Art Takes Center Stage in Palm Beach Regency Estate

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Certain homeowners approach a design renovation as something unpleasant to suffer through with only the end result in mind. Others, like the longtime clients of New York-based architect Enda Donagher and interior designer Elizabeth Martell, revel in and respect every step of the creative process, and see it as a chance for reinvention with their keen input as part of the endeavor. 

Donagher, whose commercial projects include boutiques for Giorgio Armani and Van Cleef & Arpels, met the couple, noted art collectors, through his luxury retail circles. “Renovation is a hobby of the husband,” he says. “Since [this project], we’ve designed a number of other homes for them, as well as for extended family. It’s a privilege to work with clients who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Plus, the caliber of their art collection [only bolstered] our creativity.”

Martell, who has collaborated with Donagher for 20 years, was just as delighted to discover the clients were so attuned to the process. “This enables the interior design to happen because they are so open to all ideas,” she says. “We’d go shopping, and the husband would see an unusual chair and say, ‘I love this! Can it go in the living room?’ And we’d make it work.”

The gut renovation of the 7,800-square-foot Regency style estate in Palm Beach (with five bedrooms and eight baths) took about a year to complete. This included an extensive rethinking of the landscaping to keep it in tune with the newly refined look of the house. Originally erected in the ’80s by well-known builder Robert W. Gottfried, the house boasted the relaxed interpretation of Palm Beach Regency Gottfried was known for, but because the current owners (who are heavily involved in philanthropy) wanted more formal, much larger spaces for entertaining than the former architecture provided, many walls had to come down, and just as many new ones came up. “There were underperforming, ill-defined spaces that needed to be pushed to the next level,” says Donagher, who did just that with inspired details such as stacking two crown moldings for a more dramatic cornice effect with concealed lighting, which balances the bold large-scale art canvases. As a result of these additions, “I immediately saw what the entry hall and the living room could be.”

Carefully considered—or “strategized” as the architect and designer might put it—was the color palette, a nuanced play on soft whites executed in sumptuous finishes and materials. To accomplish this, most of the furniture and all rugs were custom designed by Donagher and Martell. “We looked to create something memorable, like the white French marble floors cut in oversize chevrons, some of which are eight feet long,” says Martell. “They flow from the entry hall through the living room and beyond.” 

One of the main intents of the interior design was to provide a showcase for the homeowner’s stellar collection of art, a grouping that includes Botero, Picasso, and Lichtenstein, and which rotates among the clients’ various houses. “With names like that, we couldn’t just paint,” says Donagher with a laugh about the luminous wall finish they developed. “The walls in the entry and living room are Venetian plaster, but we pushed the artisan to not do the typical high-polish, but to try something new, and it resulted in a waxy buttery finish like nothing we’ve ever seen.” When it came to incorporating the many custom furnishings, Martell says the challenge was to keep the main, larger pieces as elegant and quiet as possible. “Accessories, rugs, and accent pieces, new and from their other homes, fill in around that simplicity and balance,” she adds, “so as not to compete with the art.”

All the carefully weighed decisions paid off handsomely in the end. “To have the opportunity to take a curated collection of furniture and art, and give it a new home is a tremendous experience,” says Donagher. “We were able to realize our clients’ dream interior because they have an intimate relationship with each item [in that home], and that creates [harmony.]”

Story Credits:

Interior Design by Elizabeth Martell, Elizabeth Martell, Inc., New York, NY

Interior Architecture by Enda Donagher, Enda Donagher Architect, P.C., New York, NY

Exterior Architecture by Michael Perry, MP Design and Architecture, Inc., Palm Beach, FL

Builder Tim Givens Building & Remodeling, West Palm Beach, FL

Landscape Architecture by Mario Nievera, Nievera-Williams, Palm Beach, FL

Text by Daisy Olivera

Photography by Mark Roskams, New York, NY

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