Simplicity: Island Chic

By Erin Ferucci

Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

When an azure ocean is your backdrop simplicity is key to any successful design.Coastal Living is featuring this beautifully elegant seaside home in their current issue. The owner, Jim Delemeter, is an emergency room doctor who was inspired by the work of Luis Barragan, a Mexican architect renowned for creating minimal masterpieces out of concrete. The simple elegance of the sculpted concrete walls has a variety of design benefits. It creates a neutral background which allows the blues and greens of the surrounding environment to be unhampered. The concrete also provides a practical solution to weatherproofing, the steel enforced concrete walls have proven capable of withstanding even hurricane winds. The interior designer for the home, created a beautiful, warm home atmosphere through a use of a minimalist array of neutral textiles. photo credits: lisa romerein

My Private Tour of Donna Karan's Island Estate

By Erin Ferucci
Celebrity Lifestyle Designer

There are some things that just defy description...there are simply no words. Over the holidays I spent a lot of time in Parrot Cay in Turks and Cacaos completing a job for a client.
Turks and Cacaos is an amazing enclave of spectacular island villas owned by a small group of uber celebrities and the wildly successful. The homes on the island are the penultimate of island sophisticated chic. And the high priestess of it all, living in the island castle of any one's dreams is Donna Karan.

You can't even imagine. And I can't even describe...but I have to. It was that....ugh....there are no words. I can just tell you it was so beautiful and so elegant that it made me emotional. And the smell...the smell...I will never forget the smell. It smelled like money, fresh, clean, ocean scented money.

Every element of the home is designed to pay homage to simple elegance. It's designed to the perfect haven for bare foot decadence. It is divine. These photos are from Architectural Digest and while they are beautiful, you can't even imagine how much better it is in person. The magnitude of the beauty, the sheer assault on the senses...have I mentioned the smell?

This is the playground for success beyond measure, the reward for talent unrestrained. The day of my private tour coincided with the departure of one of Hollywood's elite actors and his family, who had been enjoying a brief stay. I can't even repeat the amount of money it takes to rent the villa for one night, a number that I guarantee would catch your breath, but I assure you it's worth every penny.