Jeffrey Bilhuber Palm Beach Before and After

You ever happen upon a crumb and you can't let go of it until you find the cake? That's what happened to me, as I lay in bed one night thumbing through my copy of Jeffrey Bilhuber's American Master. I've read the book cover to cover five times or more. There is never a shortage of information to be gleaned from Jeffrey, and as I researched a new project I took to the book for inspiration. 

It was the caption for this photo though that made me stop in my tracks. It reads: "In the dining room, just off the Moorish colonnade that runs the length of the house, an existing panoramic mural is reduced to a mere background element (as it was intended to be) by a super-scaled oak leaf painting by Chester Arnold that acts as a giant magnifying glass."

I focused in on one word: existing.

I'd been looking for another before and after post for the blog, and reading that this expensive de Gournay "Early views of India" wallpaper was existing in the house when Jeffrey's clients bought it, I thought that crumb might lead to a big ole slice of delicious cake!

The book makes no mention of Jeffrey's clients, there is no photo of the exterior of the house, there's nothing to suggest where the house might be in the line up of thousands of luxury homes in Palm Beach, but it was a crumb - and I was chasing it. 

And I found it! Hours upon hours of internet searching with only the knowledge of Palm Beach and this high end wallpaper, and there it was. Oh the lengths I'll go to for this blog! But there was so much more than just this house, this client, this decor. What I had hoped would be just a slice of delicious cake, became an entire bakery of glorious morsel after glorious calorie free morsel. So sit back, relax and enjoy. 

The Palm Beach House

The home is actually part of a luxury duplex built in Palm Beach in 2001. Jeffrey's clients bought one side of the duplex in 2013, and now own both sides of the duplex after purchasing the adjoining residence in 2016 (a year after the book hit the shelves). The featured house in Jeffrey's American Master book is on the right, 5700 square feet, with two stories and a swimming pool. Incidentally, the duplex on the left also has a pool - so now they own two, along with a combined total of about 11,000 square feet! 

Palm Beach Before and Afters

BEFORE

The owner of the house before it was purchased by Jeffrey's clients owns her own interior design business, and did all of the interior design herself. We will come back to her. She and her husband sold this house after they finished their massive home on Everglades Island in Palm Beach. She followed the existing Moorish details of the house, using lots of lanterns and Moorish accents and lighting. 

AFTER

Jeffrey covered nearly the entire existing tile floor in custom flat weave dhurrie carpets hand woven in Bodhrum, Turkey. Paints for the entire house are richly saturated custom colors by Fine Paints of Europe. You might remember when I reviewed his book here, that I mentioned I loved this room and that tete-a-tete. Still true today. 

Living Room Details

Living Room - Details

BEFORE

It was the previous decorator/homeowner who chose the mural and trelliage for the dining room. She used a large round table, and white slipcovered chairs accented with Peruvian pom pom tassels on braided alpaca cording. 

AFTER

It's this corner of the room that you see in the before, thanks to the wallpaper mural it's easy to line it all up. Jeffrey opted for two seating arrangements in this dining room, a curved banquette around a smaller round table, and a long table for 8 opposite it. 

The ceiling here was painted lilac, and Jeffrey had the walls behind the trelliage painted orange. He then matched the paint from the existing trelliage to the baseboards, which is so smart. 

 BEFORE

AFTER

Jeffrey blocked off the kitchen with portieres. I wish that Jeffrey had shown the kitchen in the book, but alas - no update there. It does appear though, that he kept the cabinets as they were when the home was purchased, a beautiful navy blue.

BEFORE/Kitchen

The opposite side of the den. 

BEFORE

AFTER

The wall at the staircase landing is filled with a gorgeous Ian Davenport painting. Baseboards are painted in the wildly vibrant colors that are found throughout the rest of the house.

 BEFORE

AFTER

The master suite was wallpapered, and moldings were painted in a high gloss orange. From the reflection in this bullseye mirror in the hall to the closet/bathroom, it appears that the hallway pendant stayed the same. The doors were also painted orange, and the tray ceiling was painted a light blue.

BEFORE

AFTER

While many of the rooms of the house are not shown, the book tells us that the bedrooms upstairs are decorated in Indian block printed fabrics, including here in the office. It also appears that Jeffrey moved the chandelier from the dining room to this room. 

 BEFORE

AFTER

Between the guest rooms, there is a sitting room which Jeffrey outfitted in purple upholstered furniture. This is the only room where there are shutters on the windows/doors, so I assume that while not photographed, there is a television in this space.

The Client's Former Home

Jeffrey makes mention several times in the book that his client loved color, and gave him the directive to not use a lick of white anywhere! He also said that the furniture was culled from previous homes and edited in the house in Palm Beach. Curious to see how much of it was used, I did some digging and found the real estate photos of their previous home in San Francisco. 

I thought it might be fun to take a look at how they lived prior to hiring Jeffrey, and what furniture was reupholstered and reused. 

San Francisco House

In the old living room of their San Francisco home, hangs the oak leaf painting now in the dining room in Palm Beach. The chairs, small round table, and even the ceramic orbs are used there. 

San Francisco House

It may be a little hard to tell because of the poor quality of the photo from San Francisco, but the tete-a-tete I so love has been reused, and reupholstered in that beautiful ikat. The palm leaf table lamp was reused in the upstairs sitting room. The tufted pink chair, reupholstered and used in the master bedroom, and the chinoiserie garden stools reused in the den. It does appear that the sofa and sectional are new, created to custom fit the size of this room.

San Francisco House

The tufted leather chair is reused in the den of the Palm Springs house, as are the nesting cocktail tables.

San Francisco House

The partners desk also found a way to Palm Beach, and if you look closely in the corner behind the Regency chair, you can see the little bronze eagle which had been on the chinoiserie cabinet in San Francisco.

San Francisco House

The butterflies hanging in the hallway of the San Francisco House. The clients of Jeffrey's are avid art collectors, and it is wonderful to see how this art that they obviously love dearly was reused in their new home with completely different decor, as if it were created for those spaces. A testament to buying great art you love.

San Francisco House

Hard to tell here because the chairs are pulled in, but the bronze dolphin table used in the sitting area upstairs in Palm Beach was used in this glass enclosed breakfast room in San Francisco.

San Francisco House

The Chuck Close portrait that was in their formal living room now hangs in the den of the Palm Beach house, the tufted sofa reupholstered is there, too. If you look closely between the two chairs, you can see the one of the little carved side tables Jeffrey used in the living room, and the green lamps, and chinoiserie trunk he used in the den.

Now remember when I told you that we'd come back to the original home and the decorator slash homeowner who lived there? Well, I didn't forget. And this is the final piece in the tour of the sugary sweet bakery of beauty that crumb led me too. 

Her name is Betsy Shiverick, and her designs have grown leaps and bounds in the last six years, let me tell you! Betsy retired from a career in finance in New York City and went back to school for a degree in interior design. It was after this that she moved to Palm Springs with her husband and began working on the house that they eventually sold and Jeffrey designed for the new homeowner. 

The house she and her husband built and she designed is absolutely stunning, and worthy of printing, too. The house got a beautiful feature in Veranda magazine in February 2019.

The old table from the living room in the duplex is now a lacquered blue. So pretty here. 

Surely you remember the bed, bamboo settee, that chinoiserie mirror, blue and white table lamps, and side tables from the duplex before?

Many of the pieces in the living room at their new home are new to the house.

It's now on the market for just under $21 Million.  Who knows what the future holds for the newly purchased side of the duplex. Will they renovate and make it into one home? Will they hire Jeffrey to come back and masterfully craft something as colorful as they currently have? And what's next for the Shiverick family? 

Betsy and her husband swooped up this Marion Sims Wyeth (the architect behind Shangri La in Hawaii) at a foreclosure auction in June of 2018. It's possible (she says) that she and her husband may move there when renovations are done. For now, they've got a lot of work ahead. You can follow along with Betsy on her instagram, where she posts pics of her design work.

Now, more good stuff (well for me, anyway) this post couldn't be more aptly timed, what with the mention of Shangri La and Hawaii. Aloha as we take off to the islands for a little bit. I'm so excited - trip of a lifetime, really! 

Keep up with our little vacation starting this Saturday on my instagram, here. 

Til then, to buy a copy of American Master, click the link below:

And for Bilhuber's other books: