Floating Above the Atlantic: A Sky-High Sunny Isles Sanctuary

Everything about this apartment in Sunny Isles, Florida, seems to defy gravity.

It’s poised atop the 39^th floor of the 50-story north tower in the Estates of Aqualina.

It hovers over the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway on the other.

That gives its owners, a pair of empty-nesters from New York’s Upper East Side, 360-degree views of the water. It’s as if they were living on a yacht—but loftily, up in the clouds.

Even the bar, designed by Vanessa Rome of her eponymous Manhattan interior design firm, floats between a kitchen island and a wall of windows, its brass and glass shelves suspended from the ceiling.

“I knew these clients like to entertain, so a bar where they could gather before dinner was essential,” she says. “Next to it is the dining room, so we came up with the bar as the jumping-off point.”

She placed the bar as close to floor-to-ceiling windows as possible, then created a flow out to dining and living areas—all within an open floor plan. “We maximized it with an oversized rug by Art and Loom,” she says. “The path through the entire space leads eventually to an outdoor terrace.”

Rome met her clients through mutual friends in New York, and they quickly hired her to work on their Madison Avenue apartment five years ago. When they bought this Florida apartment, she was the first designer they called.

“Her simplicity and style are exactly what we wanted to bring to Miami,” her client says. “Our inspiration was a pair of Brunello Cuccinelli boots—with their subtle suede and their amazingly calming taupe color.”

What her interior designer delivered was better than the look and feel of those boots, she added. The key lies in the designer’s subdued use of color. “Greige and cream were our color palette—even the Mark Jupiter–designed dining room table is greige,” Rome says. “It’s a quiet, soft tone because we didn’t want to fight the view, and we wanted the backdrop to do its thing.”

She approached the apartment’s overall design by considering how each room would function for the family as a whole–the couple’s two children are now off at college–and as personal spaces. For example, in the kids’ bedrooms she saved room for desks where they can work when they come home for the holidays.

Underfoot in the primary bedroom is a soft shearling rug for coziness, while Venetian plastered walls add texture and elegance. “It’s reflective, so the light coming off the sky and water make the room glow in a special way,” she says.

Rome describes the interiors as layered minimalism for a place, northeast Miami, that’s known for interiors that can be cold and stark. But for this couple’s home away from home, this designer turned to clean and streamlined neutral materials like stone, linen, and mohair, creating spaces that feel warm while they look out over the water.

It’s a soft touch that defers to its shifting surroundings. “The ocean is a constant backdrop, but its colors are constantly changing,” she says. “It’s a blue and green canvas, but it’s never the same.”

She kept the furniture neutral, too, and not too tall so it doesn’t fight those water views. “The scale of everything is to make sure the water is visible,” Rome says. “There are floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap around the entire apartment, so the color and material palettes are a soft, quiet backdrop.”

Most of the furniture in the apartment was custom-made in workrooms in New York. That includes work by artisans who work in wood, metal, and other media. Once the pieces were complete, a millworker flew down to Miami for their installation.

“I often design my own custom pieces, especially this bed for their primary suite, one that fits floor to ceiling very specifically,” she says. “It’s difficult to find things that fit perfectly, so I’m inclined to design furniture to scale.”

Other touches include a lacquered lighting fixture over the dining room table, alabaster pendants in the bedrooms, and a massive, oversized round mirror from May Furniture, one that’s backlit at night for dramatic effect. Artwork at the entry is by Michael Staniak, and in the boy’s bedroom, by James Verbicky; both are from L. Kotler Fine Arts. The oversized artwork in the office, turquoise to match the ocean, is from Peter Tunney.

Even the family’s Australian Labradoodle received special consideration.

“We were told to leave space for the dog because it sleeps with the owners in their primary bedroom,” she says. “So, instead of a dresser under the TV, we left the space empty for a dog bed,” Rome says.

Which provides that canine with comfort—and a safe retreat from any fear of height or water.

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J. Michael Welton is the author of Drawing from Practice: Architects and the Meaning of Freehand (Routledge: 2015). His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Metropolis, Dwell, andthe News & Observer in Raleigh. He is editor and publisher of the digital design magazine www.architectsandartisans.com.

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