Fairfax & Sammons Architecture: 9 Golfview
For decades, every time Richard Sammons drove by the 1920s Palm Beach residence, he had the same reaction: “There’s something wrong with it—it’s the ugliest house on the block.”
And, he thought, “I have these three salvage finials that would be perfect for it.”
He and Anne Fairfax, his partner in business and in life, and two other parties bought the property with the intent to restore and renovate it for resale. Sammons focused on architecture, Fairfax designed the landscape, and Betsy Shiverick took care of the interior design.
The project presented an unusual opportunity for a couple of reasons.
Although the home’s facade had originally been Mediterranean Revival, the Town of Palm Beach had landmarked its inappropriate 1940s altered style, which had a Monterey, or as Sammons describes it, “a grandmotherly New Orleans look.”
What’s more, the original house, one of several in the area built on speculation by famed financier E.F. Hutton during the heyday of the city’s Roaring Twenties building boom, had been subdivided, creating two attached residences.
Before the renovation.
The living room mantel revealed the original plaster design, which was restored, and the overmantel was clad in coquina stone.
The large picture window along the back living room wall was overlaid with a cypress wood screen in a Moroccan design.
The new balcony railing replaced a utilitarian metal one.
Venetian doors cover the elevator door, and the ceiling was refurbished. The foyer and the elevator doors.
The dining room has new coquina stone cladding. Steel doors open accordion-style to the inner courtyard garden.
In the primary suite, new built-in bookcases flank the door to the catwalk overlooking the great room, and French doors opposite the bed lead to a large outdoor terrace.
Custom cabinetry, Moroccan lighting, and handcrafted tile in the bar express the Mediterranean Revival style of the house.
In the family room, the existing plate-glass window now has a Moorish style, and the new fountain and garden arrangement outside have become a focal-point view.
“We were fortunate that the Palm Beach Preservation Commission agreed with our proposed design, which returned the facade to a design much closer to the original,” says Fairfax, a commission member who recused herself from the vote. “There’s no record of what the original facade looked like.”
Sammons’ redesign entailed removing half of the cast-iron balcony, changing the railing, installing new stone surrounds and trim on the facade, extending the parapet on a portion of the facade and incorporating the trio of finials, installing new steel windows in place of an enormous plate-glass window on the ground floor, installing new steel second-story doors and windows, and moving the front door back to its original position on the side of the house and creating a new stair landing.
Fairfax designed three gardens for the property. The front garden features a raised swimming pool and decorative tile to emphasize the home’s Mediterranean Revival style; the front courtyard garden has two guava trees, orchids, and purple, red, and pink bougainvillea; and the secret “jungle-like” garden in the back courtyard serves as a private retreat.
She also designed a stucco and concrete retaining wall, a coordinating perimeter wall, and floodgates for the front and rear of the property.
Sammons transformed the interior architecture, making the double-height living room cozy and comfortable by adding cypress Islamic-style screens to soften the angularity of the large plate-glass window; replacing the metal balcony railing with a decorative cypress wood splat railing in keeping with the style of the original house; and uncovering the original fireplace, recreating its missing details and cladding it with coquina stone.
Antique hand-painted Venetian doors were installed over the existing utilitarian elevator doors on the first and second floors.
“We found them at an auction by chance and decided to conceal the elevator cleverly,” Sammons says. “They transformed the elevator into a delightful focal point of the great room.”
The project also included adding a door system to the loggia to open it to the courtyard, redoing the bathrooms, adding new garage doors and two staff rooms over it, adding the swimming pool and retiling the roof.
The changes gave the old house a new life: It sold quickly. TB
Key Suppliers
Architect
Fairfax & Sammons
Contractor
Beacon Construction Group
Landscape Architect
Anne Fairfax Landscape Design
Landscaping
Next Level Landscaping
Interior Design
Betsy Shiverick Interiors
Millwork
Coastal Millwork
Faux and Decorative Painting
JL Arnold Painting
Pool
Royal Palm Pools
Hand-Wrought Metalwork
Best Metals
Wood Flooring
Artisan Hardwoods
See the complete list of 2024 Palladio Award Winners
