It makes sense that a designer known for his remarkable sense of color would be drawn to Harbour Island, Bahamas, with its world-famous stretch of pink sand beach. Except that looking for sense in Matthew Carter’s work and life is a bit like listening to a symphony with one ear covered. The designer is as equally adept at integrating intuition and surprise as he is harnessing the powers of logic and planning.
This fluidity is woven throughout the story of his and his partner Brent Bruner’s transformation of Chanticleer Hill, a 70-year-old cottage they bought three years ago. On the couple’s very first visit to the island some 18 years prior, Carter had coincidentally taken a picture of the cottage’s front gate. During that initial visit, they found themselves so captivated by the remote island’s unique vibe—down to earth, yet wildly chic—that they returned annually, staying in hotels until it finally dawned on them to buy.
Easier said than done. The property, though neglected, had not been for sale and was tied up in a snarl of estate legalities. Once those were resolved, Carter and Bruner, an architect, discovered the house was in poor shape. “The first time I walked inside, I was horrified,” Carter admits. So began an extensive renovation that included opening up rooms, rebuilding floors, and converting a golf-cart garage (for the island’s primary means of transportation) into a guest cottage.
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As for decor, “I used a few simple colors as a starting point,” says the Kentucky-based decorator. In other words: “Deep greens, dark browns, and a whole lot of white. This combination feels elegantly organic to me.” He underscored the mood with natural materials: pecky cypress walls and jute carpets; rattan, bamboo, and coconut shell furnishings; Coralina stone floors.
Accent colors often came to him in flashes of inspiration. One afternoon mid-renovation, Carter and Bruner were in the master bedroom. “I said, ‘Is this room missing something?’ He said, ‘It is.’ ” And so the beams were repainted chartreuse, “a lovely, weird green that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the room. I wasn’t sitting in my office a thousand miles away with a fabric sample and a paint deck looking for a match. I just thought it would be beautiful.”
Equally impromptu was Carter’s decision to rethink a rectangular opening between the dining and living rooms. “One day I thought, You know what? A Moorish arch would be cool. I took my pencil, climbed a ladder, and drew it on the wall. I could picture it. Luckily, our contractor never said no.”
At the same time, Carter had to be meticulous about planning every iota of furnishing and decor. Harbour Island is tiny—three miles long and a half-mile wide—and fairly hard to access. If you’ve forgotten something, “you can’t just run into a home store and grab it,” he says. “Everything you need must be in the shipping containers.”
In came a beautifully diverse mix of fabrics (for instance, a coral Quadrille block print for the dining room windows, a Mexican coverlet for a guest bed). “I love the easy weight of natural cotton,” says Carter. “It seems salt- and sun-bleached.”
Matthew Carter Harbour Island Cottage House Tour
Also making the journey were items Carter had gathered over the years, awaiting an island home: a French grain basket, Mongolian christening gown, and flattened magenta parasol all framed as art. Coral “sculptures” claim tabletops, giant seashells perch atop classical brackets, seaweed fans wave from shelves. Numerous letter-shaped pieces of coral, including those resembling J, O, and Y, greet visitors. “Those three pieces of coral sum up our feelings about Harbour Island perfectly,” says Carter. It’s a place where, through a charmed mix of planning and serendipity, they’ve stumbled upon genuine joy.
This feature originally appeared in the July/August 2020 issue of VERANDA. Interior Design by Matthew Carter; architecture by Brent Bruner; photography by Brie Williams; written by Celia Barbour.
