D2 Interieurs Designs a Fun Family Home with Bold Pops of Color

In the dining room, a Drop It Modern wallpaper makes a gestural statement, and custom chairs sit at a bespoke cerused-oak table. The chandelier is by Estiluz.

A Nika Zupanc cherry pendant lamp from 1stDibs hangs over a Steinway grand piano. Interior designer Denise Davies had the piano’s interior painted Benjamin Moore New Lime.

The exterior, designed by Tanner White Architects, telegraphs a modern-farmhouse vibe.

The family room is “the hub of the home,” says Davies, who outfitted it almost exclusively with custom pieces; the Kaws artwork was part of the clients’ collection.

A series of spherical blown-glass pendant lights from ROOM hang down through the floating white-oak-and-glass staircase.

Builder Walter Mattera designed retractable screens for the covered porch, which Davies outfitted with a large RH sectional and a Rove Concepts coffee table.

Because the kitchen is so large, “a single straight island would have looked like a landing strip,” says Davies, explaining the logic behind the island’s L-shape and lower, cantilevered seating area, which she set with chairs from Blu Dot.

In the laundry room, Davies chose cement Clé tiles whose undulating black-and-white pattern recalls the walkways designed by Brazilian modernist Roberto Burle Marx for Copacabana Beach in Rio.

Cement also figures prominently in the guest bath, where the material is used for nearly every surface.

For the clients’ purple-loving daughter, Davies designed a suite awash in lavender and neon green.

The daughter’s bedroom impresses with a Flavor Paper ceiling wallpaper, a Tom Dixon bedside lamp, and roman shades in a Pierre Frey fabric.

Davies sought to keep the large primary bedroom from looking empty without overfilling it. “That’s where the custom Mongolian lamb rug comes in,” she explains. “It is a lot of bang for the buck—so much visual interest.”

In the adjoining bedroom, a Holly Hunt fabric covers the custom upholstered bed. The art is by Robert Deyber.

Chunky modern elements—including three-inch-thick Calacatta Breccia Viola marble countertops and a CB2 color-blocked rug—in the primary bath make the space feel substantial.

There’s no sweeter music to a design team’s ears than a client saying, “I walk into my house, and I’m wowed by it.” That’s exactly the tune the owner of this home—a five-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot new build on a quiet cul-de-sac in Westport—is singing about interior designer Denise Davies and builder Walter Mattera.

They joined up to outfit the residence with inspired, carefully considered elements that allow a baseline of modern neutrals to blend in perfect harmony with high notes of whimsy, percussive pops of color, and a crescendo of contemporary art.

Davies, who leads Weston-based D2 Interieurs, found inspiration in artwork already collected by the clients, a young family who moved here from Manhattan during the pandemic. “They had a whole Kaws collection. It set the tone for the project.”

Mattera agrees the clients were the impetus for the home’s unique design. “The homeowner told us she didn’t want the norm. She wanted something no one else had,” he says.

That’s apparent the moment you walk through the door. To the left, in the living room, stands the family’s heirloom grand piano, which Davies lacquered in black, choosing for its interior a surprising color both she and the client consider their favorite: neon green. A pendant light by Nika Zupanc in the shape of two cherries hangs above. To the right, in the dining room, a Drop It Modern paper adorns the walls with dramatic black brushstrokes. “It looks like someone hand-painted the walls around me,” says the homeowner.

The open family room and kitchen area, meanwhile, offers a more laid-back vibe, thanks to its rigorously clean lines, soft upholstery, natural stone counters, and white-oak cabinets left natural or painted Farrow & Ball’s dark gray Down Pipe hue. The kitchen, says Davies, “is so quiet, it all but disappears.”

Reached via a floating white-oak-and-glass staircase—past a custom neon sign reading “Everybody Is Going to Bed Early Tonight”—the second floor’s primary suite feels as serene as the family room and kitchen, all creamy shades of off-white with a custom bed upholstered in a soft Holly Hunt fabric, a fluffy Mongolian lamb rug, and spherical open-weave Moooi light fixtures clustered together to resemble a cloud. As for the kids’ rooms on the same floor, the toddler daughter’s is a riot of her favorite color, purple, while the baby boy’s brightens the mood further, its royal blue rug and roman shades paired with a kaleidoscopic ceiling photo mural.

For all its humor and bold gestures, the house still manages to maintain a modern, gallery-like simplicity, thanks to its lightly stained white-oak floors and clean-lined millwork, as well as its nearly all-white walls and relatively spare furniture plan. “It would have been very tempting to stuff this house with furniture,” Davies explains. “Instead, I intentionally picked a limited number of pieces that could each stand on their own.”

The result is a symphonic series of rooms that wow not just because of their whimsy but because of the feeling of relaxed warmth and streamlined comfort they create.

Project Team
Architecture: Tanner White Architects
Interior design: D2 Interieurs
Builder: Mattera Construction