<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"View Slideshow\n\nWhen Becky Mayer made plans to construct a seasonal home in Jupiter, Florida, one of her top priorities was to have abundant space for the paintings, photographs, and sculptures that the London-based arts patron and her husband, an investor, have assembled over the years. \"But we also wanted a place that felt comfortable for our children and grandchildren,\" she says. Though the couple have an eye for important works from the 1960s to the present\u2014mostly by Europeans, with a few Americans in the mix\u2014they didn't want to feel like they were inhabiting a museum, even if the objects on display might suggest otherwise.\n\nIn the Mayers' stair hall, the first thing visitors see is a risqu\u00E9 Yinka Shonibare sculpture depicting two amorous ladies dressed in formal 18th-century-style costumes made of funky Dutch wax-resist fabrics. Walk into the family room and you pass one of Chicago artist Nick Cave's soundsuits, a wearable creation resembling a humanoid character from the pages of a magic-realist novel. Vast canvases by Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer preside over the living room. A Joseph Beuys felt suit hangs in Mayer's study, while Andres Serrano's ghostly multiphoto rendition of the Last Supper dominates a wall in the dining room. On the lawn, an installation of glowing glass monoliths by Mariko Mori stands like a futuristic Stonehenge. \"We live here, first and foremost, and the art lives with us,\" Mayer says.\n\nThe once-sleepy town of Jupiter, just north of Palm Beach, has become a lively biotech center, but traditionalism rather than modernity rules at the gated community where the Mayers reside. For inspiration, the couple's architect, the locally based Manuel J. Diaz, looked to the farmhouses that Andrea Palladio scattered across Italy's Veneto region in the 16th century. Those studies led Diaz to craft a two-story, five-bedroom mansion that sits on three acres adjacent to a shapely pond and a verdant fairway.\n\n\"I have always admired Palladio's principles,\" Mayer explains. \"There's a timeless quality to the dimensions, the scale, and the proportions.\" Like its Veneto predecessors, her house seems spacious but not overwhelming, despite the 22,000 square feet sheltered beneath its terra-cotta-tiled hipped roofs.\n\n\"Though the volume is tremendous, with 14-foot-high ceilings throughout, the building doesn't come off as cold,\" says Fred Furze of Furze Bard + Associates, the Florida design firm that oversaw the interiors. \"There is an experiential aspect to the house.\"\n\nArtworks are nestled amid clean-lined furniture and calming brown-and-cream color schemes devised with Furze and his business partner, Linda Bard. As Mayer points out, \"Pastels are not for us.\" That being said, the soothing atmosphere, which led a friend of hers to pen a song called \"Casa Serenitas,\" is deepened by intriguing textures. Hammered-bronze hardware is in discreet abundance, joined by bark-cloth cushions, parchment and hair-on-hide wall coverings, and sleek walnut doors and bookshelves. The dining room's runway-length sideboard, which sits beneath Serrano's Black Supper, sports repouss\u00E9 bronze panels, the wavy pattern complementing the greenish-brown crushed velvet that wraps the nearby chairs. Lava rock climbs a powder room wall, and crinkled silken curtains sluice down tall windows.\n\n\"A real challenge was to make the rooms work equally well for large gatherings and everyday living,\" Bard says, adding that the homeowners regularly host chamber concerts in the living room. (They are patrons of the Cartagena International Music Festival and other cultural organizations.) Multiple seating areas put a cozier spin on generous spaces, as does deep-dish upholstery, such as the family room's welcoming sectional sofa. The covey of curvaceous Wendell Castle tables in the living room is far more accessible to the surrounding chairs and sofa\u2014and infinitely more striking\u2014than a single cocktail table would be.\n\nPerhaps the most unusual feature of the house is the master suite, which includes a bath with a surprising split personality. The soaking tub sits before an expanse of glass that opens to a sunny private courtyard, and two sinks are set into a marble counter that runs along one wall\u2014but grouped nearby are a custom-made sofa, a Vladimir Kagan wing chair, and a Chris Lehrecke daybed. (Dressing rooms, showers, and lavatories are stationed in adjoining areas.) Impressive art plays a role in this inviting space, too: From the ceiling hangs a sculptural chandelier by Tom\u00E1s Saraceno, the buzzy Argentine artist whose Cloud City installation for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's roof garden mesmerized New Yorkers a couple of years ago.\n\n\"This is really where we live when we are alone,\" Mayer observes of the suite. \"It's our refuge.\" And in a house where hundreds can be hosted, having a place where the hospitable owners can truly relax is as important as the masterpieces it contains.\n\nStep inside the art collector's sleek Florida home."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/furze-bard-and-associates-jupiter-florida-home-article>