The sun-kissed waters of the Gulf of Mexico lap the shoreline just steps away from this three-story family home in Galveston, Texas. Whereas some interior designers may have been persuaded by nature’s palette to lean into the hues of water, sand, and bleached shells, Dane Austin chose a different path: “My client had one request: ‘I don’t want any blue-and-white.’”
It’s no coincidence that this homeowner’s aversion to coastal cliché led her 2,000 miles away to Austin, a Boston-based interior designer with an eponymous firm known for fusing daring color combinations and unexpected pairings. “People appreciate our spaces, which come across as playful, individual, and demonstrate a sophisticated use of color,” he says. “No two of our projects are the same.”
Initially, Austin traveled to Galveston to work on the client’s previous home, but six months into the project, she had a change of heart, sold where she was living, and moved into this home nearby, which had been designed by Michael Dreef, AIA, of Houston-based DMG Architects. Austin remembers the homeowner telling him, “There are two things you can’t give me, more space and a better view,” two things the new, larger residence delivered.
Taking his client’s inclination for a “happy and cheerful” mood to heart, Austin created a palette that transcends shore-home convention: sun-drenched colors like terra cotta, pale pink peach, soft creamy yellows, and, to balance these warm shades, cool green. Each space in the 5-bedroom, 6.5-bath home on stilts incorporates these hues, but in an array of tonalities, in different combinations, and expressed in a variety of fabrics and textures.
Austin calls the living room, an elevator ride up from the first-floor entryway, the “star of the show, the hero.” With a wall of windows and multiple double doors leading to a deck stretching the length of the house, the sizable room clad in white horizontal wood panels is bathed in sunlight. To soften the ambience, Austin had the ceiling beams painted pistachio green, a fresh shade that matches a pair of custom ottomans and plays well with the predominantly pink sofas arranged opposite each other for easy conversation. The designer brought in a natural raffia-upholstered cocktail table along with wooden side tables and a sandy brown, canework-patterned carpet as a counterpoint to the more colorful furnishings. “This room could have become a little too saccharine without some more earthy elements to ground it,” he says.
Even while designing rooms with custom furniture, luxurious fabrics, and exquisite detail, Austin did not lose sight of the fact that this is, above all, a family home. Hanging above an antique chest of drawers in the living room is an enlarged photograph of a tank surfer, well known in his day, who is the homeowner’s brother. “It meant so much to her to have this image displayed in her home,” says Austin.
Very much a home that embraces the present-day lifestyle of the homeowner and her three adult children, who visit, it was also inspired by the past—cherished time spent at her grandparents’ beachside abode—and it anticipates the future, when the third generation will gather here, too. A solid-slab wood dining table can easily seat 10, and bunkrooms and a family-room reading nook were designed with future grandchildren in mind.
It’s easy to imagine extended family occupying the open-concept main floor space in comfort. The flow is easy, thanks to Austin’s thoughtfully planned but subtle approach to connecting the rooms through a shared color palette and complementary design details. For example, the basketwork on the Currey & Co. chandelier in the dining room suggests the living room rug’s woven canework motif, while its natural grass cloth shade echoes the Phillip Jeffries grass cloth on the backs of bookcases in the adjoining space. “It all has this woven quality to tie it together,” says Austin. Likewise, the countertop chairs in the kitchen play off the McGuire dining room chairs.
Imbued with timeless charm, the private spaces continue to balance color and neutrals, earthiness and sophistication. Additionally, Austin’s dexterous interplay of tangible and intangible elements is consistent throughout. For instance, the main floor primary bedroom, with high vaulted ceilings and enormous picture windows, is a sanctuary appointed with coral Kravet armchairs and motorized Thibaut draperies. But, it is more than a pretty space for the homeowner. Says Austin, “I love that she can wake up in the morning and at the touch of a button on her bedside table open the draperies to see out to this view.”
While his client let Austin know that she considers her office “the most beautiful place in existence,” she also aspires to one day be the “cool grandma,” who everyone wants to visit.
Summing it up in a thank you note to the designer, she wrote: “The whole house feels relaxed and welcoming. … You created a space that I am proud of and it means more to me than you could ever know.”