This Florida house is nestled in a small enclave of luxury homes, one mile from the Atlantic Ocean, in the lush coastal landscape of Ponte Vedra Beach. It’s a newer build in a welcoming neighborhood, where the streets are lined with a charming variety of homes with beautifully landscaped yards, families walking their dogs, and neighbors congregating in their driveways.
“I love that Ponte Vedra Beach is a blend of laid-back luxury and natural beauty offering upscale spas, private beaches, restaurants, and shopping,” says interior designer Jenilee Greene. “It is a pretty special place to me since I was married in Ponte Vedra Beach years ago, before moving to Florida!” Her Sunshine State-based design firm, Jenilee Greene Design, was called back by her clients to upgrade their builder-grade primary home—focusing today on the primary bedroom.
The couple is the second owners of the house, so they didn’t have any input in the original design. “As in many developer homes, even ‘luxury’ ones, the attractively designed exterior outshines the underwhelming interior finishes,” Jenilee explains. “As a result, the whole home was a blank canvas!”
She says the clients are a fun and stylish couple with two babies under the age of two and a Wheaten Terrier named George. “Pre babies, the couple loved traveling to far-flung destinations like Australia and the Maldives,” she recalls. “When it came to designing the primary bedroom, the couple loved the concept of creating their own retreat from the chaos of early parenthood, something reminiscent of a sophisticated boutique hotel suite like what they may have encountered in their travels. They wanted elements of warmth, comfort, and luxury balanced with a functionality that is simple and practical but still a bit indulgent.” This meant creating a design that could hit those elevated style marks but just as effortlessly accommodate the realities of life with little ones—think newborn in a SNOO and the Wheaten sprawled horizontally across their bed.
“Since the bedroom is directly off the living room, I loved the idea of creating a color-drenched space visible from the adjacent living areas which are all painted in a light neutral color,” Jenilee explains. “Benjamin Moore’s Meadow Pink laid the groundwork for establishing that counterpoint. Blush hues can be a great neutral when chosen carefully with the undertones—we leaned into brown—ensuring the resulting color didn’t veer into pink territory. The husband understandably asserted his concerns about a pink room so there was plenty of discussion and testing of the color. There’s only so much testing and visualization that can occur before you ultimately have to take a leap of faith, and everyone was thrilled with the outcome!”
Jenilee says that both her color and materials palette are almost always inspired by the natural beauty at the beach, and this project was no exception. “Combining natural textures, finishes, and materials from metal to stone, tonal woods and colorful textiles create a layered and tactile environment that keeps your eye moving through the room,” she explains. “The supersoft moss green linens from Parachute and chambray blue duvet from Pottery Barn give a casual feel with richer fabrics woven through in small doses to add interest like the velvet chair, boucle ottoman, and Rebecca Atwood’s needlepoint-inspired woven Blocks Fabric.”
She also incorporated some graphic elements, in this case, through custom pillows and the iconic squiggle wall art from Katie Gong, which provide contrast and organic shape to the room. Lighting also played a key part. “Quite possibly, my favorite element are the large, showstopping pleated linen pendants with the twisted cord from Danish shop LeKrazyHorse on Etsy that help activate the very high ceilings,” she explains. “And to help give that high-design boutique hotel feel, brass European-style dimmers from London’s Buster + Punch add such a polished touchpoint as do the motorized blackout woven wood shades and sheer solar shade for maximum light control.”
The primary bedroom took three months to complete and was part of a larger design scope that took roughly a year and a half from concept to completion. “The original plan of two bedrooms and an office morphed into three bedrooms (and no office) when the newest little one announced her arrival,” Jenilee shares. “It was so meaningful to be a part of such a foundational time in this new family’s story. The client lived in the space as it was being transformed and they were so excited to watch the room evolve into the polished yet restful space that perfectly captured their vision, a true retreat to return to at the end of each busy day.”
