But the real credit goes to her deft mix of old and new, her application of the colors found in nature, and her inimitably fresh take on Palm Beach's ersatz Mediterranean style.

This story appears in the February 2019 issue of Veranda. Subscribe