(Q) Let’s start with your name, your company, and your room. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your interests.
A: Hi, I’m Sara McCann with McCann Design Group. We have just finished decorating the tropical lounge here at the Kips Bay Showhouse in West Palm Beach, Florida. So McCann Design Group is a full-service interior design firm based in West Palm Beach, Florida. We have teams of licensed interior designers as well as an interior architect on our team and project managers. We also have a store called Hive Home Gift and Garden. When we were tasked with designing this, “Le Tropical” room here at Kips Bay Show House, we were inspired by our newest store called Pure Beehive. That is a more contemporary aesthetic and we wanted to bring some of those elements into the room here at the show house.
(Q) What does Kips Bay mean to you? What does it mean to be a designer for this showhouse?
A: We participated in the very first Kips Bay Showhouse here in West Palm Beach in 2017, and we just celebrated our 10th anniversary for Hive Home. And we thought, what better way to celebrate than to give back to the community? We were put in to be a designer this year for the seventh annual Kips Bay Showhouse here in West Palm Beach. We love participating in the Kips Bay Showhouse, it’s an honor and it supports our local Boys and Girls Club and has become one of the premier showhouses around the nation.
(Q) Tell us about your room and the inspiration behind the design.
A: It was great to see this house for the very first time. It was very clean, lined with minimal architectural elements and one of the first things we wanted to do was soften our space. So because of the fabulous ceiling heights, we were able to add an oversized coat, plaster cove molding, and the beautiful detail of our floor-to-ceiling fireplace with the curved element. We incorporated a serpentine custom sectional as well as behind me you can see that we did a beautiful palmetto plaster fronted bar with a gorgeous quartzite curved countertop. The jumping-off point for this room was the Pierre Frey Fabrics. Pierre Frey has partnered with a 1930s Parisian textile designer, and we fell in love with several of the fabrics, and really, that was the inspiration, the rich chemelle and textures and bouquets and fringe. It’s different shades of olive and terracotta and rose and ivory and beautiful travertine, as well as, our quartzite. We wanted a combination of textures and curved elements to soften the room.
(Q) What kind of vibe and aesthetic were you aiming to achieve in the project?
A: The thought behind this room was to be a moody tropical. We wanted a little bit of a maximalist aesthetic to it. We’re known at Hive Home and McCann Design Group for an updated old Florida. This allowed us to kind of go outside that box and incorporate some of our favorite elements but in a new way.
(Q) What did the stone help you accomplish in your overall design? What drew you to the stone you selected?
A: I have to say, Primestones made it super easy.
One of my project managers took all of our fabrics to the Primestones stone yard and immediately found the Abruzzo Crystal that you see behind us that has all of our favorite colors in it. It was made for this room. It’s got the olive and a kind of rose and terracotta veining through it. We love using quartzite in particular. It’s got all the durability of a granite, but it’s got the beauty of a marble. You’ve got this beautiful veining that is a piece of art on its own.
