Paris Calling

“Can you make my home look like a really great hotel?” is a query interior decorators get a lot these days. But a few years ago, in Palm Beach, where the designer David Lucido had recently concluded a restaurant project, an acquaintance approached him with a more unusual request. She wanted, it seemed, a bar “just like the one at Le Bilboquet,” a spot she adored. Lucido was eminently well-qualified for the job, given that he was the one who’d designed the interiors of, well, Le Bilboquet.

“Then the client said, I want to entertain in a space that has the feel of a hotel in Paris,” Lucido recalled. As soon as he saw the capacious two-story contemporary with its “good bones and lovely architectural details,” inspiration for the most atmospheric of bar-libraries struck. He revisited the materials he’d used at Le Bilboquet while re-interpreting its French maritime mid-century aesthetic in a way he found better suited to a domestic space.

For instance, the bar of Le Bilboquet is wrapped in nickel; for the new project, Lucido decided to clad the client’s bar in a patinated steel by the same fabricator. A set of cherry wood bar stools in the style of Jean Prouvé, acquired at auction, add warmth to the metal. The walls were paneled in dark wood; to dispel their heaviness, Lucido deployed a trompe-l’œil-ish technique that both lightened the paneling and gave the space a youthful feel. Across from the bar is a seating area comprised of a white sofa by Otto Schulz, the great German-born designer, and chairs by Jean-Michel Frank. 

There’s an elegant formality to the room: Lucido, a bit tongue in cheek, says he isn’t opposed to a bit of discomfort in the name of beauty. (He doesn’t believe entertaining spaces should be too lounge-y, TV rooms and pool houses excepted.)

And speaking of pool rooms, the owner was so pleased with her new bar-library, that she then asked Lucido to carry on. So it was that he tackled the pool room. Yes, it is full-on lounge-y, with a pair of custom wood-framed sofas, after the iconic board sofa by the mid-century designer Bøge Mogensen, which Lucido upholstered in a red-striped outdoor fabric from CNC Milano. 

Strikingly, he re-worked an elaborate Gothic mantelpiece into a thing of spare beauty Flanking the mantelpiece was a wall of boulders that he felt wouldn’t have been out of place in a medieval tavern. After scraping away the faux paint and cleaning the room up, he proceeded to decorate it in a style that’s quietly Mediterranean. “The furniture is humble,” he says, “and that’s the point. I want people to feel as though they’re on a yacht.” 

By and large, Lucido’s changes were decorative, yet they demonstrate what a difference a well-chosen piece of antique furniture can make. Lucido, who divides his time and his practice between Palm Beach and New York, is partial to the vintage shops in the former. 

“Palm Beach has such a great market for vintage pieces that we were able to source almost everything locally,” he says. Among his most spectacular local finds is the Italian mid-century Sputnik chandelier that hangs over a travertine pedestal table in the entrance hall. The table lends a grounding sense of solidity to the airy double-height space while the chandelier telegraphs urbane, mid-century elegance.

A grand room for entertaining lies immediately beyond. It’s anchored by an Italian mid-century sofa in a lush deep red, a sheepskin chair by Gösta Jonssen, and an iconic Togo chair in blue velvet – all serving as a colorful, sympathetic foil for the baby grand piano behind them.

 Of the red sofa he says, “We wanted something sculptural and eye-catching in a shape that would be easy for guests to move around. Also, it’s a sensuous, feminine piece.” Since it’s the first space that guests see from the entrance hall, he conceived the room to be a bit of a wow.  A painting by Alex Katz above the mantelpiece strikes a light-hearted note. 

Elsewhere in the room Lucido deployed Paolo Buffa armchairs, their upright elegance providing the perfect counterweight to the slouchy Togo lounger. “It’s about balance,” says Lucido. Balance – and adding just the right amount of Parisian chic.

Photography by Ori Harpaz