When a client presented Dee Murphy their 1940s Santa Monica abode, the founder of Los Angeles studio Murphy Deesign noted the lack of architectural interest. So she infused the interiors with an elevated boho aesthetic, as she describes it, “which meant, ‘bring-on the color, pattern, and playfulness.’ When a project asks for life—and a history that isn’t there to begin with—then my aim is to use a multitude of materials to establish texture, warmth, and a vibrant storyline.” For the living room alone, Murphy married the likes of stone, glass, ceramics, metal, and textiles, juxtaposing such standouts as a vintage orange rug from Coco Carpets with a leather Lawson-Fenning sofa and walls enveloped in Portola’s nautical blue Wellfleet shade. “Up close and personal,” says Murphy of the limewash, “the treatment has a life of its own.”
Carmel Brantley
For the living room in the Mediterranean Revival villa that designer Alexandra Naranjo revamped on “one of Palm Beach’s most charming streets,” she constructed a color story that “echoed the palette of the views from each and every window, to literally make the line between indoors and outdoors disappear.” Focusing on crisp blues, seafoam greens, and “neutrals that complemented the preponderance of coquina stone—a Palm Beach staple,” Naranjo brought together a custom-made Patterson Flynn rug and antique sunburst mirror with Pierre Frey and Cowtan & Tout fabrics and lighting from Visual Comfort & Co. and Currey & Company. Symmetry was also key to Naranjo’s vision, so she established a frame around the decorative mantel with the furniture placement. “Everything that I did on one side of the room,” she points out, “needed to be carefully balanced on the other.”
