Palm Beach interiors have long reflected the travels, penchants, and whimsies of the town’s worldly inhabitants. But as real estate on this tiny barrier island becomes increasingly valuable, residents are calling upon world-class designers to help fine-tune their visions, giving rise to a fresh tropical design vernacular. Fashion designer Josie Natori, for instance, asked architect Calvin Tsao to transform a standard two-bedroom apartment into an airy retreat with rattan furniture and ethnic accessories that are perfectly suited to Palm Beach’s subtropical setting and pay tribute to her Asian heritage. These homes aren’t slavish copies of interior design magazines or decorators’ dictates but testaments to what can be achieved when inspired by the natural beauty of a unique locale and when imagination is one’s only limitation. Tropical Chic: Palm Beach at Home captures the enduring charm of newly restored seaside fantasies by Mizner, Fatio and Volk, celebrated for their Cuban coquina courtyards and soaring miradors overlooking tiled pools and arching fountains. Jennifer Ash Rudick, a long-time Palm Beach resident, leads an insider’s tour of twenty-five houses, cottages, Moorish casbahs, artists’ compounds, and Mad Men–era vintage condos. Jessica Klewicki, a Palm Beach–based photographer, captures extraordinary gardens, verandas, lakeside pavilions, a rustic ranch, and simple pastel Bermudan houses sheltered by dense thickets of Norfolk pines and age-old banyans. It is this eclectic mix of old and new, of Spanish and Caribbean, of contemporary design and sun-faded WASP thrift, that makes Palm Beach chic.
