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Homes

The newest thing in lived-in looks

A couple merge conflicting goals into an Apollo Beach home that gives the feel of a vintage home without the pesky repairs and upgrades.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published April 29, 2005

APOLLO BEACH - Carole and Pete Gardner wanted to build a beach house for a new life on the water. They wanted it to look old and lived in, gently weathered by sun and salt and passed down for generations.

Imagine flip-flop worn floors, shake shingles, antique model sailboats, starfish, quilted fabrics and plenty of old-fashioned bead board.

The rub? The Gardners wanted a new house, not an old one.

And a sophisticated design style that made a clear visual statement.

"We wanted the whole Coastal Living look," explains Carole, 41, a loan officer who commuted from the family's townhouse on Bayshore Boulevard to her job in Apollo Beach for years.

"I worked there, but never thought I'd live there," she says. "I was really a South Tampa person."

They found the perfect beach-house property overlooking a sparkling freshwater lake in the Apollo Beach community of MiraBay. At first they considered buying a lot just for an investment. But once they saw the waterfront location, the Gardners, married five years ago on a Key West beach at sunset, knew they had to live there.

"I'm from New England and grew up going to different friends' beach places," says David, 36, a commercial airline pilot for Mesa Air. "So I loved the idea of trying to build a house that would look like that."

The 3,400-square-foot, two-story house completed in December 2003 was decorated, tweaked and personalized from the blueprint stages by Debbie Perez, owner of Peridot Decorators.

Although the four-bedroom, 31/2-bath David Weekly home is not custom, with Perez's help they were able to "push the envelope so that it looks custom," Carole explained.

What the builder couldn't change, the couple weren't afraid to rip out or swap in favor of materials that would give the house a unified, go-barefoot, Maine coast look.

Shake shingles cover the eating bar in the kitchen and climb above the fireplace into a faux roofline complete with eaves and brackets.

A river rock back splash lends the kitchen a summer-place karma. The wood floors are wide plank and dark, for a weathered "from years of waxing" look, said Perez, who initially gave the Gardners "homework" when they hired her to decorate the house.

The assignment?

She instructed the couple to flip through magazines and design books and pick out things - separately - that they really liked. Pete opted for the coastal style right away, though at first Carole, a fan of the Mediterranean style, wasn't so sure.

"This," she says, standing in her living room with its woven, water-hyacinth arm chairs and linen sofa, "is what I truly love now even though I thought I loved something different."

After the Gardners made their design choice, and while the new house was still under construction, Perez walked through their Bayshore townhouse and chose what pieces would work in the coastal theme. Family heirlooms were kept, for both sentimental reasons and because they blended well into the beach decor.

For example, a chest of drawers once belonging to Pete's grandmother - a traditional piece from the late 19th century - sits casually off the kitchen. Perez plucked a 100-year-old piece of wood for the mantle from behind a barn in Maine. On top sits Pete's prized model of a wooden Chris-Craft boat. In Pete's study, Perez mounted an old wooden airplane propeller on the wall as sculpture.

Perez made liberal use of large clear hurricane lamps throughout the house, filling them with shells and stones and white pillar candles. Her color palette was beachy and breezy and neutral, accented only with sea blue.

In the dining room, she hung starfish from the drapes and heaped them like baubles atop an antique milk-glass cake plate. A vintage 1920s crystal chandelier hangs over the table, and a shabby-chic buffet from the same era holds candlesticks.

At night, Carole says, the dining room becomes her - as well as her dinner guests' - favorite room in the house.

"It's drop-dead gorgeous," she says.

With two young children - Macy, 4, and Max, 5 months - Carole at first worried about the light-colored linen fabrics and white Ralph Lauren quilted upholstery that make the living spaces seem light and airy.

"Actually it's been great, no problem at all," she said. "I'm having it cleaned for the first time in a year."

Plus, the linen looks "cool" wrinkled, points out Perez, who believes the secret to great-looking upholstery and drapes is choosing high-quality fabric.

The home's overall look has been so successful that several national home magazines have already scouted the house for a possible spread. The secret, Perez says, if you want to achieve a similar coastal look, is to do your homework, come up with a plan and follow a concept all the way through.

Perez and Carole Gardner went on frequent buying trips to such South Tampa haunts as Blue Moon looking for accessories that fit the theme.

"I could walk through Blue Moon and not see anything, but when I went with Debbie, we found all kinds of cool things - things that I just didn't see before."

When she finished her work at the Gardners' beach house, Perez gave the couple a list of instructions that included such tips as: white candles and white towels only, don't polish the brass or silver too much (a little tarnish is good in this setting) and don't introduce any color into the main living area except blue.

Think organic, she told them. With a beach theme.

A shell box sits on a black-painted dresser in the front hallway next to an alabaster lamp with a dark wicker shade. The view through the family room and out to the water is clean, lived-in and stunning.

"I knew what I wanted and got it," Carole says. "A house that wowed me from the moment I walked in."

[Last modified April 28, 2005, 08:32:07]