At Home at One Dalton Four Seasons Residences

The lacquered table in the intimate dining area is enlivened with a chrome base. Not to be outdone, the banquette sports bronze detailing.

Designer Paula Daher’s skill for choosing unique accessories is evident throughout; atop an ebony chest leading the way to the great room resides a paper lamp similar in shape to a nautilus. Daher drew on memories of her Moroccan travels when designing the handsome screen.

The great room encompasses several different activity areas and a wealth of textures, such as the layered cowhide rug beneath the coffee table at the room’s center, the high-gloss lacquer on the doors of the wet bar, and the nubby boucle Pierre Frey fabric on the chairs around the corner cocktail table. The vibrant painting above the bar is by Peruvian artist Maria Cecilia Fernandez De Arrospide.

Daher designed the fireplace’s marble surround and the screens on either side. Stepping up their profile, the three-part screens were wallpapered and then painted. The palette throughout is a sophisticated gray and white with the occasional spark of gold or emerald green.

Daher added wall panels with bronze inserts to give the bedroom more interest.

The den’s wallpaper is a Kirkby Design from Romo. Once again, Daher shows her talents for blending: the cubes are marble, the desk is leather-topped, and the arresting green chair wears a cotton/linen blend from Kelly Wearstler.

Plenty of projects are blessed with dream clients. But what if your clients were only a dream? When interior designer Paula Daher was recruited to devise a model unit for Boston’s One Dalton Four Seasons Residences, she had to conjure the fictitious couple who would occupy such a spectacular high-rise home. The unending city vistas were reason enough for anyone to desire the place, and in addition, the open layout allowed living, dining, and kitchen spaces to meld into one heavenly great room.

Having owners to bounce ideas around with might have added something to the outcome, although it’s difficult to see how. Years of far-ranging travel have enhanced Daher’s eye for the sorts of colors and textures the condo needed to reach perfection. “The clients I envisioned wanted their home to be warm and comfortable but with a contemporary vibe,” she explains. Being worldly themselves, Daher reasoned, the couple’s “art, accessories, and furnishings would reflect their joie de vivre.”

Indeed, global influences are evident the minute you cross the threshold and venture down the entry hall. Dark Moroccan-inspired screens and a luscious midcentury Murano glass light fixture, for instance, usher you into the home’s heart. Against a backdrop of soft gray and white, sophisticated colors like emerald green, mint, and black become jewel-like. There’s gold, too, to add a hint of shimmer and heighten the drama.

A tufted velvet sofa anchors the great room’s main sitting area with its stone-faced hearth, which Daher has cleverly flanked with architectural-like screens. But the designer also created a coveted destination by the bowed floor-to-ceiling window. A three-piece walnut puzzle table and four occasional chairs invite morning coffee takers and evening wine drinkers to sit and savor the skyscraper’s scenery. Should a passing cloud graze the sill, no one would be surprised.

Just steps away, a bookcase of wood and metal provides a stage for good reads and keepsakes. The striking piece also gives weight to the airy room and helps define the dining area. Rather than a grandiose table that would, as Daher says, “monopolize space,” a petite lacquered table perches in front of a green banquette that practically seduces you to stretch out and spend the day.

Two bedrooms were an option, but Daher’s make-believe clients converted one room into a den clad in a graphic wallpaper. The paper’s pattern is contemporary, but its flocked surface harks back to the damask papers in vogue decades ago, Daher points out. An old painting claims a spot above the linen-covered sofa. “I love mixing antique and modern elements,” she says. “It makes a home come to life.”

In the same marry-and-merge spirit, the master bedroom sports a tailored walnut bed with a velvet-covered headboard. The contemporary reading lamps hail from Design Within Reach. And the custom nightstands hold treasures like antique books with gold-lettered spines and small Moroccan lanterns. The last, no doubt, to evoke nighttime reveries for Daher’s fairytale couple of romantic trips taken—and those yet to be had.

Project Team
Interior design: Paula Daher, Daher Interior Design
Builder: Suffolk Construction

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