Rational Exuberance (continued)
Baroque extravagance is tempered by modernist restraint
To achieve this blend, the couple turned to Barry Dixon, who had decorated two previous homes for them, and the offices of Rubino & McGeehin, the CPA firm of which Pat is a founding partner. The three have become intimate friends and have collaborated so closely over the years that designs developed for McGeehin projects are permanent fixtures in Dixon's furniture collection for Tomlinson/Erwin-Lambeth. "I know these people well -- everything from the way Roseann dresses to Pat's playfulness," says Dixon.
"An Americanized Mediterranean style has flourished here since the 1920s and '30s, and we didn't want the house to be alien to that environment," says the designer, who worked with local architect Albert Wadsworth to devise a structure that would be, Dixon explains, "a little Andalusian here, Venetian there, some French and even some North African. We wanted to take episodes from each of them so it would be all of the above, yet none of them in particular."
Old-world Venetians, of course, were peripatetic travelers and collectors, so the desire for a global mélange turns out to be more authentic than what passes for "Venetian" in most of South Florida. That desire manifests itself immediately inside the door, where visitors encounter terrazzo floors, an Italian console and a Moroccan pendant lamp. A Spanish-style metal banister ascends the adjacent circular staircase.
The three-year project yielded unquestionably lush results, yet unlike period Florida Venetian interiors, these show a distinctly contemporary restraint. Take the absence of fancy wall coverings. "We didn't want to lose the fact that this is a house by the beach," says Pat. "The off-white walls give it a cleaner, more modern look." There are also few rugs, and wherever there is gilt, it's balanced by a more natural texture -- peeling garden urns in the bar, for instance, counter the gold reliquary-like mirror behind them; chandeliers repurposed as candelabra on a stair landing retain gilt bronze frames, but their crystal strands have been restrung with seed pods and bamboo.
There is, of course, plenty of elegance here, yet it feels organic instead of overdone. "We didn't ignore the idea of a nouveau baroque sort of movie set," Dixon concedes wryly. "I'm walking a fine line between Liberace and something tasteful. Palm Beach is a dramatic place. You can be exuberant and it's appropriate. But we had to earn the right to use the more dramatic furnishings by showing some modesty with the basic interior structure. We played furnishings like jewelry against a plain sheath dress."
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