UNIFIED BY INTENT
TEAMWORK MOLDED EVERY ELEMENT FOR A HARMONIOUS, MASTERFULLY BUILT SPACE
AAt first glance, this new-construction home on Banyan Boulevard reads as confidently modern — clean lines, broad street presence, and a crisp palette that hints at something more layered beneath the surface. Yet the true character of the home emerges in its details and in the unusually collaborative process that shaped it.
Conceived as a spec home, the project began with an investor determined to create something distinctive rather than derivative. “He definitely wanted something unique,” says Robyn Lang, Lead Designer at Freestyle Interiors. “With a love of travel and a modern sensibility, he wanted a space that felt thoughtfully curated — without leaning into the typical Naples blue-and-white palette.” u
Bar: The bar integrates wine refrigeration with open display storage, transforming the collection into a striking visual feature rather than a hidden utility. Positioned just off the main living area, it functions as both a focal point and a practical hub. Fluted Calacatta Macchia Vecchia marble and beveled-edge slabs sourced from Spazio Marble elevate the space well beyond typical spec-home standards. Builder Phil Washell notes, “There are many unique details throughout the home, especially in the marble bar.”
Kitchen & Prep Kitchen: The kitchen layers sculptural stone surfaces with New Style Cabinets’ white oak cabinetry, creating a look that feels both refined and approachable. Cristallo unifies the backsplash, countertops, and fluted elements, lending cohesive material rhythm. Integrated storage and crisp lines keep the generous space visually serene. A concealed door reveals a catering kitchen with a stainless steel island and Fuse Specialty Appliances’ commercial-grade equipment, embracing utilitarian function to preserve the main kitchen’s polished clarity for gatherings and daily life alike.
Living Area (Previous Spread): In designing the home, Principal Architect Kyle Vayda crafted layered social zones that balance openness with independence — spaces visually linked yet functionally distinct, accommodating multiple activities without disturbing the home’s flow. The open living and dining areas emphasize connection, sightlines, and material continuity. The kitchen blends seamlessly into the living area around an Old Biscayne table topped with a modern Luke Lamp Co. fixture. Clean-lined furnishings feature a Laskasas sofa alongside distinctive Thayer Coggin and Rene Cazares armchairs. With its refined, lightweight design, the Anony fixture maintains sightlines, while generous openings encourage fluid movement between indoors and outdoors — ideal for daily life and gatherings. Maria Meliton from Freestyle Interior Design assisted the interior designers with expert staging at the project’s conclusion.
“I really like to design as a collaboration team,” Lang explains. “I always want to make sure the architect is happy and that I’m bringing his design to life.” From the outset, the process was deliberately collaborative. “The vision set the tone for our entire team,” she shares. “Principal Architect Kyle Vayda of BECK Architectural Group, builder Phil Washell of Parker Hudson Homes, Senior Project Manager Philip McHenry of Architectural Land Design, and me.”
Vayda’s architectural response capitalized on the property’s extensive frontage and prized southern exposure. “The layout of the property was primarily focused on maximizing the view from each room,” he says. “There are only a handful of lakefront properties that overlook the golf course, and even fewer that are southern facing, so the goal was to maximize that view from as many rooms as possible.”
Inside, Lang’s scope proved remarkably expansive, reaching far beyond furnishings to encompass the architectural whole. Teaming with Freestyle Interiors Project Manager Natalie Dowling, she shaped every tactile element — from exterior finishes and lighting to intricate millwork, stonework, furniture, and art. A seamless palette unites natural stone, warm woods, blackened metal accents, and layered neutrals, amplifying the home’s soft contemporary allure.
Stepping inside delivers an unforgettable first impression. A soaring double-height foyer showcases a floating staircase with a wood-clad stringer and stone inlays — details that whisper refinement without ostentation. “Though infused with contemporary touches, the house radiates abundant warmth,” Lang notes. u
Primary Bathroom: Wrapped entirely in Calacatta Vagli Oro marble, the primary bathroom embodies technical precision and visual restraint. Expertly book-matched stone, integrated niches, and refined metal finishes craft a spa-like retreat defined by material purity over ornamentation. Washell notes that orchestrating details like these “took a little bit of coordination” to achieve flawless alignment. Freestanding fixtures and expansive windows enhance the home’s open, airy character. Lang’s custom framed mirror and Visual Comfort lighting — with refined gold accents — add warmth and luxury, revealing the collaborative craftsmanship that elevates simplicity through meticulous execution.
Primary Bedroom: Designed as a private retreat, the primary bedroom layers soft textures, custom millwork, and carefully framed views. The bed wall centers a custom bed with tailored detailing and Arte wallpaper that adds depth without overwhelming the space. “It’s really just a nod to that soft contemporary European feel,” Lang says. She specified Opoggio pendant lights, a Stark rug, and a large Phillips Collection sculpture with an organic essence.
Rather than a series of defined rooms, the main living areas flow as a single, continuous space. Sightlines carry from the entry straight through a window into the bar, a deliberate departure from the typical foyer art wall. “I wanted, when you walk in, to see the whole aspect of the home,” Lang explains.
In the bar and kitchen, material experimentation takes center stage. Fluted stone meets beveled slab edges, even bending into subtle curves — a bold showcase of design trust and technical mastery. “Everyone was apprehensive,” Lang admits of the stone detailing, “but Alpha Stone was up for the challenge.” u
Entry: A double-height entry sets a soft-contemporary tone with a striking light fixture from Italian company TOOY Lighting. It frames a floating staircase — built by the late Matt Royston — with a wood-clad stringer and stone inlays. Natural light pours through floor-to-ceiling windows, where layered materials reveal refined detailing and interiors that fuse architectural precision with effortless tranquility. A round window above the console — eschewing art or a mirror — frames a distinctive view through the wine storage and into the bar and beyond. The Riverview Collection hardwood flooring in the Zamar finish flows seamlessly throughout the home, creating a unified foundation.
Guest Bathroom: Oversized Arteriors light fixtures introduce a sense of scale and contrast, with black detailing sharpening focus above the New Style Cabinets custom vanity. Lang designed the vanity to read more like furniture than standard cabinetry, with a stone countertop and matching stone toe kick that visually grounds the piece. Though sculptural in form, the design stays restrained, letting proportion, material selection, and custom fabrication drive the bathroom’s clean-lined interest.
Guest Bedroom: This guest bedroom balances comfort with architectural detail through layered textiles, tailored furnishings, and a restrained color palette. Textured artwork and soft materials lend depth without overwhelming the space, while generous windows sustain a vital connection to the outdoors. Lang describes her approach to guest rooms as focusing on textures and layers rather than bold contrasts, ensuring the space feels welcoming, calm, and consistent with the home’s soft contemporary design language.
Loft (Left): Positioned above the main living areas and designed as an informal lounge, the loft softens surrounding woodwork with playful curves, while darker furnishings add contrast. Paneling flows seamlessly from the lower level to the ceiling, and an integrated upstairs bar with a sink, refrigerator, dishwasher, and storage encourages casual gatherings. Comfortable seating features a Crate & Barrel curved sofa alongside Liang + Eimil and Baker chairs, with open sightlines perfect for lounging, media use, or overflow entertaining.
Powder Room: The downstairs powder bath anchors its material palette in Calacatta stone flooring, which Lang specified as the recessed base. Holly Hunt wallpaper introduces texture without overpowering the compact space. The fluted vanity from The Furniture Guild echoes motifs throughout the home, paired with an uncommonly shaped Mirror Home mirror and petal-perfect CB2 sconces that inject a touch of whimsy. Though small, the powder bath receives the same meticulous attention to materials as the rest of the home.
Guest Bedroom: A wood ceiling treatment with Phillip Jeffries wallpaper introduces subtle architectural interest in this guest bedroom, adding warmth while reinforcing the home’s contemporary lines. “It’s clean-lined, but still warm,” Lang says. Neutral furnishings like the Theodore Alexander leather bed and layered bedding keep the room versatile for different guests. Noir nightstands and a richly textured Loloi rug complete a guest room that feels intentional, cohesive, and quietly elevated.
Throughout the home, architectural interest builds through repetition and restraint, not ornament. A recessed base with reveal supplants traditional baseboards, setting a crisp shadow line that anchors the home’s contemporary aesthetic. Materials and paneling climb vertically between levels, easing transitions and weaving continuity through double-height voids and upperfloors; integrated touches like tile-wrapped mirrors, concealed hardware, and hidden doors let proportion and alignment speak quietly.
Ultimately, the home’s unity stems from no discipline working alone. Architecture, interiors, construction, and landscape converged on a singular vision of seamless experience over disjointed elements. McHenry explains: “Once we have the footprint, it becomes a conversation about how everything blends together.” n
Outdoor Living: The outdoor living area centers on a see-through fireplace clad in ribbed porcelain tile with meticulously mitered corners, linking dining and living zones. A cypress ceiling — stained to match the porcelain wood-look flooring — extends the home’s material continuity inside and out. Enhancing functionality and comfort, Castle Services of Southwest Florida installed four motorized hurricane shutters, four motorized insect screens, and custom access panels, ensuring effortless protection without compromising aesthetics. Integrated seating from Dedon, overhead protection, and unobstructed sightlines to the pool and landscape create seamless indoor-outdoor flow. McHenry emphasizes experience-driven design, noting that outdoor spaces foster gathering, movement, and relaxation in harmony with the home’s architecture and surroundings.
Outdoor Kitchen: The outdoor kitchen integrates seamlessly with adjacent living areas. It features cabinetry in the same oak finish as the interior kitchen, paired with a leathered quartzite countertop from UMI Stone that extends onto the hood and backsplash for a cohesive, material-driven continuity. Durable materials, concealed drainage, and thoughtful layout support frequent use, allowing the space to function as a true extension of the interior while maintaining visual alignment with the home’s overall aesthetic. Washell emphasizes that these subtle exterior details prove essential: “They’re things people would notice if they weren’t there.”
Front Elevation: The wide, pie-shaped lot afforded the home an unusual presence. “The goal was to stretch out the frontage as much as possible and open up the house,” Vayda says. “You’ve got this really long, wide frontage coming around the road, and we wanted the house to feel prominent as you approach it.” The modern elevation is framed by preserved canopy trees and layered landscape, a deliberate effort to retain elements that “have been part of the neighborhood for a very long time,” McHenry notes. The result is a grand yet restrained approach, where clean architectural lines are softened by mature greenery, organized planting beds, and a sense of arrival that feels intentional without being overly formal or showy.
Interior Designer:
Freestyle Interiors
3525 Bonita Beach Road, Suite 105 Bonita Springs, FL 34134
239.949.2210 www.freestyleinteriors.com
Landscape Architect:
Architectural Land Design
2780 South Horseshoe Drive, Suite 5 Naples, FL 34104
239.430.1661 www.aldinc.net
Resources:
Castle Services of Southwest Florida
3963 Enterprise Avenue Naples, FL 34104
239.304.4620 www.castleservices.net
Fuse Specialty Appliances & Plumbing 990 3rd Avenue North Naples, FL 34102
239.529.5976
www.fusespecialtyappliances.com
New Style Cabinets 850 Central Avenue Naples, FL 34102 239.315.0755 www.newstylecabinets.com
Spazio Marble 1958 Trade Center Way Naples, FL 34109
239.325.9507 www.spaziomarble.com
UMI Stone 1615 Trade Center Way Naples, FL 34109
239.593.6995 www.umistone.com
Written by Heather Shoning
Photography by Venjhamin Reyes Photography