The Perfect Winter Refuge

According to interior designer Lisa DeFrances, one of the keys to having a successful project relies on the ability to edit. She further explains what she means by that term. “Every time we interact with a client, we have to respect their aesthetic. Clients have a lot of ideas. How do we focus them and make them better? Along with the client, we edit those ideas. We have to be very measured and precise so that we take the design in the right direction. Editing is an important quality of design that takes experience.” 

As it turns out, experience is not something DeFrances has to worry about. Having worked in the field for roughly 25 years, she opened her own L.K. DeFrances & Associates in 2001. For the past two years, she’s been putting that expertise to use decorating a penthouse condominium. The owners, a couple from Canada, use it to escape that country’s cold and
long winters. 

As with any business, word of mouth is often an important component in connecting with new clients. “People come to us based on things they’ve seen us do, a certain ‘classic-ness,’” DeFrances says. At the time of the initial consultation, she and her team were in the middle of working on another project. She was able to take her Canadian clients to get a first-hand glimpse of her work ensuring that they’d be a good fit for each other. 

Originally, the clients had purchased a condominium as a winter refuge for the husband’s mother. As time went on, the couple began using it themselves, falling in love with the warmth of Vero Beach and most notably, the beach. The couple only had one problem – they needed more space. While their original condominium had a comfortable “homey” feel to it, they wanted a place big enough for their entire family, including children and grandchildren. With this in mind, they purchased the larger penthouse.