Honey Collins Designs a Buzz-Worthy Roof Deck at The Kips Bay Decorator Show House

June 19, 2023

Editor at Large Clinton Smith catches up with Boston designer Honey Collins about her recent Palm Beach project and how it might inspire your own gathering spot.

Text by Clinton Smith     Photography by Brantley Photography

 

Collings Heads to Palm Beach for the Kips Bay Decorator Show House

When Essex, Massachusetts-based interior designer Honey Collins was presented with an opportunity to spend a few months in Palm Beach, Florida, this past winter, she didn’t hesitate to hop on a plane. After all, substituting brief, cold New England days for tropical temperatures was a no-brainer. However, lest you think she was relaxing poolside, resting on her laurels, Collins and her design team were busy—very busy—conjuring and creating one of the most-talked-about spaces at the annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House, which saw more than 10,000 visitors during its month-long run.

Collins, who was born and raised in Atlanta, combined the best of both worlds in her show house space, a second-story outdoor terrace with panoramic, postcard-worthy views of the adjacent Intracoastal Waterway. The house itself, a large Mediterranean-inspired villa, featured the work of more than twenty design firms from across the United States. Collins completely transformed her own space—formerly an outdoor terrace exposed to all the elements—into an area equal in appeal to the home’s interior counterparts (including adding a roof by way of an awning lined in an ebullient aqua fabric).

The Outdoor Space is Designed for Multiple Uses

“I knew I wanted it to be multipurpose,” says Collins of her outdoor living room. “A spot where you could spend your whole day.”

Although Collins combined and layered many colors, patterns, and textures, finding inspiration wasn’t difficult. With the waterfront literally yards away from the house, she zeroed in on all it had to offer. “When you’re looking out at that view, that is your color palette,” she says of the blues, greens, and other watery colors that comprise her space.

When Collins thinks back to her current life in the Northeast, as well as growing up with a well-known decorator mother, Susan Wilcox, being back down South feels like a full-circle moment.“I definitely started with that Raoul fabric that I put on the sectional,” says Collins. “I have always loved it, andI felt like the color palette was perfect. I do think my mother had something to do with this whole thing because those are her colors—it all just came together really nicely.”

Whether in South Florida or Siasconset, Collins’s scheme is one that could easily suit a summer spot in Osterville, Wellfleet, or Bar Harbor—and beyond.

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