Dana Frank is a dear friend whom I am indebted to not only for a supportive friendship, but also whose referrals my business might not exist without. So, when she called to tell me that one of her neighbors might be in need of my services I knew the project was real, and that her influence was my foot in the door.

The client built the house from the ground up in 1996 working with the design team Tomar Lambert. Following a break up some years later, the house was left devoid of many pieces of art, and showing signs of age, wear and serious sun damage, which is common, especially at the beach.

While the interiors were executed in a style and scale that differed from my work, I was intrigued by the house, and felt a connection with the client. I wanted to help him heal and exorcise the house of its emotional baggage. With every respect for his extensive investment, I began the project as a restoration.

Early in the course of my studio research and development, I created a color palette for the entire project, inside and out. The theme, if there was one, was along the lines of anchorman Jerry Dunphy's famous opener, "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a good evening." Seriously, I wanted to encompass the colors of not only the desert and the sea in the work, but also of sunset, and chose shades, both warm and cool for balance. I felt much of the architecture could be better showcased with color, so the palette was saturated throughout.

I felt obliged to keep much of the client's original artwork. It was a serious investment, and he was clearly not ready to part with everything. The colors I chose needed to accommodate the existing large scale, bold pieces, while allowing them to be reborn in a new design. I was careful not to match too closely or upstage the artwork, with what I chose, so that the art would continue to stand out. Additionally, I sourced new original art and organic accessories, pieces literally from nature, to flesh out and update his collection.

Through the presentation process, I began to earn the client's trust and he began wanting more of my personal stamp, including furniture of my own creation. One design, the Tim sofa and club chair, is seen both in the family room, and master bedroom. As is often the case, a piece or two is designed on a job. In this case, I took my Tim club chair, removed the block legs, and designed a swivel for it, rendering the chair in a sort of goblet shape, with a square wood base. The result is a very comfortable, architectural design seen best from all angles, floating in the middle of a space, and is a wonderfully unexpected evolution of one of my designs. The list of items to be removed from the house grew longer, and I reworked and redesigned what was being redone enough that I was able to lay claim to most of the project as my work.

At the end of the job, I had a feeling the client would have a renewed sense of appreciation for his home. He preens now, like a peacock with his plumage on display. It's a gift to complete a project with a client as appreciative as him, and to forge what I feel confident will be a lifelong collaboration. Glossy, glamorous, high profile jobs come and go, but clients with loyalty like this are forever, and they are whom I live for.