Time for change
Empty nesters were ready for a new location and a new style
Caroline and Doug Bailey turned an extra bedroom in their home into a patio room that looks out to their backyard and its inviting pool.
Certainly a wow moment in this lovely home in Tanglewood, the room is filled with things that remind them of one of their favorite places to visit: the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Framed Slim Aarons photographs hang on bold greenand-white-striped wallpaper, a pair of Jonathan Adler Chippendale-style faux bamboo chairs have blush cushions, and a tuxedo-style sofa holds pillows, including a pair made of the legendary Dorothy Draper Brazilliance pattern, repeated in the wallpaper in the en suite bathroom.
“My husband and I love the Beverly Hills Hotel. We stay there when we go to LA,” Caroline said. “When we bought this house, we said, ‘Let’s do a whole room like that.’ ”
The Houston native smiles as she looks around the room decorated by Cindy Witmer and Laura Benes of Cindy Witmer Designs, admiring a glass-andacrylic coffee table that adds a bit of midcentury whimsy. There’s also a quirky faux fiddle-leaf fig tree that’s been painted white. It initially sat in the home’s foyer, then later seemed a better fit for this room’s throwback vibe.
The empty nesters bought this 5,500-square-foot home once their three children were grown and gone and they were ready for a change — not just in location but also in style.
It’s fresh and contemporary, with plenty of frills but without the fuss. Instead of big collections and ornate furnishings, they’re opting for a simpler color palette and an upgraded art collection in this new chapter.
“We were going to build a new home, and we came to an open house here to get building ideas. My husband saw me looking around and said, ‘We’re going to buy this, aren’t we?’ ” Caroline said. “We didn’t need five bedrooms anymore, but I loved the simplicity of it. As I get older, less clutter is what makes me feel happy and good.”
Shifting priorities
Like many families, where the Baileys have lived largely revolved around children, shifting from a townhouse to a bigger house in West University Place, then out to a 6,200-square-foot home in Tanglewood, then a 7,500-square-foot home in Memorial. But now it’s just the two of them and the occasional visitor since their middle daughter, Clare Holden, 28, lives in Chicago and their son, 25-year-old Jack Bailey, lives in Bulverde, outside of San Antonio. Their eldest, 30-year-old Caitlin Bailey, lives in Houston.
Caroline and Doug knew each other all the way back in junior high school, then dated in high school and college, marrying a year and a half after graduating. They started their family a couple of years later.
In their previous homes, the Baileys have had much more traditional décor, including a lot of French country furnishings, before moving back to Tanglewood.
“I had a lot of collections, a lot of Majolica pottery, antique brass, Limoges and Herend figurines,” Caroline said. “We had mustard faux-painted walls, and it was warm and great.”
But it was time for a change, and the Baileys knew Witmer from college and socially; both families at one time had homes on Lake McQueeney. They were hoping a new designer with a more contemporary bent could change things up dramatically.
Caroline is a big fan of design and has a great eye — she studied fashion retail in college and worked in boutiques shortly after school. But decorating a whole house is more than she wanted to tackle alone.
“I love fashion, and when there’s a trend, you can buy a piece or two,” she said. “I love looking at decorating magazines and books, but I like having somebody who’s a professional helping me.”
Their home was built in 2012, so when they bought it a couple years later, it wasn’t in need of remodeling, just some adjustments to match the Baileys’ style.
They plastered the downstairs ceilings and walls, and much of the lighting was changed out, with more contemporary pieces added throughout the home. In addition to the wallpaper in the “Beverly Hills Hotel room,” they added striking wallcovering to a first-floor powder bathroom and Martyn Lawrence Bullard’s Manounia pattern in silver in a smaller scale in a bar and a larger scale in the nearby foyer.
In the front of the home is a study that Caroline uses. Initially it had a wall of built-in cabinets painted gray, and Benes suggested a new color: teal (Benjamin Moore’s Vanderburg Blue, to be exact). A pair of colorful chairs in a geometric pattern sit across from a very contemporary desk made of wood, brass and acrylic.
Some of Caroline’s favorite art was hung in this room, including a piece she bought on a trip to Carmel, Calif. Her collections have been condensed to a few favorite pieces of each, sprinkled throughout the shelving in this study, and she can rotate in other pieces whenever she wants.
“‘Less is more’ is my philosophy the older I get,” Caroline said. “Not that I don’t appreciate good collections. I sit in my study and look at the pretty pieces and remember our travels.”
The teal paint and grasscloth wallcovering are the boldest strokes in the home.
“I like color,” Caroline said. “Some houses are gray and white, and that’s pretty. But I at least want pops of color — not just a sterile white-gray environment.”
There’s a powder bath nearby that was already outfitted with a nearly translucent onyx sink atop a wall-mount granite counter with dramatic black-gray-white veining.
Benes and Witmer loved the counter and saw no need to replace it. They did, however, add wallpaper with large neutral dots and a pair of vintage sconces they found on firstdibs.com.
Custom wine room
The dining room isn’t a room at all, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t get its own special treatment. It’s a niche that looks into the backyard, windows on two sides and open to the rest of the home on the other two.
You’d notice the gorgeous dark-blue wool draperies or the pretty chairs clustered around the custom dining table made of lacquered stainless on an acrylic base, but the chandelier will have you staring upward. It’s made like tree boughs that branch out, bursting with clusters of crystals surrounding small lights.
“It really is a piece of art, and we built the room around it,” Witmer said.
Nearby is a wine feature with its own story. When the Baileys were considering buying the