Palm Beach Residence
Photography by Scott Frances
When Hayes was commissioned to restore and modernize one of Palm Beach's few oceanfront properties, it was already layered with history. The house was built in 1938 by Marion Sims Wyeth, a well-known society architect of the time, in a style that mixes Colonial Revival and Mediterranean elements. The client's mother, "one of the great and glamorous style-makers" of the postwar era, says Hayes, had purchased the house in the mid-1960s, keeping some of the original owners' furnishings and gradually adding more over the years. When she passed the property on to her son and his wife, they asked Hayes, along with an architect and landscape designer, to bring this much-loved but dated family house into the 20th century. The design team was dedicated to restoring the house to its original look and feel while updating it to reflect the clients' younger, more modern taste and lifestyle.
When Hayes was commissioned to restore and modernize one of Palm Beach's few oceanfront properties, it was already layered with history. The house was built in 1938 by Marion Sims Wyeth, a well-known society architect of the time, in a style that mixes Colonial Revival and Mediterranean elements. The client's mother, "one of the great and glamorous style-makers" of the postwar era, says Hayes, had purchased the house in the mid-1960s, keeping some of the original owners' furnishings and gradually adding more over the years. When she passed the property on to her son and his wife, they asked Hayes, along with an architect and landscape designer, to bring this much-loved but dated family house into the 20th century. The design team was dedicated to restoring the house to its original look and feel while updating it to reflect the clients' younger, more modern taste and lifestyle.
