In the pink
Designer channels ‘contessa’ style in show house suite
Interior designer Nina Magon’s reimagining of a bedroom suite in pink, with sexy curves and European style, was all for an imaginary countess the Houston entrepreneur conjured for inspiration.
Magon, who recently rebranded her Contour Interior Design into a more identifiable Nina Magon Studio, created the bedroom — “Camera da letto della Contessa” (the Countess’ Bedroom) — for the 2021 Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach. Kips Bay has conducted show house fundraisers in New York for years and four years ago branched out to Palm Beach, Fla. In October, the group held its first fundraiser in Dallas. Magon was the sole Texan recruited to be part of the Palm Beach event, which runs through May 9.
The Palm Beach show house, a five-bedroom, six-bathroom Mediterranean villa, was reinvented inside and outside by 20 design teams.
“It’s a real honor to be asked to do Kips Bay. As a designer, it’s one of those things you always want to do,” she said. “We were asked to do it in January, and in February, we learned what space we would have. It’s a pretty fast turnaround, and it definitely tested our limits.”
Magon, a fan of Italian style, also tapped into the work of Vogue photographer Horst P. Horst, who for decades captured the forms of stylish women all over the world.
She imagined a “fair-haired Italian contessa” in a Horst photo “retreating to her bedroom in her Italianate Palm Beach villa, longing for her lost love.”
Magon, whose firm designs everything from elegant homes to restaurant interiors (51Fifteen at Sak’s), jewelry store lounges (Zadok Jewelers) and hotel spas (The Houstonian’s Solaya Spa & Salon), jumped at the opportunity to be part of the
prestigious Kips Bay event.
“I saw the Kips Bay show house in 2020, and the rooms that I saw were more traditional,” said Magon. “I wanted to take a fresh, new approach to the design and also be true to myself — I’m a modernist.”
When she spotted a pink flamingo, she knew what her color palette would be: pink.
The bedroom was small and simple, but Magon’s touch extends to every surface. She added paneling and crown molding, all painted in Benjamin Moore’s “Rosy Tan,” and she wallpapered the ceiling with a pattern she designed for her collection with Wall and Deco, an Italian maker of wallcoverings.
In June, Magon will launch a lighting collection with Studio M Lighting, a division of Maxim Lighting, including the sculptural chandelier she created for the Kips Bay bedroom and a trio of pendants installed in its bathroom. (The lighting was made in pink just for this suite; it will be available in other colors in the new collection.)
And if all of that isn’t glam enough, Magon designed the bed with a wall-to-wall headboard and a platform covered in Cosentino’s Taga Dekton and with Fabricut upholstery.
A pink-and-white rug, designed by Magon and made by New Moon Rugs, brings a little whimsy in polka dots. The draperies, by the Shade Store (with Fabricut fabric), are pure luxury.
A cozy corner has a Pacha Lounge Chair by Pierre Paulin for GUBI and a white leather side table by Stephane Parmentier for Giobagnara sitting under a pair of half-moon mirrors. An adjacent wall holds an iconic Horst photo, “Jean Patchett, bathing suit by Brigance” (1951).
It’s definitely fit for a contessa.