Contemporary coastal chic making waves
While homes all over the country employ coastal design, the Houston-Galveston iteration is chic and sophisticated, with lighter colors, polished or matte metals and plenty of blue.
“The coastal experience is more about the color and texture, and a feeling that you get,” said Seamus Kraham, owner of the Urban Resort home décor shop in Galveston. “The coastal atmosphere makes people calmer and, hopefully, happier.”
Kraham, too, said the aesthetic is about bringing the feel of the outdoors to the indoors. “I was walking to work and saw a flower in bloom with ivory and blue coming down. It looks exactly to me like a piece of ceramic I have in the store,” he said. “That’s my idea of contemporary coastal — that a piece relates to nature and reminds me of where I’ve been, the smells I’ve enjoyed.”
Designer Courtnay Tartt Elias recently finished a beach home in Port Aransas, but the one she’s in the middle of designing is her own. She and her brother bought a beach house in Galveston, and the two of them have decided to give it a more modern update.
They’ve torn out the interiors and are adding elements for a fun coastal feel: shiplap on some of the walls, pops of color in fabric and interior accents. She’s even thinking about wallpaper in unexpected places, such as the pantry or laundry room.
Elias is aiming for a fun beach feel: “I love pops of kelly green and pink flamingos. Instead of rope and anchors, use tropical birds, fun parrots and happy colors.”
“Houston is so busy and the social scene so ramped up. If you have young children, you’re constantly on the go,” Elias says. “The nice thing about Galveston is that the minute you go over the causeway, you take a deep breath. City life turns into sea life. You put on your swimsuit and flip-flops.”
When the weekend hits, Malcolm Waddell and his wife, dermatologist Suzanne Bruce, can’t get to Galveston fast enough.
“When I hit that bridge, the pressure of the week fades away,” Waddell says of the feeling he gets when he drives over the causeway toward their Beachtown condo. “You see those waves and the water — Suzanne calls it ‘positive ions’ — and it changes your perspective.”
Waddell is a native Houstonian — his family owned the Waddell furniture store founded here in the 1880s — and grew up visiting Galveston’s beaches. He and his wife took their children there as well. Once they became empty-nesters, though, trips to the island took on a whole new purpose.
During one weekend visit, Waddell convinced her to check out the new homes at Beachtown, just for fun.
When they walked into a unit that developers Tofigh and Shari Shirazi had furnished, “I said, ‘We’ve got to have this,’ ” Waddell says. “That was June 26, and on July 18 we closed on it. We bought it furniture and all.”
Through the week, the couple lives in Waddell’s Memorial-area childhood home, a traditional, 5,100-square-foot house that used to be filled with dark wood and the furniture his parents chose years ago. After redecorating, their in-town home and their beach condo both capture their taste perfectly: open floor plans, light colors, big windows and plenty of natural light.
In the world of design and architecture it’s called “coastal chic,” and it’s hotter than ever.
Tofigh Shirazi’s master-planned community at Beachtown eventually will have several “villages” designed after Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach and Seaside town-square concepts in Florida’s panhandle.
The beachfront project draws UTMB doctors and other professionals, plus plenty of Houstonians who purchased lofts, townhomes and luxury homes — ranging from $350,000 to $6 million — for weekend getaways. Beachtown’s streets are lined with palm trees, and pale yellow butterfly lilies and white oleanders are the only plants to be found in the common areas.
Balconies and turrets pay tribute to Galveston’s history, but the homes’ pale colors speak specifically to the more modern tastes of 2016. Inside is no different: pale greens, blues and grays pair against stark-white trim in homes designed for casual living.
Shari Shirazi is her husband’s lead interior designer, sticking to the less-is-more philosophy with colors that borrow from what’s outdoors: tans from the sandy beaches, greens from plant life and blue from the sky.
“We have homeowners who come down every single weekend to be able to sit on their porch and have a glass of wine and enjoy the beauty, the ships passing by, our gorgeous starry nights,” she says.