Set on a sandy white beach on Abu Dhabi’s super-luxe Saadiyat Island, there’s a newly redecorated apartment whose interior design, carefully curated and crafted, embraces its waterfront setting without upstaging it.
When the couple with two young daughters bought the vacation home, they asked interior designer Ksenia Mezentseva, whose eponymous firm has offices in Russia and Dubai, to create a serene retreat that enhances its environment.
Set in a modern building that looks out over a Maldives-like beach and a boardwalk lined with cafés, restaurants, and chic boutiques, the 2,690-square-foot apartment is set, like a gem in an engagement ring, near the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the National Museum, and the soon-to-be-completed Guggenheim.
Although the apartment’s layout was workable, the interiors needed cosmetic updating. Mezentseva gave the place its new look by changing the flooring from tiles to wood, replacing a damaged ceiling, adding structural and decorative light, upgrading the bathrooms, installing a new kitchen, changing the built-in closets, creating new storage spaces, and, of course, redecorating.
Inspired by the varying blues of the sky and the sea, the white of the sand, and the lush green of the palm trees, Mezentseva created what she calls “a balanced and stylish interior” that exploits the ocean, which is showcased, like a living mural, through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The result of her efforts is cool in all senses of the word. The blues are in a variety of hues, tying all the rooms of the apartment together. In the living room, blues are on display in the artworks, carpet, accessories, and textiles. The guest room is defined by shades of blue, including turquoise. And the primary-suite bathroom features bold, bodacious blue tiles that border on art.
“Colors and materials are transformative in hot-weather locations. On the island, temperatures frequently top 100,” she says, adding that “the blues are calming, and the greens, which represent renewal, are refreshing.”
She conveyed the luxury of the locale through marble.
“An expensive material, it represents wealth and prosperity,” she says. “It also represents nature as it has a vivid natural pattern. We often see marble, especially light-colored ones, in warm-climate projects, and we see dark- and warm-colored stones in cold climates. We chose the light marble to enhance the visual appeal of the apartment and to introduce the refreshing coolness of stone, perfectly balancing the warmth of the wood elements.”
Because the family is from a cold climate where wood is used to warm up houses visually, Mezentseva used wooden floors and wooden joinery to make them feel more at home.
“The natural oak supports the overall natural eco feel of the color palette, adding to the cold, blue, white, and green that neutralize its warmness,” she says, adding that she used natural textiles for the curtains and beds, silk carpets, and high-quality furniture to create coziness.
She employed rounded objects, ranging from light fixtures with bubble-like globes to semi-circular chairs that embrace the space, to “create a soft, flowy feeling” and to signify completeness, creating a harmonious, holistic feel. Round shapes, she adds, “represent wholeness and thus balance; they are round by shape and by meaning—there is a beginning and an end, a full life cycle.”
Mezentseva added arches, which make an artistic statement, to “bring a bigger meaning to the doorways. Arches are a portal from one space to another; they are not just functional doorways, but they also are beautiful decorations.”
All these elements come together in the daughters’ pink bedroom, which has scalloped upholstered headboards. The wallpaper, pink with a white palm tree motif that hints of the tropical beach right outside, peeks playfully from behind the beds. The custom bookcase is defined by arched cubbies designed for storing and displaying the children’s treasures.
One of the family’s favorite spaces is the living room, which combines hidden storage with a TV wall.
“It has a very airy feel because we didn’t install any heavy curtains so we could take advantage of the light, flowing fabric that moves with the sea breeze,” Mezentseva says.
So natural are the alterations Mezentseva made to the retreat that the spaces seem to merge with their surroundings, beckoning the beach to stop sunning itself and come inside to chill out.
The family, who live abroad, didn’t see the refurbished and renovated apartment until it was complete and ready to receive them. They stepped inside the front door and made themselves right at home.
Tranquil and sophisticated, the apartment, they say, is a paradise.