Petite & Perfect

Bermuda-based designer Georgia Benevides packs a pint-size Palm Beach pied-à-terre with color and flair

- STEPHANIE HUNT,CARMEL BRANTLEY

Embrace local flavor Designer

Georgia Benevides's cottage was the first on the street to receive historic designation, which meant that to make significant renovations, she and her late husband, David, had to bring the home up to date with flood codes, including elevating the home three feet and pouring a new slab atop pilings they drilled 25 feet deep down to bedrock. Even so, they honored the original footprint as much as possible, especially as many homes around them were being torn down and built back bigger. "We stayed sweet and little," says Benevides, who borrowed a historic porch embellishment from a nearby house to preserve a sense of local flavor. "I always loved that lattice front porch detail," she says. "That house has since been knocked down, so I'm the only one on the street with that Old Florida detail."

Sometimes following your gut is exactly the right call—especially when your instincts are well-honed from decades of designing homes. As were Georgia Benevides’s when she bought this rundown Palm Beach cottage sight unseen. “The yard was a mess; the whole thing was a mess. We thought it was an abandoned house,” says Benevides, a Texas-born Bermudian who’d met her husband, David, on the island after moving there for work.

For 33 years the pair jointly ran Benevides and Associates, a Bermuda-based architectural firm, until he unexpectedly passed away in 2023. Before Covid hit, they’d been looking for a foothold in the States, and southern Florida suited them. “My husband was super preppy,” she says. “He loved Palm Beach style and fashion, how people dressed here. We loved the great restaurants.” Though the pandemic kept them from seeing this one in person, a FaceTime tour as their Realtor scrambled through the overgrown shrubbery sealed the deal.