The house was built in the 1950s and showed its age with a choppy layout, aggregate floors, and paneled walls. Wayne, who worked as an engineer for the U.S. Navy before becoming a residential developer, proved to be a dream client. Not only did he buy in to the design firm’s ideas for raising ceilings and opening rooms, he knew the engineering possibilities. “We’d suggest a skylight, and Wayne would say, “Let’s open the whole ceiling,’ ” recalls Sherrill. One such solution greets visitors as soon as they step in the front door. A glass panel in the entry floor allows light from the skylight above it to pass through into the once-dark lower level.
Taking cues from the couple’s furniture collection, Sherrill and design partner José Solis Betancourt worked with decorative painter Lenore Winters to imbue the house with finishes that complement the painted antiques. “Venetian plaster walls give the house a masonry feeling,” explains Sherrill.
