Inside Outside: A Sourcebook of Inspired Garden Rooms by Linda O'Keeffe

Author:Linda O'Keeffe [O'Keeffe, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2019-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

HOUSE OF BLUES

THE HOUSE AND GARDEN COURTYARD Charlie Ferrer recently completed in Palm Beach, Florida, is so pleasantly cohesive, it’s as if he was inspired by midcentury architect Eliel Saarinen, whose holistic approach always considered design in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, and a house in its landscape. As a result, there’s hardly any atmospheric separation between the interior of a white stucco house and its walled tropical garden: it is all one meditative piece.

Several aspects of Ferrer’s scheme—he was responsible for the architecture, the interior décor, and the landscaping—contribute to everything feeling so well settled into its site. The lot is relatively compact, and he kept all the rooms proportionately small to subliminally reference the gracious time before zero-lot-line homes were so commonplace. His choice of weather-sensitive materials contributes another layer of nostalgia and makes the newly constructed project seem as if it were built decades ago. Limestone pavers, copper gutters, and bronze door hardware are already acquiring a patina and relinquishing their newness to Florida’s salty air. His plan envisioned color as a connective tissue—the palette of oceanic blues in furniture upholstery repeats in a collection of contemporary art and on window shutters, so it’s as if the elements of water, air, and sky have a reverberating presence.

Ferrer brought in mature foundational plantings, such as a date palm (Phoenix canariensis) and sea grapes (Coccoloba uvifera), which lent the site a timeless credibility as soon as they were planted. The foliage of plants installed around the house, and growing on it, including asparagus fern, creeping fig, jasmine, rosemary, philodendron, and waxy viburnum, is constantly trimmed back to encourage new growth and ensure that it all looks well tended.

In subtle and obvious ways, reflectivity is a leitmotif throughout Ferrer’s design. It’s a standard interior design trick to lean oversize, framed mirrors against walls to bring in light, open up cramped spaces, and play with perspectives, but Ferrer hung mirrors high, at least one to a room, to draw in vignettes of the garden and distribute glimpses of the interior. Sam Orlando Miller’s multifaceted convex mirror in the living room captures a Richard Misrach photograph of a rippled ocean as well as the greenery in the courtyard. An oval mirror in the entry reflects the hedges outside. A starburst mirror in the loggia captures a reflecting pool.

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