Bayside Beauty

Designer Peter Dunham brings his singular brand of eclectic sophistication to a Southern California home, where a couple of new empty nesters can start fresh

- Susan Hall Mahon

Use mirrors as an architectural element.

Dunham's main objective in the living room was to make it feel light, airy, and more expansive by connecting it to the adjoining front garden and interior courtyard. To add reflectivity, brightness, and dimension to the center of the room, he surrounded the fireplace with antique mirrors and topped it with art by Elliott Puckette. "It is sort of a space sculpture, an architectural tool that adds sparkle and makes the room feel spatially undefined," he says.

It’s hard to beat living a few blocks from the water, where the spoils of the sea are just down the street. Such was the setting for one family residing in a quiet enclave of Newport Beach, California, where boating is the preferred method of transportation, and private beaches and parks are a stroll away. But time marches on, and when the couple’s daughter headed off to college, downsizing to a smaller home a few streets closer to the water was just the upgrade they needed.

Built in 2000, the redbrick home was nearly turnkey, with a pretty white kitchen and updated baths, but the new owners needed a hand making the most of its smaller footprint and infusing it with the color, pattern, and subtle coastal touches they craved. It’s fitting, then, that they called on Los Angeles–based designer Peter Dunham, a well-known purveyor of eclectic, layered interiors with a talent for maximizing the spatial and visual potential of every home he touches. “I’m always trying to get 125 percent out of everything, including my rooms, because that’s my nature in life,” he says.