Riviera house
A 1926 Spanish Revival house on the Riviera, redone for a family of four who wanted it calm rather than precious. We kept the beams, limewashed every wall and furnished it around one long view of the garden.
Scope
Whole house, eleven rooms
Timeline
Seven months, March to September
Design fee
$38,500
Furniture and finishes
$164,000
Photographs
Photographed in October 2025
The brief
The Alvarez family bought the house in 2024 with its original beams, a dark stain on every floor and forty years of paint on the plaster. They asked for rooms their two children could use without anyone saying be careful, and they asked for the garden to feel like part of the living room.
What we did
We stripped the walls back to the original plaster and finished them in a warm lime wash, lightened the floors to a plain white oak and replaced two small windows on the garden side with steel doors that open fully. The furniture is low and forgiving: an oatmeal linen sofa, a pair of restored cane lounge chairs, a travertine table with no corners to bump into and a sage velvet ottoman that doubles as a seat.
Every room was drawn in plan before anything was ordered, and the whole house was installed over two days in June.
What changed
The family now eats most meals at the long table visible through the arch, and the garden doors stay open from April to October. The final spend came in $3,200 over the approved budget because of a second rug, which we flagged in writing before it was ordered.
“They kept everything that made the house feel old and took away everything that made it feel tired.”
Marisol and Dan Alvarez
Start with two hours at your house
A designer walks every room with you, measures, listens, and sends written notes the same week. The visit is $450, and it comes off your design fee if we go on to work together.