Style Meets Substance in Fort Myers Home

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Charles Idelson says that standing in the entry foyer of his Dwayne Bergmann–designed home leaves him speechless. “From here, I see the dining room, the great room, the breakfast nook, and the kitchen,” he marvels. “It’s like I’m going to Broadway and seeing all the shows at once. I’m in awe, as every room is special; it’s simply elegant.”

For Idelson and his now-late wife, Linda, the two-story 5,545 square-foot home they built in 1988 needed a facelift. But they weren’t looking for your typical Southwest Florida–style renovation. Instead, they wanted something dramatic, glamorous, chic—and full of New York style. “Linda basically said to me, ‘If we’re not selling this home and buying an apartment on Madison or Fifth Avenue, we must bring that aesthetic to this home,’” Bergmann recalls. “And that’s the driving force behind the design vision and the black, white, grey, and gold color palette. I got to dream and create and have zero inhibitions about what we wanted to accomplish,” he says.

The home’s interior—with its myriad original elements—is what Bergmann describes as “fashion forward,” reflecting Linda’s style and the issues of French and American Vogue and Christian Lacroix patterns that they pored over together during their research.

The home took six years to complete, with Bergmann sketching no less than 500 home designs, as well as a master bedroom Diamond Upholstery headboard inspired by the purple mesh costume that ice dancer Carolina Kostner wore in the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. He designed a customized black, grey, and poured-metal Italian tile wood floor that took Sorhegui Tile a year to produce, and a geometric, custom-shaped Distinctive Shower & Glass master bath mirror that required NASA-level math equations to create (and four days to install). One thousand pieces of crystal glass glitter within five enormous Elegant Lighting chandeliers that cascade into the grand entry. “Who does that?” asks Bergmann. “That’s coming in under a dancing, starlit crystal atmosphere, which I thought was an incredible way of entering the home.”

Load-bearing columns were elongated and framed with white glass to display a flattened butterfly silk weave sewn by hand in Vietnam from Gold Leaf Design Group. Up-lights accent the textile’s natural raw, gold sheen. “It’s a piece of art,” says Idelson about the columns. “Every room is unique and jaw-dropping and wow,” says Idelson. “It’s like I’m in a jewelry box. The whole house is just cool.”

Story Credits: 

Interior Design by Dwayne Bergmann, Dwayne Bergmann Interiors, Fort Myers, FL

Text by Michelle Payer

Photography by Venjhamin Reyes, Doral, FL and SPM Photography, Neptune Beach, FL

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