When Nathan Turner set out to reimagine and expand a longtime client’s Turks and Caicos residence, he kept one insight front and center. “These are people who entertain a lot,” he says. The empty nesters planned to host their children, along with a steady rotation of friends and relatives. “The house would be full.” Often.
After a gut renovation—overseen by local firm Coast Architects—of the existing tropical modern structure and the addition of a similarly styled wing that more than tripled the original square footage, the property now counts nine bedrooms. “Times that by two, and there could easily be 18-plus people in the house,” Turner says. With that in mind, the Los Angeles–based designer approached the project as though he were creating a boutique hotel.
That mindset shaped everything. Turner put as much focus on private refuge as on communal gathering. It may sound counterintuitive in a house designed for entertaining, but as anyone who has ever taken an extended family vacation knows: Time apart makes time together that much sweeter.
For starters, each bedroom functions as a self-contained suite, complete with a generous bath, cozy seating area, minibar, and outdoor lounge. Most bedrooms even have a dedicated, well-stocked linen closet, so guests never need to track down a host or a housekeeper. “We really thought about the guest experience,” Turner explains. While the rooms share a cohesive language, they all have their own personality. “One is more neutral, one has more blue, and we leaned into different patterns.”
The only bedroom upstairs, the primary suite has positively presidential aspirations. Spanning 1,129 square feet, it comprises a spacious seating area, a small kitchenette, private laundry facilities, and a large sundeck. “Even people who entertain still like a quiet moment,” Turner says, noting that the project appears in his new book, I Love Decorating. “Here, they can stay in their own little suite if they want to and prepare themselves for the day.”
There’s plenty awaiting them outside. Slightly set back from a sweeping crescent of powdery private beach, the waterfront property now features twin pools with a capacious hot tub in between them, a shaded conversation pit, a white-gravel bocce court, and a fully equipped outdoor kitchen and bar. Lush patios and gardens by Philadelphia landscape designer Jen McGowan guide you from house to shore.
“What we tried to do,” says the project’s lead architect, Coast cofounder Chris Davies, “was to bring the outside to the house and the house to the outside.”
Glass expanses and sliding walls dissolve boundaries, while Turner’s mix of tactile natural materials and warm neutrals echoes the setting without resorting to Caribbean cliché.
“My clients aren’t really traditionalists,” notes Turner, who previously completed homes for the East Coast–based couple in California and Florida. “They lean much more modern. So, we weren’t going to be doing, say, a painted Bahamian-style house with shutters.”
Still, Turner believes a house should acknowledge its surroundings. Here, that meant clean lines and restraint, with nothing so bold that it would compete against the majesty of the natural surroundings. And since Tropicália prints and bright colors were off-limits, he targeted depth through texture: honey-toned white-oak, honed marble, fossil-flecked coral stone, nubby bouclés, woven wicker, and string. “When you layer different textures, it stands out,” Turner says. “It’s almost something you can feel before you see it.”
As those elements came together, Turner had another realization: “Because the house is literally indoor-outdoor, and the walls just open up to the outside,” he explains, “I said, ‘You know what? Blue is going to be a neutral for us. We’re going to use the colors we see right outside.’ ” And so he did: Azure, sapphire, and cerulean anchor the interiors, mirroring the horizon beyond the glass.
The entry sets the tone for this approach. Instead of wallpaper, which would falter in salty sea air, Turner clad the walls in handmade cream-colored ceramic tiles whose curves, angles, and undulating surfaces create a captivating, abstract topography from floor to ceiling. These form the backdrop for a 1960s Pierre Chapo sideboard topped by a pair of contemporary, blue-glazed lamps by Milan fashion designer–turned-potter Miri Mara. Woven-jute shades echo the palm-frond-framed mirror just behind. Even though the palette is almost entirely muted, Turner promises the overall effect is anything but: “There’s great interest as soon as you walk in.”
Two distinct entertaining zones underscore the home’s hotel-like ethos in different ways. The more formal living room occupies most of the ground floor in the addition; Turner conceived it as an adult-oriented area for the clients and their friends. In the original structure, a more relaxed lounge serves the couple’s college-age sons and their crew, channeling the elevated rec-room vibe of a resort bar.
In the younger set’s domain, Turner painted the walls and vaulted wooden ceiling soft white and paired honed Napoli marble and saw-cut coral stone with vintage midcentury pieces. Deep-marine blues run throughout, from the rug to the upholstered chairs to the lower halves of the dome-shaped woven-reed lamps suspended above. To bring in a bit of fun, he commissioned a walnut Ping-Pong table from California artisan Sean Woolsey and positioned it beside the richly grained contemporary pool table.
This space sits clear across the house from the adults’ living room, which makes it easy for “the kids to be in there rowdy and loud and have their own food,” Turner says with a laugh. “It’s all outdoor performance fabric, because there are going to be teenage boys everywhere…. This two-wings-of-the-house situation has served everyone really well.”
Across the home, serenity reigns. Beneath a soaring wooden ceiling hung with a trio of dramatically oversize string lamps, Turner softened the blues and dialed up the tactile richness, establishing a more mature, cosseting mood. In one of the two seating areas, a vintage French plaster artwork hangs above a custom sofa, joined by a Danish tile-topped cocktail table by ceramicist Tue Poulsen and a prized 1950s faux-primitive cushioned wooden armchair by midcentury masters Guillerme et Chambron. On the other side of the room, a 15-foot white-oak dining table–designed to seat 14 or more—draws the eye out through the room’s sliding-glass walls and frames a view that stretches past the patio and pool to the sand and sea.
For all the restraint elsewhere, Turner allowed himself one bold flourish. “I knew I wanted to do some kind of big mural, but we didn’t know where,” he recalls. Eventually, he found the ideal opportunity in the long, curving walls of the sunlit stairway that connects the original building to the new wing and the sprawling ground floor to the primary-suite penthouse.
When you layer different textures, it stands out. It’s almost something you can feel before you see it.
Los Angeles–based artist Abel Macias was then given free rein. “I love working with creatives and artists, and I understand the process so I’m very hands-off. [Macias] came down with supplies, but we had no plan,” Turner says. “I showed him the house, my schemes, what was going in, and he spent a day or two exploring the island.” From there? “He just wings it.”
Macias fell for the forms of the large seaweed fronds he found on the beach, then painted a scene depicting them mingling with a fantastical menagerie of oversize birds, fish, and other sea life, all in a vibrant palette of blues, greens, and yellows. The imagery climbs to the ceiling, transforming a transitional space into a moment of theater. “It’s maybe sort of an extravagant thing to do in a pass-through, but it’s also a really nice nod to where we are,” Turner notes.
As for the owners, they don’t seem at all disconcerted by this colorful indulgence. The boutique-hotel concept suits them, Turner says. “They can pile people in, but they’re just as happy when they’re just four.” For a designer, that balance is the ultimate endorsement.
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